The University of California San Diego’s Department of Music is known for its unconventional approach to the art of sound. The fact that soprano Susan Narucki and composer Lei Liang are collaborating to create a chamber opera around the theme of gun violence only fits that reputation. Their unique project entitled, “Inheritance,” struck a note with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which awarded the UC San Diego team an Artworks grant as part of its first $30 million in major arts funding for 2017.
University of California San Diego history professor Frank Biess is interested in emotions. More specifically, he plans to examine the role of fear and anxiety within the historical context of postwar West Germany. The NEH Fellowship for University Professors enables Biess to address questions about how feelings are produced politically, how they impact society and how they change over time—demonstrating the valuable insight humanities scholars can gain when they engage with the expanding interdisciplinary research on emotions.
Modern hospitals are designed to aid healing in every possible space, from operating rooms and recovery areas to cafeterias and lobbies. One way is through art, and the new Jacobs Medical Center at UC San Diego Health reflects this with an extraordinary collection of paintings, photographs, sculptures, and other mediums, by renowned artists that are featured on every floor and inside every patient room throughout the 10-story hospital.
Composer and multimedia artist Katharina Rosenberger, a professor in the Department of Music at the University of California San Diego, has been appointed composer-in-residence at the Qualcomm Institute (QI), the UC San Diego division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2). Rosenberger is the fourth UC San Diego music faculty member to hold the position following Roger Reynolds (2007-2010), Rand Steiger (2010-2013) and Lei Liang (2013-2016). Her recent composition, “tempi agitati,” will be performed Thursday, Dec. 8 at UC San Diego’s Conrad Prebys Concert Hall, by the contemporary vocal quartet, Neue Vocalsolisten.
The University of California San Diego will honor World AIDS Day on Thursday, Dec. 1 to raise awareness of the impact that HIV/AIDS has had and continues to have on the San Diego community, the nation and world. In recognition of the international event day, which was established in 1988, the campus will sponsor a number of free activities open to the public including a display of three sections of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, a presentation on the HIV prevention pill, talks for specific communities and populations impacted by HIV, artistic performances and more.
UC San Diego’s Lei Liang will be the focus of a Nov. 17 Composer Portraits concert at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre. The series is dedicated to leading composers of new music. Liang’s concert, which features fellow UC San Diego Department of Music faculty members Steven Schick (conductor) and Mark Dresser (contrabass), includes the world premiere of “Lakescape V,” a Miller Theatre co-commission. Also on the program: the New York premiere of “Luminous” (2014), Ascension (2008) and Serashi Fragments (2005).
