Francisco Eme to curate a beuatiful evening of electroacoustic works by the late Mexican composer, Javier Álvarez (1956 - 2023). Álvarez was a Mexican composer known for compositions that seamlessly combined a variety of international musical styles and traditions, and that often utilized unusual instruments and new music technologies.

ON THE PROGRAM: Lluvia de Toritos (1984), for solo flute | Mejor morir en la selva (2017), for electronic sound | Península de pajaros (2012), for electronic sound | Temazcal (1984), for amplified maracas and electronics

Sound artist JOE CANTRELL improvises a live electronic score for Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1973 surreal masterpiece film, The Holy Mountain.

“Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1973 film The Holy Mountain is as visually striking as it is difficult- a journey that is unrelenting in its surreal maximalism. At times serene, grotesque and comical, the sense of the uncanny never leaves the viewer. It is this focus on imagery that is intensely unusual that I find so fitting for a live performance setting. My intention is to use these fantastical images as a visual representation of noises and sounds, similar to a type of music notation called a graphical score. These scores use static pictures instead of notes to convey musical ideas. The images used are often abstract and unusual and open to a wide variety of interpretations by the musician. I feel the challenging and dazzling visual world that Jodorowsky paints is a fitting filmic analog to this graphical tradition, and one that promises to create impactful and memorable sonic and visual pairing.” - JOE CANTRELL

STAY STRANGE brings back the Experimental Guitar Show after a 10 year hiatus. This presentation encourages local musicians who have outgrown the limitations of conventional guitar playing. These artists have expanded their technique by using their imagination rather than instruction. Gone are the orthodox chords and standard scales normally attributed to the instrument. A new musical vocabulary of tone and timbre emerges in its place. You've never seen the guitar played like this before!
Hosted by Sam Lopez

Come at 7:00 pm for a Noise Guitar Workshop with M.J. Stevens! Concert begins at 7:30 with performances by:

Presented as part of the CALIFORNIA FESTIVAL: A CELEBRATION OF NEW MUSIC, the in^set trio will perform TANGIBLE MECHANICS - a program featuring works by Pauline Oliveros, Teresa Díaz de Cossio, Ilana Waniuk, Melissa Vargas Franco, David Aguila, Kotoka Suzuki, exploring the physicality of sound through the medium of cassette tape and the resonance of found objects.

Founded in 2018 by David Aguila (trumpet), Teresa Díaz de Cossio (flute), and Ilana Waniuk (violin), in^set trio is committed to commissioning and performing existing compositions which extend their respective instrumental practices beyond the confines of contemporary classical music.

Percussionist CHRISTOPHER CLARINO will present the American Premiere of a rarely-performed masterpiece by Karlheinz Stockhausen: INORI. The soloist in this piece uses the body as the instrument, playing a series of gestures and movements throughout this demanding work.

Written in 1974, Karlheinz stockhausen's INORI is a rarely performed, concert-length work for soloist and electronic audio playback. Created by one of the 20th Century’s most notoriously challenging composers, INORI is an exploration of the gestures of prayer and religious ritual as they appear in cultures from around the world. Inside the performance, the soloist makes no sound, and instead moves through a series of meticulously choreographed gestures that coincide with Stockhausen's luminously orchestrated score. This profound work takes the audience on a deeply meditative journey, punctuated by moments of despair and shocking violence.

INORI will be performed by San Diego-based percussionist Christopher Clarino, who is currently touring the piece across the United States and in Brazil. As the first person to perform this extremely virtuosic work in the U.S., Clarino's approach to the material is equally rooted in his experience interpreting some of contemporary music's most challenging percussion works, as well as his time as an interpreter of American Sign Language. By merging ritualistic gestures and musical expression, INORI is a unique and moving experience not to be missed.

Material Intimacies is a one night performance art gathering that invites viewers to contemplate the ephemeral edges between the self and the collective body curated by Jun!Yi Min.

Performance artists JAX, Jun!, Hamsa Fae, and erika, fruiting will offer durational and staged works as portals of liminality, disruption, and soft ferocity.  

SOME KIND OF TUBE showcases San Diego musicians working with brass instruments in innovative, non-traditional, and occasionally unpredictable ways. Using extended techniques, electronic processing, modified instruments, and more, these musicians each approach their instruments and music-making in dramatically different and idiosyncratic ways. They all, however, transform familiar horns into malleable tools for sonic expression and exploration.

With performances by: Jonathan Piper, tuba; David Aguila, trumpet; Sean Francis Conway, trumpet and invented instruments; ElectroCognitian: Berk Schneider, trombone; Doug Osmun, electronics; Joey Bourdeau, drums

“Listen to everything all the time and remind yourself when you are not listening,” Pauline Oliveros

Sound artist and filmmaker XARENI LIZARRAGA manifests a Sonic World transporting audiences to another time, another place, through interdisciplinary art and sound performance. I was all ear invites witnesses to bolster their sonic awareness and deep listening while sharing sound that thickens the sensory stew of our lives. I was all ear celebrates the sense of sound that we depend upon to help us interpret, communicate with, and express the world around us.

WITH PERFORMANCES BY

“Echoes from a sea cave” written and performed by Dom Cooper

“In the language of the bloom” by Akari Komura

Performed by: Camilo Zamudio (percussion), Ilana Wanuik (violin), David Aguila (trumpet), and Natalia Merlano Gómez (voice)

Janet Asuncion on Kulintang (Filipino Gong Instrument)

Improvisation by Preston Swirnoff, & Xareni Lizarraga

Sonic meditation by Kerem Brulé

MALA FORMA presents a recital by ThE CanCEled ScHoOl of PerForMAnce. 

Visitors will witness the rigorously skilled but entirely unprofessional antics of those naturally selected for the school ( by haters, lemmings, basic bitches, and society at large ) to pursue their preemptive post-graduate non-denominational degree from this universally ignored and egregiously unaccredited school, where, in fact, no-one ever graduates and where degrees, if they could be awarded, would serve to offer nothing in the way of gainful employment. 

For this evening's recital you will witness the dance bricolage and resulting detritus of works by of our most luminary Dishonored Students of ThE CanCEled ScHoOl, performers of almost painfully nonexistent acclaim, who, on this evening alone, and probably never again thereafter, will offer their most generous work to date, because, in fact, they find, with great relief, they have nothing more to lose. 

Please be our guest at this special event to honor our esteemed students lead by the unprofessed and disgraced dancer and director, Justin Morrison, for this special evening length work of what, we guarantee, we assure you, we attest, we promise, will never, ever be repeated.