Sixth Annual UCSB Summer Music Festival

The UC Santa Barbara Department of Music will present the sixth annual UCSB Summer Music Festival, titled “Under One Sky,” on Saturday, August 28 and Sunday, August 29, 2021 as a virtual event. Sponsored by the UC Santa Barbara Office of Summer Sessions, the festival will feature performances by UC Santa Barbara’s University Carillonist Wesley Arai; Daniel Ohara and Shashank Aswathanarayana; CRUSH Duo; Duo Con Fuoco; Professor Scott Marcus and Shashank Aswathanarayana; and Gamelan Sinar Surya. All events will be streamed free of charge from the UC Santa Barbara Department of Music’s YouTube channel at the dates and times listed in the schedule below.

Founded in 2016 by UC Santa Barbara Composition alumnus Federico Llach ‘17, the UCSB Summer Music Festival continues to thrive as a student-curated and managed event. This year’s event has been coordinated by UC Santa Barbara graduate composition student Alexandra Jones, who is serving as Artistic Director. “If there was ever a word to sum up the UCSB music community, it would be resilient,” shared Jones. “These last few years have been hard for all of us; the music world had to stop practically overnight, but that could not stop us. We will always continue to create and produce and inspire. The UCSB community is now even more so spread out throughout the world, but we can't forget that we are all under one sky. This year we are eager to celebrate with local artists and truly relish in the best of UCSB. The community is alive and well, and it is truly something to appreciate.” 

As with previous years’ programs, the 2021 UCSB Summer Music Festival boasts a diverse collection of artists from Southern California, offering audience members the opportunity to experience music of various genres, cultures, and time periods in one weekend.

UC Santa Barbara University Carillonist Wesley Arai will open the UCSB Summer Music Festival with a recital performed live and streamed from the carillon in UC Santa Barbara's Storke Tower. The program will include arrangements of well-known classical and popular music, as well as works composed for the carillon, including pieces written specifically for UC Santa Barbara’s carillon. Listeners who would like to attend the recital in person are encouraged to bring a blanket or lawn chair to sit on the grass outside the tower during the recital. 

A performance of North Indian Classical music by UC Santa Barbara graduate student Shashank Aswathanarayana on tabla and alumnus Daniel Ohara on sitar, showcasing Raga Malkauns, will follow the carillon recital. The performance will feature an alap (a solo section on the sitar without rhythmic accompaniment), followed by gat-s (small traditional compositions which serve as a foundation for ongoing improvisations) in slow and fast tempo set to a 16-beat rhythmic cycle called teental. 

Saturday’s program will close with a performance by CRUSH, a duo composed of two UC Santa Barbara alumni, cellists Dr. Chenoa Orme-Stone ‘20 and Katrina Agate ‘19—both former students of UC Santa Barbara Professor Jennifer Kloetzel. The program will feature classical works for two cellos, as well as original arrangements of a wide selection of short pieces, with works by Astor Piazzolla, Camille Saint-Saëns, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Béla Bartók. 

Composed of pianists Dr. Petra Peršolja and Adam Gravelle, Duo Con Fuoco will open Sunday’s program with an assortment of piano favorites, including George Gershwin's iconic Rhapsody in Blue and Gioachino Rossini's Barber of Seville. Born in Slovenia, Peršolja earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance in 2020 from UC Santa Barbara, where she studied with Professor Paul Berkowitz and was awarded the Graduate Division Fellowship and Second Prize at the International Liszt Competition in LA. A Canadian native, Gravelle has concertized throughout the United States, Canada, Germany, Vienna, Prague, Scotland, and Slovenia. 

Professor Scott Marcus—Director of the UCSB Middle East and Music of India ensembles—and graduate student Shashank Aswathanarayana will present a performance of North Indian Classical Music on sitar and tabla, presenting Raga Yaman. The performance will feature an alap (a solo section on the sitar without rhythmic accompaniment), followed by gat-s (small traditional compositions which serve as a foundation for ongoing improvisations) in slow, medium, and fast tempo set to a 16-beat rhythmic cycle called teental. 

Under the direction of UC Santa Barbara Continuing Lecturer Richard North, Gamelan Sinar Surya will close the sixth annual UCSB Summer Music Festival with a performance of traditional music from Indonesia on gamelan, an enchanting orchestra of gongs, xylophones, drums, and bamboo flutes from Indonesia. Gamelan Sinar Surya is a community ensemble that has been based in Santa Barbara since 2002, and is dedicated to the preservation, teaching, and performance of traditional Indonesian music and dance. The group specializes in rare music from the ancient kingdom of Cirebon, West Java. This dynamic group of local musicians will perform a variety of styles of traditional Indonesian Gamelan music, ranging from spiritual and lyrical to lively and dynamic. The performance will also include an exciting ancient Topeng mask dance, performed by Noah Malik.

SCHEDULE

Saturday, August 28

University Carillonist Wesley Arai

1 pm | UCSB Storke Tower (live stream)

Daniel Ohara and Shashank Aswathanarayana 

3 pm | Virtual Event

CRUSH Duo (Chenoa Orme-Stone and Katrina Agate)

5 pm | Virtual Event

Sunday, August 29

Duo Con Fuoco: Petra Peršolja and Adam Gravelle

1 pm | Virtual Event

Professor Scott Marcus and Shashank Aswathanarayana 

3 pm | Virtual Event

Gamelan Sinar Surya 

5 pm | Virtual Event

MORE INFORMATION

All events can be viewed on the UC Santa Barbara Department of Music’s YouTube Channel at youtube.com/c/UCSantaBarbaraDepartmentofMusic. Links to watch each performance will be available the week of the UCSB Summer Music Festival at music.ucsb.edu/summerfestival. Admission to all events is free. Program information and artist biographies can be found at music.ucsb.edu/summerfestival. 

ABOUT THE UC SANTA BARBARA DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC

From an institution that began life dedicated to training the next generation of music educators, to what is now a multi-faceted department with a fully established research and professional graduate program with degrees in composition, ethnomusicology, musicology, music theory, and performance, the UC Santa Barbara Department of Music has produced many hundreds of graduates who have distinguished themselves both nationally and internationally. Alumni have gone on to teach on faculties of major colleges and universities in the United States and abroad, or in outstanding secondary school positions. Many graduates of the program have published extensively and become widely renowned, prize-winning scholars, while others are award-winning and frequently performed composers writing for television and film. Alumni are also establishing fine reputations as conductors of orchestras, opera, and choruses. Graduates of the instrumental programs have gone on to solo and orchestral careers with leading orchestras, and graduates of the voice program can be heard in opera companies around the world.

With over 150 events presented annually, the UC Santa Barbara Department of Music offers something for every music lover. The department boasts 26 unique performing ensembles, each with a quarterly concert calendar. Chamber music, large ensembles, opera, contemporary groups, world music, and jazz ensembles make up the department’s rich performance calendar, along with lectures, master classes, and presentations from the ethnomusicology, musicology, theory, and composition programs. For a complete listing of performances and lectures for the quarter, please visit the UC Santa Barbara Department of Music website at music.ucsb.edu.

For additional information, photos, or to request an interview with an artist, please contact Adriane Cleary at adrianecleary@ucsb.edu (remote work number available upon request).

To sign up for the Department of Music’s newsletter, please visit eepurl.com/dcrvRr. Follow the Department of Music on Facebook (@UCSBDepartmentofMusic), Twitter (@UCSBMusicDept), and Instagram (@ucsbmusicdept).

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