An upcoming concert series organized by the University of California, Santa Cruz Music Department embodies the theme of trans-cultural identity through both experimental and traditional music. Beginning on April 18 at the UC Santa Cruz campus, the concerts feature a combination performances by graduate students and professional working musicians.
Organized by four leading music professors: Russell Rodriguez, Ben Leeds Carson, Matthew Schumaker, and James Gordon Williams, April in Santa Cruz displays the excellence behind music making at UC Santa Cruz. Each performance thrives on collaboration and a sense of community building. “We realized that many of our projects were coalescing around thoughtful, and performance-driven trans-cultural practices, and hatched the idea of connecting them,” says Carson. “Recognizing this confluence of exciting work, all of us began to think together about how we wanted to connect, collaborate, and present, in what will be a really unique and celebratory series of concerts.”
The professors organized the first and third concerts through collaboration with graduate students, and Carson will be performing on April 25. The second concert was organized and mostly composed by Stephanie Valadez, a Ph.D. student in Cross-Cultural Musicology, with the help of Rodriguez whom she formed the Mecate ensemble with. “I regard our students as delightfully humble and brilliant at the same time,” says Carson.
Other graduate composers and performers include Michael Fleming, Forrest Balman, Siamak Barghi, Nina Barzegar, Keshav Batish, Pierre Eghdami, Dohyun Jeon, Maisha Lani, Arya Tavallaei. “It’s about how the kaleidoscopic variety of our music department is going to be on display,” says Schumaker. “We’re going to show so many wonderful sides of what we do here across these concerts.”
April in Santa Cruz embodies the Arts Divisions focus on diversity in an increasingly hostile climate. Many performers are international, and a variety of identities and experiences will be represented. “Taking in the global perspective is one thing that the UC Santa Cruz Music Department has done well for decades now,” says Schumaker. “It’s important that we continue to uphold that and bring that into the future.”
Concerts will go beyond traditional ideas of music, bringing in technology for new and immersive experiences. This was done, in part, with the help of UC Santa Cruz’s new 15-speaker spatial audio and immersive sound system, part of many new renovations in the electronic music studios here made possible, in part, through generous donations from Universal Audio. One composition by Balman allows audiences to see the score on their phone and participate if they want. Another by Fleming uses a program that hears his playing and creates sounds and music in response.
This innovative period of music making allows students and community members to experience new and traditional music they can’t get anywhere else. April in Santa Cruz is free and open to the public, and includes options for the whole family.
Concert 1
April 18, 2025 – 7:30
Meyer Drive,
Santa Cruz, Calif. 95064
The opening concerts most directly emphasizes the outstanding work coming out of the Music Department. There will be a combination of performances from graduate students and faculty including Ashwin Batish and Keshav Batish. Limited seating will be available, and space is first come first serve.
It will be “ambulatory,” moving between the physical spaces that Western concert traditions reify and ceremonialize, and spilling out into other architectural spaces. A work explores the acoustics of the khaen, a bamboo mouth organ with origins in Thai and Laotian cultures. Another blends a live instrumental soloist with electronic sound and video projections to create a rich and enveloping work.
Concert 2
April 19, 2025 – 6:00 PM
Music Center Recital Hall
400 McHenry Road
Santa Cruz, Calif. 95064
Tenanan was organized Valadez as an interdisciplinary performance that incorporates spoken word, dance, and more. It will be performed by the Mecate Ensemble, an on-campus group founded by Valadez and Russell Rodriguez, and assistant professor of music, focused on Latin music.
Valadez drew on her experience to craft a semi-autobiographical look that explores themes of immigrant life, absent parents and gender violence. The performance is open to the public. Tenanan is scheduled at an earlier start time than other concerts to accommodate for bedtimes, making it welcoming for the whole family.
Concert 3
April 25, 2025 – 7:30 PM
Music Center Recital Hall
400 McHenry Road
Santa Cruz, Calif. 95064
April 25 the concert will present a range of duos, trios, and quartets, to be played by combinations among four musicians on campus. They are joined by Charlton Lee and Kathryn Bates, two members of the transculturally focused San Francisco-based Del Sol Quartet, whose decade-old performing careers have developed an international reputation for collaboration with traditional Central Asian instrumentalists, among others.
Other artists will explore Mesopotamian and Persian antiquity in various ways. Their collaboration is informed by mixtures of Korean, Central Asian, and Western practices.