Teacher's PET (Audio)

The Young People's Concert is a fun and informative "family-friendly" introduction to the symphony. Host/Conductor Steven Schick and the orchestra perform annotated excerpts from the 2018 season-opening concert, including Tan Dun's striking "Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra" and Igor Stravinsky's beloved ballet "Petrushka." The program features an audience Q&A in addition to the Conductor's commentary. Series: "La Jolla Symphony & Chorus" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 34001]

Renowned composer John Luther Adams discusses “The Wind Garden,” his soundscape installation for the Stuart Collection at UC San Diego, with the Collection’s Mathieu Gregoire. Series: "Stuart Collection at UC San Diego" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 30732]

San Diego-raised novelist and UC San Diego alumnus, Luis Alberto Urrea ‘77 is the featured speaker at the UC San Diego Library annual gala. Urrea, a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist, has written about the border and has knitted together stories in a way that makes them familiar and impactful for everyone. Series: "Writers" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 33668]

Jazz has been hailed as "America's original art form," and the annual Jazz Camp at UC San Diego is a five-day immersive summer program designed for intermediate to advanced level jazz musicians, ages 14–adult. Students work directly with internationally renowned jazz artists, exploring styles ranging from classic bebop to contemporary open-form. The Camp culminates in a finale concert performed by eight student ensembles, each under the direction of a faculty member. This program showcases an ensemble mentored by saxophonist Charles McPherson. Series: "UC San Diego Jazz Camp" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 33929]

Jazz has been hailed as "America's original art form," and the annual Jazz Camp at UC San Diego is a five-day immersive summer program designed for intermediate to advanced level jazz musicians, ages 14–adult. Students work directly with internationally renowned jazz artists, exploring styles ranging from classic bebop to contemporary open-form. The Camp culminates in a finale concert performed by eight student ensembles, each under the direction of a faculty member. This program showcases an ensemble mentored by flutist Holly Hofmann. Series: "UC San Diego Jazz Camp" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 33928]

Jazz has been hailed as "America's original art form," and the annual Jazz Camp at UC San Diego is a five-day immersive summer program designed for intermediate to advanced level jazz musicians, ages 14–adult. Students work directly with internationally renowned jazz artists, exploring styles ranging from classic bebop to contemporary open-form. The Camp culminates in a finale concert performed by eight student ensembles, each under the direction of a faculty member. This program showcases an ensemble mentored by bassist Mark Dresser. Series: "UC San Diego Jazz Camp" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 33927]

Asher Tobin Chodos’ adventurous arrangement of Ornette Coleman’s Lonely Woman places a quartet of jazz soloists within a symphonic context. Just as innovator Coleman sought to reframe jazz conventions in an idiosyncratic style, so Chodos’ arrangement seeks to reposition this 1959 work in a modern idiom, one that embraces and even expands upon the challenges of a composition that, in Chodos’ words, “occupies a middle ground between specificity and discrepancy.” Most importantly, this new take on a classic preserves the beauty and immediacy of Coleman’s original. Series: "La Jolla Symphony & Chorus" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 33857]

Jazz has been hailed as "America's original art form," and the annual Jazz Camp at UC San Diego is a five-day immersive summer program designed for intermediate to advanced level jazz musicians, ages 14–adult. Students work directly with internationally renowned jazz artists, exploring styles ranging from classic bebop to contemporary open-form. The Camp culminates in a finale concert performed by eight student ensembles, each under the direction of a faculty member. This program showcases an ensemble mentored by composer/pianist Anthony Davis. Series: "UC San Diego Jazz Camp" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 33926]

Though acknowledging connections between World War II and his "Symphony in 3 Movements," which premiered in 1946, Igor Stravinsky stated the piece was not program music based on extra-musical events, insisting that "the Symphony is not programmatic. Composers combine notes. That is all." In truth the 3 sections were each written for different purposes, then combined into a whole that, while very appealing, is not quite unified in the sense of a traditional symphony. Stravinsky himself suggested that a more accurate title might be "Three Symphonic Movements." No matter its genesis or stated ambitions, this piece is driven by the same exuberant, triumphal spirit as contemporaneous pieces written during the War. Series: "La Jolla Symphony & Chorus" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 33854]

The title "Un Sourire" translates as "A smile." Olivier Messiaen, who composed the piece to mark the 200th anniversary of Mozart's death in 1991, did not attempt to imitate Mozart's style. Rather, he based his piece on the knowledge that Mozart's music was not necessarily a direct expression of his emotional life. Messiaen fashioned his gentle homage to reflect that aspect of Mozart's music combined with his own love of birdsong. Series: "La Jolla Symphony & Chorus" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 33851]

Jazz has been hailed as "America's original art form," and the annual Jazz Camp at UC San Diego is a five-day immersive summer program designed for intermediate to advanced level jazz musicians, ages 14–adult. Students work directly with internationally renowned jazz artists, exploring styles ranging from classic bebop to contemporary open-form. The Camp culminates in a finale concert performed by eight student ensembles, each under the direction of a faculty member. This program showcases an ensemble mentored by trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos. Series: "UC San Diego Jazz Camp" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 33924]

Courtney Bryan’s remarkable "Yet Unheard," a work for orchestra and chorus, commemorates Sandra Bland’s tragic death in police custody in 2013. Using the text of Sharan Strange’s poem, soprano Helga Davis speaks to us in Bland’s voice, prodding us to relive the circumstances of her death and to seek answers to painful questions too long unasked. Series: "La Jolla Symphony & Chorus" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 33856]

Jazz has been hailed as "America's original art form," and the annual Jazz Camp at UC San Diego is a five-day immersive summer program designed for intermediate to advanced level jazz musicians, ages 14–adult. Students work directly with internationally renowned jazz artists, exploring styles ranging from classic bebop to contemporary open-form. The Camp culminates in a finale concert performed by eight student ensembles, each under the direction of a faculty member. This program showcases an ensemble mentored by drummer Matt Wilson. Series: "UC San Diego Jazz Camp" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 33923]

"When I sat down to write "Eating Flowers" I felt in many ways that I was responding to the energies of orchestral music whose colors I find irresistible: music of Ravel, Rimsky-Korsakov, Debussy, and Messiaen particularly. My piece does not quote or even explicitly refer to this older music, but the energy and the color was certainly an influence. I titled my piece "Eating Flowers" to capture the sense of having tasted the delicious and delicate colors of my favorite orchestral music, which nourished my own creative spirit after having been digested." --- Hannah Lash Series: "La Jolla Symphony & Chorus" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 33852]

Toru Takemitsu's "A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden" grew of out several influences. One inspiration was the composer's dreams, including a vision of a flock of white birds led by a single black bird. Another was his love of traditional Japanese gardens. A spark was provided by the American avant-garde composer John Cage, whose concept of indeterminate music - in which passages are left to chance or improvisation by the performers - was tremendously appealing to Takemitsu. The image of a five-sided garden also informs the piece's structure: five brief sections are built on five-note themes based on the pentatonic scale. Series: "La Jolla Symphony & Chorus" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 33853]

Jazz has been hailed as "America's original art form," and the annual Jazz Camp at UC San Diego is a five-day immersive summer program designed for intermediate to advanced level jazz musicians, ages 14–adult. Students work directly with internationally renowned jazz artists, exploring styles ranging from classic bebop to contemporary open-form. The Camp culminates in a finale concert performed by eight student ensembles, each under the direction of a faculty member. This program showcases an ensemble mentored by saxophonist David Borgo. Series: "UC San Diego Jazz Camp" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 33922]

A critic once commented that Schoenberg's "Five Pieces for Orchestra" requires "an orchestra of soloists," Schoenberg himself said that his aim was the development of "the emancipation of dissonance," in which no single note or key would be dominant over others. To this end melodies are fragmentary while the emphasis is on ever-shifting instrumental colors.; thus each of the five brief movements acquires a distinctive atmosphere. Series: "La Jolla Symphony & Chorus" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 33850]

Franz Liszt composed twelve “symphonic poems,” of which “Les Préludes” has proven to be the most popular. Its structure is deceptively simple, based loosely on sonata form but differing from the classical sonata in its development of a few basic themes, rather than contrasting very different thematic material in distinct movements. The attractiveness of the piece lies in Liszt’s ingenious transitions and transformations as the music moves from episode to episode, by turns turbulent and serene, until the various strands finally come together in the dramatic finale. Explaining the title “Les Préludes,” Liszt posed the question, “What else is life but a series of preludes to that unknown hymn, the first and solemn note of which is intoned by Death?” Series: "La Jolla Symphony & Chorus" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 33849]

UC San Diego's Geisel Library hosts an annual Paper Theater Festival, celebrating an art form with roots in Victorian Era Europe. Paper theaters (also known as toy theaters) were used to promote productions. They were printed on paperboard sheets and sold as kits at the concession stand of an opera house, playhouse, or vaudeville theater. The kits were then assembled at home and plays performed for family members and guests, sometimes with live musical accompaniment. The theaters gradually declined in popularity during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but have enjoyed a resurgence in interest in recent years among many puppeteers, filmmakers, theater historians, and hobbyists. Presently there are numerous international paper theater festivals throughout the Americas and Europe, as well as several museums. Series: "Library Channel" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 33264]

Emmanuel Jal, an internationally recognized hip-hop musician, former child soldier turned activist and entrepreneur, shares his story and music. Jal was born into the life of a child solider in the early 1980s in the war-torn region of Southern Sudan. He calls upon all of us to engage with our world and become global citizens through scholarship, leadership and service. [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 33490]