the SALTY SERIES

Join us for our take-over of Bread & Salt Gallery in Barrio Logan with concerts on the THIRD FRIDAY of every month!

From October through May, THE SALTY SERIES brings a savory spread of genre-bending concerts, immersive installations, and offbeat happenings by San Diego’s most innovative artists and visionary international guests. Each show offers a one-night-only experience—uncompromising, unexpected, and unforgettably salty.

All shows begin at 7:30 pm (unless otherwise stated) at Bread & Salt. Tickets are $15 General Admission or Pay-What-You-Can. Grab a drink, make a new friend, and feast your eyes and ears on the most adventurous experimental music in town.

Help protect migrants by donating to Border Angels.

We invite all fans of Project [BLANK] to join us in supporting Border Angels, a nonprofit organization dedicated to humanitarian aid, migrant rights, and social justice along the U.S.–Mexico border. At each event this season, we will be collecting valuable items to help support our neighbors in need.

Learn more

BRANDON TANI +
āññā duo

OCT 16, 2026, 7:30 PM → BREAD & SALT GALLERY

San Diego artists Brandon Ichiro Tani and āññā present an evening of audiovisual performances exploring memory, perception, and the unseen patterns that shape everyday life. Tani's the oil pumps line up at night like sleeping whales combines field recordings, electroacoustic feedback, and video montage into a poetic meditation on landscape, history, and the tension between the personal and the political. Sharing the evening is the multimedia duo āññā (Anqi Liu and Han Zhang), whose performances merge live electronics, DIY biosignal and sensor-based instruments, real-time visuals, and sculptural materials into dreamlike environments where sound, image, and gesture become inseparable. Together, the artists create a world that bridges technology and the deeply human acts of listening, observation, and connection.

NAKATANI GONG ORCHESTRA

NOV 20, 2026, 7:30 PM → BREAD & SALT GALLERY

Japanese percussionist and composer Tatsuya Nakatani returns to San Diego with the Nakatani Gong Orchestra (NGO), a one-of-a-kind project that brings together local community members to create an immersive orchestra of gongs. Following an intensive workshop in Nakatani's unique performance techniques, participants—many with no formal musical training—perform an original work using Chinese wind gongs played with the artist's custom-built bows. Guided by Nakatani's live conducting, the ensemble fills the space with shimmering metallic overtones, cascading resonances, and layered waves of sound, transforming the gallery into a living sonic sculpture. Each performance is unique, shaped by the participants, the space, and the moment.

The Kitschmas Tree Lot and the Case of the Missing Nose with Brian & Ryan

DEC 04, 2026, 7:30 PM → BREAD & SALT GALLERY

San Diego's favorite art duo Brian & Ryan return with the fourth annual Kitschmas Pageant, unveiling an all-new holiday adventure: The Kitschmas Tree Lot and the Case of the Missing Nose. Expect an evening of festive music, offbeat storytelling, jolly performances, and Yuletide absurdity as the artists bring their wonderfully weird holiday universe to life. The pageant runs alongside Brian & Ryan's 11th annual Kitschmas exhibition at the Athenaeum Art and Music Center, a maximalist celebration of plastic memories and all things seasonally saccharine. Holiday lovers and Scrooges alike are invited to grab a cup of cheer and join us as we make the season just a little more merry and bright.

Kamran Shafii & Michael Masaru Flora

JAN 15, 2027, 7:30 PM → BREAD & SALT GALLERY

Sound artists Kamran Shafii and Michael Masaru Flora present an evening of electroacoustic performance that unveils the hidden sonic worlds embedded within our built and digital environments. Iranian sound artist Kamran Shafii draws on multichannel field recordings captured with specialized measurement devices and piezoelectric sensors, channeling the vibrations of stressed infrastructure—mechanical strain, structural resonance, and subterranean systems—into richly detailed acoustic landscapes. California-based artist Michael Masaru Flora's real-time algorithmic process explores digital decomposition and resynthesis, allowing new musical forms to emerge through constantly evolving computations. Together, their work uncovers the invisible architectures that surround us, transforming physical and algorithmic forces into immersive experiences of sound.

TONE KEEPERS with Rachel Beetz

FEB 19, 2027, 7:30 PM → BREAD & SALT GALLERY

Baltimore-based flutist and composer Rachel Beetz returns to San Diego with selections from her recent solo album Tone Keepers, an intimate program for flute and electronics exploring the relationship between acoustic gesture and electronic process. Each movement pairs a single flute technique with a distinct electronic process, allowing resonance, repetition, and transformation to unfold through subtle variation and careful listening. Beetz's music reflects her experience of sound as touch, creating richly textured performances that invite audiences to hear familiar sounds in unexpected ways. The result is an evening of focused, imaginative listening that reveals the expressive possibilities embedded within even the simplest musical gesture.

POETRY + SOUND with Pablo Dodero Carrillo & Paola Capó-Garcia

MAR 19, 2027, 7:30 PM → BREAD & SALT GALLERY

San Diego-based collaborators Pablo Dodero Carrillo and Paola Capó-García present a new performance combining processed voice, electronic composition, and contemporary poetry. Drawing on Dodero's background in experimental electronic music and Capó-García's acclaimed poetic practice, the work reflects on the relationship between the individual and the state through a dynamic interplay of language and spatialized sound. As the City of San Diego's Poet Laureate, Capó-García brings a voice shaped by lyric precision and social inquiry, while Dodero's immersive electronic environments transform spoken text into shifting sonic patterns. Together, they create an intimate interdisciplinary performance where poetry and sound become inseparable modes of listening, reflection, and expression.

leslie ann leytham + jonathan nussman

APR 16, 2026, 7:30 PM → BREAD & SALT GALLERY

Mezzo-soprano Leslie Ann Leytham and baritone Jonathan Nussman present an inventive program celebrating the expressive possibilities of two unaccompanied voices. The program features the world premiere of a meditative new work by Laura Cetilia alongside contemporary works spanning luminous harmony, intricate counterpoint, extended vocal techniques, and moments of unexpected humor. Moving fluidly between beauty and absurdity, the singers' decades-long friendship informs a musical dialogue rich in mercurial sonorities, playful exchange, and daring vocal experimentation. Through solos, duos, and works pairing voices with subtle electronics, the concert celebrates the extraordinary versatility and expressive potential of two voices.

BLACKTRONIKA DANCE PARTY with King Britt

MAY 21, 2027, 7:30 PM → BREAD & SALT GALLERY

Project [BLANK] closes THE SALTY SERIES with a dance party led by legendary DJ, producer, curator, and UC San Diego professor King Britt. A pioneering figure in electronic music for more than three decades, Britt has collaborated with artists including Digable Planets, De La Soul, Solange, and John Legend while championing the contributions of Black innovators through his groundbreaking Blacktronika initiative. Joined by UC San Diego student collaborators, Britt transforms Bread & Salt into a space for celebration, connection, and collective movement. Rooted in the histories of house, techno, and Afrofuturism, the evening is an exhilarating finale to THE SALTY SERIES and an invitation to experience the dance floor as a place of joy, community, and creative possibility.