Programs curated by the CalArts School of Music and other music-related events.
May 14, 2008
The California EAR Unit: Premieres!

The California EAR Unit, one of the finest contemporary ensembles in America, gives the world premieres of two commissioned works by John Luther Adams and Gordon Beeferman | Click here

May 17-18, 2008
Studio

The quarterly series for interdisciplinary experimentation continues with a curated program of six new works and works-in-progress by Los Angeles dance, theater, music and multimedia artists | Click here

May 30-31, 2008
Partch

Outfitted with a fantastic array of Harry Partch’s custom-built microtonal instruments, the ensemble directed by John Schneider performs the composer’s complete score of Plectra and Percussion Dances: Satyr-Play Music for Dance Theater | Click here



Past 06/07 Music Events:
September 19-October 1, 2006
Michael Gordon and
Richard Foreman: What to Wear

The raucous, bitingly funny opera from avant-garde theater icon Richard Foreman and celebrated composer Michael Gordon marks the home debut of the Center for New Performance. | Click here

Postponed Due to Illness
Pandit Rajeev Taranath

The October 4 concert at REDCAT by Pandit Rajeev Taranath must be postponed indefinitely due to illness. We hope to reschedule this concert for later in the season. Ticket holders can contact the REDCAT box office at 213.237.2800 for refund information | Click here

October 12-15, 2006
Pamela Z: Wunderkabinet

Inspired by the delightfully unconventional Museum of Jurassic Technology, this alluring multimedia opera is the latest opus from Pamela Z -- the Alpert Award-winning electronic composer, singer and performance artist who has opened new horizons for vocal music | Click here

October 25-29, 2006
Betontanc: Wrestling Dostoevsky

This high-velocity dance theater work from the internationally acclaimed Slovenian ensemble tells a compelling tale of love rich with passion and violence, accompanied by a zesty live music performance | Click here

November 7, 2006
The California EAR Unit

One of the finest contemporary chamber ensembles in America, the EAR Unit has been hailed for its unparalleled virtuosity and incandescent artistry. This evening’s program brings a selection of challenging new works composed in response to recent global turmoil | Click here

November 12, 2006
Aki Takahashi

One of the world’s greatest piano virtuosos, Aki Takahashi has been revered for her consummate technique and musicianship as much as for the freshness and sparkle of her interpretations of new music | Click here

November 19-20, 2006
Studio

The quarterly program for new performance works and works-in-progress has served as a creative laboratory for Los Angeles artists | Click here

November 29, 2006
Markus Stockhausen and Tara bouman: Moving Sounds

The exceptionally intuitive German trumpeter, composer and sonic innovator Markus Stockhausen teams up with Dutch clarinetist Tara Bouman | Click here

December 1, 2006
Charlie Haden

The legendary jazz bassist, composer, bandleader, educator and all-around innovator is joined by a CalArts ensemble for a special concert of music for his storied Liberation Music Orchestra| Click here

December 2, 2006
Ann Magnuson: Pretty Songs & Ugly Stories

A phantasmagorical evening with the actress, writer, performer and lead singer/lyricist of the cult band Bongwater, featuring music, monologues, video and surprises | Click here

December 11, 2006
A TRIBUTE TO DORRANCE STALVEY

A group of exceptional musicians pays tribute to Dorrance's legacy, including special guest Cristina Zavalloni, described as "an astonishing singer in a class of her own" by Mark Swed of the L.A. Times | Click here

January 25-27, 2007
CEAIT Festival
TwoTwenty/OneTen \ Europe, L.A. And Points East

The genre-bending annual fest from the CalArts Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology serves up three engrossing evenings of new experimental works in music, multimedia and sound art from around the world | Click here

February 18-19, 2007
Studio

Experience new works by emerging Los Angeles artists curated by William Flores and Lionel Popkin | Click here

February 23-24, 2007
New Century Players:
Friendly Monsters from the Boot:
Two Nights of Italian Music

New music aficionados have the rare opportunity to savor a superb collection of contemporary Italian works as CalArts’ vaunted ensemble presents a two-concert survey built around compositions by Sylvano Bussotti -- one of the most aesthetically inventive provocateurs of his generation | Click here

March 7, 2007
GABRIEL ALEGRÍA: AFRO-PERUVIAN SEXTET

Smoldering jazz is kicked up with the intoxicating polyrhythms of coastal Peru as trumpeter and composer Gabriel Alegria | Click here

March 16, 2007
Rohan De Saram

Renowned for his consummate technique and peerless rhythmic control, the acclaimed contemporary cellist opens the program with a set of solo pieces | Click here

March 17, 2007
Ralph Alessi & This Against That

Postmodern jazz at its most sophisticated and adventurous as trumpeter and composer Ralph Alessi fronts an all-star quintet that brings together saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, pianist Andy Milne, bassist Ben Street and drummer Gerald Cleaver | Click here

March 20, 2007
James Miller

Man and machine carry out a techno pas de deux as James Miller performs a series of delightfully inventive "short stories" for trombone and digital signal processor | Click here

April 5-8, 2007
Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group:
The Tale: Npinpee Nckutchie and the Tail of the Golden Dek

Acclaimed choreographer Reggie Wilson explores intimacy and devotion, libido and love in a seamless collage of music and dance | Click here

April 11, 2007
The California EAR Unit Plays Julius Eastman

The high-flying Los Angeles new music ensembles devotes its latest concert to the incandescent music of Julius Eastman, an iconoclastic composer, pianist, singer and dancer who died in 1990 at the age of 49 | Click here

April 14, 2007
Gamelan Burat Wangi: A Night in Paradise

The premier Balinese music and dance ensemble in Los Angeles, Gamelan Burat Wangi (“Fragrant Offering”) presents a selection of new works for gong kebyar -- the most virtuosic and expressive iteration of Balinese orchestras | Click here

April 15-16, 2007
Studio

The third installment of the quarterly program for new experimental performance works and works-in-progress | Click here

April 19, 2007
LAVENDER DIAMOND and INDIAN JEWELRY

Houston-to-L.A. transplants Indian Jewelry and folk rockers Lavender Diamond bring the sound of the L.A. underground to REDCAT for a unique night of music | Click here

April 27, 2007
Roman Stolyar

The Russian free jazz innovator and members of the CalArts Improvisation Ensemble weave together a series of new collaborative multimedia works developed using Stolyar’s unique “Improvising Orchestra” methodology | Click here

May 15, 2007
Bach's Circle

CalArts’ Baroque music ensemble plays the sublime music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Phillip Telemann and Antonio Vivaldi | Click here

May 30, 2007
Partch: on the Road

The ensemble directed by guitarist John Schneider continues its multimedia survey of the far-ranging and iconoclastic body of work created by American composer and raconteur Harry Partch | Click here

July 9, 2007
THE CALIFORNIA EAR UNIT PLAYS MUSIC FROM VILLA AURORA

The continuing creative exchange between Villa Aurora artists and their Los Angeles colleagues is sounded in this unprecedented collaboration between young Villa Aurora composers-in-residence and the renowned local chamber ensemble, the California EAR Unit | Click here

July 19-21, 2007
New Original Works Festival: Program One

The three-week NOW Festival launches with a program of three works that are founded in movement, but varied in their approaches. Mason's Hip-hop moves and spoken word, Luyten and Alker's precise and poetic dance-theater, and a new music and dance collaboration from Tijuana-based Lux Boreal and Pedro Gabriel Beas of Nortec Collectivec | Click here

July 26-28, 2007
New Original Works Festival: Program Two

NOW Festival continues with two new works that employ technology, media and unique stagecraft: Heidi Duckler, "the queen of L.A. site-specific dance-performance" (Los Angeles Times), responds to REDCAT's performance space. The collaborative team of Lars Jan, Jane Pickett and Bureau V generate layers, both literal and psychological, in a work of operatic complexity, but without the singing | Click here

August 2-4, 2007
New Original Works Festival: Program Three

NOW's final program delves into the darkly evocative worlds of three decidedly different projects. Fjellestad's sonic abstractions are delicate compositions of noise. Kelly & David's mini-epic, three-act opera of cursed wanders warps American folk. And Iova-Koga's exquisite post-butoh performance stares deeply into the void that precedes birth | Click here

Sept 15-16, 2007
sound. at REDCAT

Fans of improvised music are in for a special treat as New York avant-garde stalwarts Ikue Mori (laptop) and Zeena Parkins (electric harp) team up with legendary guitarist Fred Frith for a first-ever joint appearance in Los Angeles | Click here

Sept 26-30, 2007
Cynthia Hopkins: Must Don't Whip 'Um

Blurring lines between confession and performance, concert and play, memory and creation, the Alpert Award winner braids two narrative threads: the final show of a ’70s-era cult-pop singer before her mysterious disappearance, and her daughter’s making of a documentary film, many years later, about the mother she never knew | Click here

October 14, 2007
MILLS COLLEGE CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY MUSIC AT 40

This program celebrates the enduring legacy of the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College, the legendary Oakland studio that has played a vital role in shaping the direction of electronic and computer music over the past 40 years | Click here

October 17, 2007
The California EAR Unit / Dubbelspoor

Centered around Dutch master Louis Andriessen’s gem-like Dubbelspoor, this new program from the brilliant Los Angeles ensemble puts forth a lineup of compositions that reflect distinctive international perspectives | Click here

October 19, 2007
Pandit Rajeev Taranath

Pandit Rajeev Taranath, one of the world’s great exponents of the sarode, is joined by tabla virtuoso Nitin Mitta for a scintillating program of classical Hindustani ragas | Click here

October 20, 2007
Una Noche Idishe:
An Argentine Yiddish Experience

The rich Jewish/Yiddish culture of Argentina is celebrated in a boisterous trilingual evening of dance, film, Yiddish tangos, klezmer music, theater and comedy | Click here

November 1-3, 2007
Sandeep Bhagwati: Vineland Stelae

At once sweeping in scope and finespun in its intricacies, this ambitious new work by Indian-German composer Sandeep Bhagwati is a full-evening structured improvisation that brings together a head-spinning array of music practices from different parts of the world—all working to conjure a new and unabashedly polyglot musical culture | Click here

November 8, 2007
Amelia Cuni:
John Cage’s 18 Microtonal Ragas

Dhrupad vocalist Amelia Cuni forges an uncanny blend of traditions with this original interpretation of John Cage’s 18 Microtonal Ragas: Solo 58, a cycle of 18-scale patterns from the collection Song Books (1970) | Click here

November 16, 2007
SCREAM 2007: ANALOG LIVE!

Prized for their vibrant sounds and the physical immediacy they allow performers, analog synthesizers are combined here with acoustic instruments and kinetic video sculptures in the annual concert presented by the Southern California Resource for Electro-Acoustic Music | Click here

November 18-19, 2007
Studio

Join us for something truly new as we invite Los Angeles dance, theater, music and multimedia artists to participate in an evening of interdisciplinary experimentation | Click here

November 29 - December 2, 2007
Degenerate Art Ensemble:
Cuckoo Crow

Barrages of frantic avant-garde music blend seamlessly with inventive Butoh-inspired movement and intense physical theater in this rich, multilayered production from Seattle’s high-octane experimental group | Click here

January 18-19, 2008
CalArts Creative Music Festival
Featuring the Art Ensemble of Chicago—Great Black Music— "Ancient to the Future"

Revered for unbounded musical daring, radical innovation, and a sustained exploration of black music forms, the fabled Art Ensemble of Chicago makes its first Los Angeles projection since 1990 in this year’s edition of the CalArts Creative Music Festival | Click here

January 22, 2008
Listen Again: Music You Should Change Your Mind About Right Now

All pop music, past and present, is fair game on this night of live, rapid-fire music criticism as the members of a distinguished panel of writers, musicians and scholars have five minutes each to persuade the audience to reconsider a series of pop tracks -- and find in them hitherto undiscovered pleasures | Click here

January 24, 2008
Yu Hongmei

This rare performance showcases the crystalline tones and lucid expressions of the Chinese erhu -- a two-string bowed instrument -- as played by one of its premier exponents, Yu Hongmei | Click here

February 16, 2008
Elliott Carter at 100

Elliott Carter, dean of American high modernism, has crafted a body of music that is matchless in its intense, razor-sharp complexity, shimmering instrumental colors and radical counterpoint | Click here

March 7, 2008
Dark Wing

Mallet percussionist David Johnson and Persian percussionist Houman Pourmehdi team up with tar player Pirayeh Pourafar, bassist Ivan Johnson and percussionist T.J. Troy for an evening of invigorating global fusion | Click here

March 8-9, 2008
Studio

Join us for something truly new as we invite Los Angeles dance, theater, music and multimedia artists to participate in an evening of interdisciplinary experimentation | Click here

March 21, 2008
4'33" and Beyond

John Cage broke through a previously impassable threshold in 1952 when he first presented 4'33", the “silent” piece that now stands as his most famous, controversial and -- by his own estimate -- important work | Click here

March 30, 2008
NEW ORLEANS' HOT 8 BRASS BAND

For the first Los Angeles performances of the now-legendary Hot 8 Brass Band, REDCAT removes its formal seating and opens up the dance floor for a night of New Orleans spirit, passion and funk | Click here

April 3-4, 2008
An Intimate Evening with
Herb Alpert and Lani Hall

Herb Alpert and Lani Hall perform a rare, relaxed and intimate night of American and Brasilian jazz featuring a trio of masterful musicians | Click here

April 5, 2008
Andy Milne and Dapp Theory

Known for a signature on-edge sound heavy with groove, the New York quintet is driven by the emphatic piano and keyboard work of Andy Milne, who formed the group five years ago to link the essentials of jazz with hip-hop rhythms and funk harmonics | Click here

April 18, 2008
Ordinary Madness: Musicians Meet Bukowski

A quartet of Angeleno composer-performers pays homage to the city’s beloved dirty old man of poetry, Charles Bukowski, with a night of music performance and poetry based on some of his most incendiary writings | Click here

April 19-20, 2008
Gamelan Kyai Doro Dasih

The Los Angeles-based gamelan Kyai Doro Dasih ("The Honorable Dream Come True") presents two performances of exquisite Javanese court music and dance and wayang kulit purwa -- an ancient form of shadow puppet play | Click here

April 25-26, 2008
CEAIT Festival: Jason Kahn | The Hub

The genre-defying annual festival from the CalArts Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology returns to REDCAT with a new lineup of experimental music | Click here

April 27, 2008
Boris Berman Plays Prokofiev

The world-renowned pianist and pre-eminent interpreter of Sergei Prokofiev gives a solo recital representing the richness and breadth of the great Russian composer’s music | Click here

April 29, 2008
Bach's Circle: J.S. Bach and His Sons

The CalArts ensemble led by oboist Allan Vogel traces the evolution of baroque style from the late works of Johann Sebastian Bach through selected works by his sons | Click here

May 4, 2008
CAP Teen Music Concert
Organized by the CalArts Community Arts Partnership (CAP)

Teenage musicians in the CalArts Community Arts Partnership (CAP) programs with Art-in-the-Park/Lalo Guerrero School of Music in Highland Park present an afternoon concert of Latin, choral, jazz, classical and world music works | Click here