The annual month-long celebration of the arts returns to UC Santa Cruz. Nearly a dozen performances will be presented by talented professionals in dance, animation and other art forms. April in Santa Cruz is an opportunity for the community to experience the best work from emerging and established artists.
This year’s festival is organized by festival co-director James Gordon Williams, a composer, pianist, and cultural theorist who will join the UCSC faculty in 2023.Festival director Karlton Hester is a music professor known for his accomplishments, including founding Sir San Francisco Fillmore protected the big band and created a new form of music theory called Hirst Musicalism.Hester is an internationally recognized musician who has received Grants and commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, a postdoctoral fellowship from the Mellon Foundation, and more. He also serves as director of digital arts and new media and associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion at UC Santa Cruz.
“Since its inception, the Santa Cruz April Festival has promoted European music while ignoring the most influential global music and the music of fringe artists,” Hester said, describing his reasons for taking over the event. “Santa Cruz April event highlights female, underrepresented, LGBTQ and BIPOC composers and performing artists for the first time.” Hester also helped make the upcoming festival the largest yet.
Jay Afrisando, assistant professor of music, curated the show, which features composer and performer Molly Joyce, considered “the One of the most versatile, prolific and interesting composers working in the vast field of new music”) Washington post) and created a piece that will be performed by Third Coast Percussion, emphasizing a focus on diversity. He said the focus of this year’s festival is critical to disrupting patterns of white supremacy such as racism, patriarchy, ableism and late capitalism, as well as centering diverse groups and collaborations in music, which does not happen in a vacuum.
Featured artists include, but are not limited to: JLIN, an electronic music composer who has appeared on newspapers’ “Best of” lists, including rolling stones, Fashionand Los Angeles Times; Park Eun-ha, percussionist and dancer at the National Gugaku Center of Korea; and internationally renowned musicians such as Joshua Rubin New York Times He was praised as “unable to play expressionless notes”.
There will also be featured students, such as those in the Master of Arts in Digital Arts and New Media Performance, or a music graduate student who has created works for multiple concerts. Professors Matt Shoemaker, Jay Afrizondo and Ben Carson, organizers of the pre-festival composers’ workshop, emphasized, April in Santa Cruz has been dedicated to putting up-and-coming student artists “on the same stage, in the same spotlight, as the exceptional artists we bring here to study and collaborate with.” .
Assistant Professor of Music Matt Schumaker, who curates and helps compose music for the upcoming festival, is expanding participation from students and established artists, saying, “We’re not only showcasing a diverse range of composers, but composers that span generations. In addition to In addition to students, it includes music by seminal 20th century composers such as the late Kaija Saariaho, who in 2016 became the first woman in 100 years to perform a work at the Metropolitan Opera, and the late Olly Wilson, Her work is inspired by African music and is integral to the development of electronic music.
Santa Cruz April events are held on campus and are free and open to the public. This is an opportunity for the community, not just students, to experience a global performance. “Our festival showcases emerging student and professional creative music and art unlike most other showcases in the Santa Cruz area,” Hester said.
Activity Guide
third coast percussion – feature JJ Lin and Jay Afrizondo
Digital Arts Research Center (DARC)
7:30pm
April 72024
molly joyce
Digital Arts Research Center (DARC)
2:00 pm
April 13, 2024
“Born for music”
Presenting music by six UCSC faculty composers who have been committed to UCSC music programs for more than four decades.
Music Center Auditorium
7:30pm
April 13, 2024
Joshua Rubin Residencies and concerts
Music Center Auditorium
7:30pm
April 19, 2024
“Embodiment” – Digital Art and New Media Master’s Exhibition
Digital Arts Research Center (DARC)
12:00 noon – 5:00 pm
April 26 to May 4, 2024
“A moment of change” – Visiting artist from Minzu University of China, China
Music Center Auditorium
7:30pm
April 26, 2024
“Indian Music Festival” 2024
Quarry Amphitheater
12:00 noon – 4:00 pm
April 27, 2024
“Indian Midsummer Festival”
experimental theater
7:30pm
April 27, 2024
