Design by Paradise Khanmalek
Valencia, Calif. (Jan 11, 2022) – On Saturday, Jan. 15, the CalArts Herb Alpert School of Music will present Futures of Music, an evening exploring various possible futures in performing and experiencing music at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT) in downtown Los Angeles.
“As creators and listeners, we are not only bearers of the personal and cultural memory that shapes our work and experience, we are thinkers and self-reflective beings who understand our role in constituting music’s reality. Futures of Music can not predict or even anticipate; we want to explore and question,” said Volker Straebel, dean of The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts. “To reflect the most recent changes and developments in musical expression, performance formats, practices, distribution, audiences, and reception, Futures of Music is imagined as a starting point for re-evaluating approaches to music education and cutting-edge experimentation in a wide range of genres and cultures.”
The 90-minute experience—featuring eight performers—will transform REDCAT into a multidimensional space beyond the hierarchical structure of stage and audience, authorship and perception, presence and virtual performance. In part I, three performers at various locations in the REDCAT lobby will read questions regarding the future of music. In part II, musicians Alexandra Cárdenas, Jace Clayton, and CalArts alum Cassiopeia Sturm (Music MFA 17) will create a mediated sonic environment where the audience can move around and sense the piece from different locations and perspectives throughout the REDCAT lobby and theater.
Concepted by Straebel and co-curated by CalArts faculty Madeline Falcone and Ulrich Krieger, Futures of Music will continue throughout 2022 as a process of experiences, opportunities, and examination at CalArts.
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The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts places a high priority on providing professional training that gives its students the abilities and means to become effective practitioners in diverse musical styles—to become culturally informed, artistically versatile citizens of an expansive musical world. Students in the World Music Program closely study music and dance practices from a variety of musical cultures, while simultaneously acquiring solid grounding in music theory, musicianship skills, and music history and literature. This unique course of study allows students to acquire high-level performance skills in both solo and ensemble situations; facility with both notated and oral methods of learning music; and awareness of the cultural, theoretical and social aspects of multiple musical traditions.
California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) has set the pace for educating professional artists since 1970. Offering rigorous undergraduate and graduate degree programs through six schools—Art, Critical Studies, Dance, Film/Video, Music, and Theater—CalArts has championed creative excellence, critical reflection, and the development of new forms and expressions. As successive generations of faculty and alumni have helped shape the landscape of contemporary arts, the Institute first envisioned by Walt Disney encompasses a vibrant, eclectic community with global reach, inviting experimentation, independent inquiry, and active collaboration and exchange among artists, artistic disciplines, and cultural traditions.
The Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT), CalArts’ downtown center for contemporary arts, is a multidisciplinary center for innovative visual, performing and media arts founded by CalArts in the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex in downtown Los Angeles. Through performances, exhibitions, screenings and literary events, REDCAT introduces diverse audiences, students and artists to the most influential developments in the arts from around the world, and gives artists in this region the creative support they need to achieve national and international stature. REDCAT continues the tradition of the California Institute of the Arts, its parent organization, by encouraging experimentation, discovery and lively civic discourse. For current program and exhibition information, visit redcat.org.