If you weren’t able to get a seat for this special event, don’t despair. UCSD-TV’s cameras were there. We’re airing the special all month and have also made it available for viewing online at your leisure. Everything you need to know is at the link. Enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

2011 MacArthur Fellow Alisa Wielerstein, appearing on UCSD-TV October 7th

Today the MacArthur Foundation announced its 2011 ‘genius’ grants and we were pleased to see two names familiar to UCSD-TV – cellist Alisa Weilerstein and percussionist Dafnis Prieto. Both artists will receive $500,000 in no-strings-attached support over the next five years.

Alisa Weilerstein will make her UCSD-TV debut in La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest 2011 performance of “Mozart, The Sublime Spirit,” premiering October 7 at 8pm. Don’t miss this terrific opportunity to see a “genius” in action! We’ll be premiering two more SummerFest programs in October, including Commissions and Premieres (October 14) and the season’s 2011 finale (October 21). Visit our SummerFest series page for additional broadcast dates and more video from past SummerFest seasons.

Another recipient, percussionist Dafnis Prieto, is interviewed in the UCSD-TV documentary about the making of  ”Lilith: The Opera,” which premiered in San Diego in 2010. Check out the video on our website.

2011 MacArthur Fellow Dafnis Prieto appeared in UCSD-TV's 2010 documentary, "Making Lilith"

• La Jolla Music Society SummerFest – During the 18 years (!) of our association, SummerFest has moved from strength to strength, and the three 2010 concerts which premiere this month on UCSD-TV reflect the range, depth and joyous musicality which have always characterized this chamber music festival.

• San Diego Opera – Since the premiere of San Diego Opera Spotlight in January 1997, our collaboration with the Opera has grown to include two additional series, San Diego OperaTalk and, most recently, San Diego Opera Stars in the Salon (formerly Artists’ Roundtable). To my knowledge this partnership is unique in the opera world, as the three series combine to produce a long-term, comprehensive portrait of the history and evolution of a vital art form. The new season of opera programming premieres this month with a behind-the-scenes peek at Puccini’s Turandot and continues its run through the end of May.

• La Jolla Symphony & Chorus – This community-based ensemble has performed challenging music on the UCSD campus for over 50 years. UCSD-TV’s association with the Symphony (and mine) began in 1993, and it remains a touchstone in my professional life. The Symphony combines respect for tradition with an adventurous spirit, presenting established repertoire alongside challenging new or undeservedly obscure works. Their 2010 concert, Color, premiering in February, is an excellent example of what the Symphony does best.  The program spans the 20th century, from Mahler to Bernstein, and includes a dynamic performance of Alexandre Scriabin’s pioneering multimedia composition, Prometheus, the Poem of Fire.

• Rebecca Lytle Memorial Concerts – UCSD-TV has presented Professor Emeritus and pianist Cecil Lytle in annual concerts since 1998. Through the years Cecil has displayed his virtuosity in a wide range of formats and styles, including classical, ragtime, jazz, blues, popular standards and, yes, tango. This year’s concert is a multimedia exploration of the life, influences and legacy of Hungarian master Franz Liszt. The Naked Liszt premieres on UCSD-TV in March.

Berthold Auerbach wrote, “Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” I like to think that UCSD-TV is doing its part to make the world a cleaner place.

Jean Cocteau once said of Robert Bresson, “He expresses himself cinematographically as a poet would with his pen.” Francois Truffaut observed that Bresson’s films are “closer to painting than to photography.” Painting, with its direct connection between artist and brush and canvas, was a profound influence on Bresson, especially since he studied the art after high school. What appealed to him most was painting’s solitary nature, and I suspect that if he had the means, Bresson would have preferred to make his movies entirely by himself.

Throughout the course of his career, Bresson relentlessly rid his movies of all distractions and diversions. He believed that the techniques of professional actors got in the way of the truth, so he stopped using them, just as he abandoned studios for practical locations. One doesn’t watch Bresson to see great acting or admire the lush scenic design: the non-professionals he cast were mere instruments, devoid of independent ego, and the settings they moved through were purely functional. Bresson broke down performances into a carefully choreographed series of movements, gestures, and glances. Characters were not supposed to think or move spontaneously, but as precisely animated figures in the landscape of Bresson’s obsessive “dialogue with the divine.” (Bresson’s Catholicism was another major influence on his work.)

Watching Bresson is to be held in the grip of a singular, rigorous vision, a stripped-down world where nothing is superfluous or left to chance. Because of the unorthodoxy of his aesthetic, Bresson’s movies are tough sledding for modern audiences conditioned to non-stop “incidents,” rapid-fire editing, Oscar-trolling performances, special effects and crass sentimentality. His films can wear you down. When I first encountered Bresson’s work as a young film student, I was not yet conversant with what Paul Schrader dubbed the “transcendental style” in cinema. Initially I was puzzled by Bresson’s canvas of blank faces, repetitive movements, seemingly insignificant plot details, and unadorned cinematography. I simply had no frame of reference for his brand of austerity. But his characters and images stuck with me, especially Pickpocket with its precise montages and confessional narration, and A Man Escaped with its prison break set to Mozart. Eventually I became an enthusiastic convert, and Bresson sparked a lifelong interest in the works of other transcendentalists in the arts.

Sadly, the intellectual and financial environment which allowed films like Bresson’s to be made – in fact, the very idea that cinema can be more than faddish entertainment – has all but vanished (and never really had a firm foothold in American film). By the time of his death at age 92 in 1999, Bresson was despairing for the future of his chosen art form. Fortunately, his work survives to remind us of the possibilities that lie beyond the multiplex.

Tune in July 17 for the films of Robert Bresson on UCSD-TV’s World Cinema Saturdays.

4:00 pm Pickpocket
5:30 pm Diary of a Country Priest
7:30 pm Les Dames Du Bois De Boulogne
9:00 pm A Man Escaped

Such was the case with Lilith, the new chamber opera with libretto by Allan Havis and music by Anthony Davis, based on Havis’ play of the same name. Lilith places Adam’s legendary first wife at the center of a devious parable about marriage and sexual politics. The story takes place in parallel in both Biblical and modern times and concerns both ancient figures (Adam, Lilith, Eve) and their contemporary counterparts (Arnold, Claire, Eppy), though the distinctions between the two settings and groups of characters are deliberately ambiguous.

I had collaborated with both artists previously, documenting the creation of Anthony’s opera about Patty Hearst in Concerning Tania (2001) and recording interviews and a performance of Allan’s play about the civil rights movement, The Haunting of Jim Crow (2005), and I’m a confirmed admirer of their work. Allan tackles provocative subjects in a manner that has echoes of both Brecht and Pinter, but in a distinctive voice that is his alone. Anthony is one of a handful of composers who are forging a new idiom for opera, blending the traditional with elements of jazz, Afro-Cuban rhythms and rap into a style that is eclectic but never disjointed. (One could say he’s dragging opera kicking and screaming into the 21st century, but I’ll refrain.) Needless to say, when they approached me about documenting Lilith, I leapt at the chance.

My colleagues and I spent an intensive three weeks recording various rehearsals and interviews with key participants, culminating in the world premiere performances on December 2 and 4 at the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall on the UCSD Campus. The result is two programs: Lilith: The Opera, a recording of the December 4 concert, and Making Lilith, a behind-the-scenes documentary about the project’s genesis and evolution (and a bit of background about the mythical Lilith, as well). Both programs are available for viewing via UCSD-TV’s Video On Demand library, along with Talking Lilith, a Web-exclusive extended interview with Anthony Davis and Allan Havis.

If you’re a fan of intelligent, provocative, innovative entertainment, introduce yourself to Lilith.

Join us Saturdays in May for our annual month-long homage to this visionary celluloid artist.

Kurosawa is recognized as one of the great cinema auteurs both for his technical mastery and the universal humanist themes that pervade his work: a compassion for individual suffering, a quest for justice through personal rebellion against corrupt social structures, and a concern for the existential crises of humanity in the face of death, social pressure, and the apparent meaningless of life’s struggles.

His work has exerted enormous influence on post-WWII film: George Lucas used Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress as a model for Star Wars, Sergio Leone adapted his samurai tales to create the “spaghetti western,” and John Sturges transformed Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai into The Magnificent Seven (to cite but a few examples).

Here are just a few of Kurosawa’s acclaimed films we’ll be broadcasting throughout the month:

The Seven Samurai
An epic retelling of the most famous Japanese story, The Seven Samurai is a true classic. The film has proved inspirational to many other films including George Lucas’ Star Wars, and The Magnificent Seven, a direct adaption for the old west. 

Drunken Angel
Another classic from arguably the greatest filmmaker of all time. The story revolves around a petty gangster who contracts TB, and the doctor who attempts to treat him despite the gangster’s foolish pride.


Rashomon
In ancient Japan, a woman is raped and her husband killed. The film gives us four viewpoints of the incident – one for each defendant.
Don’t miss out!

This original UCSD-TV documentary explores the innovative and immersive combination of group courses, master classes, ensemble workshops, private lessons, jam sessions, and faculty concerts that make UC San Diego Jazz Camp such an unforgettable experience for students and faculty alike. Directed by UCSD-TV’s award-winning producer John Menier, the half-hour program chronicles the camp’s June 2009 session — its seventh annual edition and the first one to be held in UCSD’s pristine new music building. In addition to the broadcast premier, the program will be available for viewing and podcast downloading at http://www.ucsd.tv.

UC San Diego Jazz Camp, a five-day summer program operated by UC San Diego Extension, offers intermediate to advanced level musicians ages 14 to adult a unique journey into the diverse world of jazz, breaking down the boundaries between “inside” and “outside” and encouraging students to experience jazz as a broad spectrum of options for musical expression. The students work closely and creatively with an extraordinary faculty of leading jazz improvisers and educators, including alto saxophonist Charles McPherson, pianists Mike Wofford and Geoffrey Keezer, drummers Willie Jones III and Gerry Hemingway, and UCSD Music professors Anthony Davis, Mark Dresser, and David Borgo. More information is available at http://jazzcamp.ucsd.edu/.

Jazz Camp Director Dan Atkinson commented, “The UC San Diego Jazz Camp has become one of the leading summer jazz workshops in the country, giving the camp’s students a rare opportunity to study with some of the world’s leading jazz artists. We are very pleased to be able to share some of the excitement of the camp experience through this documentary program on UCSD-TV.”

Watch the Entire Program:

The award-winning program features La Jolla Symphony & Chorus’ North American premiere of Glass’ “Cello Concerto” and interviews with renowned cellist Wendy Sutter, conductor Steven Schick, and the composer himself.

UCSD-TV and La Jolla Symphony & Chorus have created an ongoing partnership to produce programs that showcase performances and behind-the-scenes interviews with the artists. Two new programs will debut on UCSD-TV in July, including Evan Ziporyn’s “Frog’s Eye” with Tijuana-based dance troupe Lux Boreal, and “Passion,” featuring Elgar’s “Cello Concerto” with guest cellist Maya Beiser. Broadcast information is available at www.ucsd.tv/lajollasymphony.

Watch the Entire Program: