Category: New Music and Contemporary Composers

  • Astronauts Offer Unique Window on Earth

    Welcome to Earth orbit, and the glory of music! In partnership with the Association of Space Explorers, UCTV is the proud new home for the Earth Music project, a collection of movies featuring breathtaking views of Earth captured by astronauts aboard the International Space Station, set to music by world-class musicians. The first movie to […]

  • Jake Blount: Exploring the Power of Music, Afrofuturism, and Social Change

    In a recent presentation that beautifully blended art, history, and activism, musician and scholar Jake Blount unveiled music’s profound capacity to envision a brighter future. With narrative and insight, Blount shared his creative process, underscoring the interplay between tradition and innovation, the transformative power of Afrofuturism, and the art of reimagining music for contemporary issues. […]

  • Music is Community

    For Andrés Martín, “music is community,” and his career path bears out this assertion. Native of Buenos Aires, Argentina and resident of Tijuana, Mexico bassist, arranger, and composer Martín has performed with orchestras, chamber ensembles, and as a soloist throughout Latin America, Europe, and the United States. Since his arrival in Tijuana Martín has been […]

  • The Intimate and the Cosmic

    La Jolla Symphony and Chorus’ December 2019 concert is comprised of three pieces that seem disparate at first glance: the premiere of Celeste Oram’s “a loose affiliation of alleluias,” Robert Schumann’s “Violin Concerto in D Minor,” and John Adams’ “Harmonium.” As LJS&C’s Music Director and Conductor Steven Schick points out, however different these compositions are […]

  • Pivotal Events

    In the early hours of April 20, 1989, 28-year-old jogger Trisha Meili was assaulted and left for dead in Central Park. The ensuing media frenzy instigated a public outcry for swift justice. Within days of the attack five African-American teenagers implicated themselves, after hours of psychological pressure and aggressive interrogation. The teens were tried as […]

  • War and Reflection

    June 2019 marks the centenary of the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I after five years of brutal conflict. In recognition of this epochal event La Jolla Symphony & Chorus’ 64th season, “Lineage: A Memory Project,” draws to a fitting conclusion with a program built around the composers and soldiers of the Great […]

  • Contrast and Concordance

    In his program notes for the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus concert entitled “Bernstein Centennial,” conductor Steven Schick notes that: At first glance, this concert program seems like a straightforward juxtaposition of light and dark: we have Leonard Bernstein’s magnificent Kaddish —his prayer for the dead— and, on the other hand, Beethoven’s genial Eighth Symphony. […]

  • Past, Present and Future

    For the La Jolla Symphony’s 2018/19 season, Music Director Steven Schick chose the title and theme of “Lineage.” Among other things this word suggests a continuum, an unbroken linkage between past, present and future, and this concept is central to both the season and the “Deep Roots” concert. The past is invoked by Anton Bruckner’s […]

  • Memories, Found and Lost

    In his Conductor’s Note for La Jolla Symphony & Chorus’s Celebrating Tradition concert, Music Director Steven Schick observes that “memory flows down two related streams,” the personal and the communal. In this concert’s program communal memory is strongly evoked by Handel’s Messiah, Part 1, drawing as it does upon a story heard around the world […]

  • The Persistence of Memory

    For La Jolla Symphony & Chorus’ 2018-2019 season, Music Director Steven Schick has chosen an encompassing theme entitled “Lineage: A Memory Project.” As Schick explains, A critical component to living an ethical life is how we remember, how we create lineage. It answers important questions: Who are we? To what echoes of our history do […]