The Beach Is Aglow with Public Art Glow Returns to Santa Monica Page 3
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members guide The beach is aglow with public art Glow returns to Santa Monica page 3 from the president | page 2 Colburn School honors KUSC music shelf | page 5 Enchanting work from Nigel Hess AUGUST 2013 on the air | page 6 Weekend programming highlights from the president A Musical Honor for KUSC Classical KUSC Members Guide is published This past June, the Colburn School of monthly by the University of Southern Performing Arts (CSPA) honored KUSC at its Honors Recital. California, University Communications, The Colburn School, just across the street from Walt Disney 3434 S. Grand Ave., CAL 140 Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles, is an open-enroll- Los Angeles, CA 90089-2818 ment school that serves students of all ages with classes in music, drama, and early childhood arts education. President Brenda Barnes At the beginning of the recital, President and CEO Sel Vice President | Program Director Bill Lueth Kardan presented me with a beautiful plaque recognizing General Manager Eric DeWeese KUSC for “inspiring audiences and furthering classical mu- Director of Corporate Affairs Abe Shefa sic in Southern California and across the nation.” I respond- Executive Producer Gail Eichenthal ed that the Colburn School is doing incredibly important classical kusc members guide work helping young people in elementary school, junior Executive Editor Gail Eichenthal high, and high school make the most of their artistic talent. Managing Editor Kelsey McConnell When young people find an activity that they love Features Editor Sheila Tepper and at which they excel, they learn discipline, teamwork, Copy Editor John Foley Hindman leadership, and the rewards that come from hard work and Staff Photographer Diane Alancraig diligent effort. I saw that in practice when I sat down to Graphic Designer Stacey Torii enjoy the program. happy birthday Young people from Agoura Hills, Glendale, Rowland august birthdays Heights, San Gabriel, Irvine, Pasadena, and Los Angeles performed and rewarded the efforts of the parents who go Kathleen Battle to great lengths to get them to and from the Colburn School Leonard Bernstein on a regular basis. These students made their parents and Claude Debussy teachers proud with their technique and artistry, and we fea- Lukas Foss tured the concert as a podcast on our website to give others Alexander Glazunov the opportunity to hear these talented young musicians. Jacques Ibert Many of these young people will go on to some of this country’s greatest music schools, such as the USC Thornton Ernst Krenek School of Music. Some of them will undoubtedly end up Johann Pachelbel playing in symphony orchestras that we feature on KUSC, Itzhak Perlman and some may even be concert artists performing around William Schuman the world. Karlheinz Stockhausen But no matter what paths they take in the future, the Maxim Vengerov hard work they are doing now to excel in music will serve Franz Welser-Möst them well, as it has for many of the members of the KUSC staff, including me. I am very grateful to the Colburn School cover for honoring KUSC at such an inspiring event, and I look for- Glow 2013 featured ward to following the careers of the impressive musicians artist Janet featured in the recital. Echelman’s 1.26 Sculpture Project at Brenda Barnes the Biennial of the Americas photo courtesy | 2 classical kusc members guide | august 2013 Peter Vanderwarker cover story Santa Monica Basks in Glow Global artists leave the studio and bring art to the beach for a night of discovery by Marc Pally Like the iconic Southern California grunion, Glow comes to the shores of Santa Monica Beach for but a brief moment—one night, to be exact—this year on September 28. An all- night festival of the arts, Glow invites the public to experience that revered stretch of beach through the collective lens of 15 original installations and performances. Inspired by the famous Nuit Blanche (“White Night”—or “Sleepless Night”) fest in Paris, and produced by the City of Santa Monica, Glow was the first “nuit blanche” event in the U.S. to present all specifically commissioned artworks. Moreover, these works are shown against the natural splendor of Santa Monica Beach—and the Pacific Ocean beyond—thus embodying one of the most treasured benefits of living in Los Angeles: easy access to world-class culture in an exquisite natural setting. The first Glow (July 2008) was wildly successful, attracting approximately 250,000 people and making it one of the best-attended one-day art events in California history. The second Glow (September 2010) employed a more arts-specific marketing approach that resulted in a smaller audience—a more manageable 150,000—that still represented a huge number for such a limited time period and certainly a larger attendance than many multi-month museum and gallery exhibitions. One of Glow’s most notable aspects is its focus on site-specific photo Usman Haque’s works, a genre that has developed in the visual arts over the past 50 Primal Source, a forty- years. Prominent practitioners have ranged from Robert Irwin and foot high water-wall James Turrell and their ephemeral light pieces to Robert Smithson created for the inaugural and Michael Heizer (and Turrell as well) with their monumental earth Glow in 2008 works. The mural tradition in Los Angeles is another example of photo courtesy | Usman Haque visit us at kusc.org 3 continued from page 3 artists creating work outside the studio; in and for specific public spaces. Glow asks artists to make art that takes advantage of the opportunities offered by its setting—the sand and the ocean, and the enormous audience in attendance. Many Glow artworks involve advanced technology and invite the audience to participate in one form or another. Past Glows have produced some extraordinary large-scale works. In 2008 British architect-artist Usman Haque realized Primal Source, for which a forty- foot high water-wall was created on the beach (requiring a 200-foot-long temporary reservoir of fresh water). A above the beach. The sand below the sculpture similarly ambitious—and participatory— will be shaped into a complementary form— project was Sandbox, created by Mexican- negative to the nets’ positive, and scooped out Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer for by earth-moving equipment. Dramatic lighting Glow 2010. Sandbox invited the audience will accentuate the sculpture as it shifts and into the artwork, and projected images of re-forms itself in response to the wind. Natural visitors from one area to another, creating sounds captured from the adjacent ocean will miniature and giant scaled figures with further enhance the experience of a transparent which the “live” audience engaged directly enclosure. on the beach. Paris-based artist Mathieu Briand’s Glow 2013 features one project each by installation 6:43 PM will take place on a large 15 artists, spread along a three-quarter-mile expanse of beach north of the pier. Here, visitors stretch of beach adjacent to the historic will enter a tunnel in the sand where they will Santa Monica Pier—from Crescent Bay Park come upon a “chamber of discovery.” A ring of on the south to just beyond the parking lot fire will burn above the sunken space, serving as north of the Pier. One piece will be sited in a sort of sentinel, an elemental nod to the power Palisades Park near the Pier entrance, two of the natural setting on the edge of the Pacific on the Pier itself, one in Crescent Bay Park, Ocean. Named for the exact time the sun sets on and all others on the beach. Each of the that day, the work will also serve as the space two Glows thus far has featured one major for two performances by the CalArts Javanese commission, and this year it is by Janet Gamelan ensemble under the direction of Djoko Echelman, whose enormous suspended Walujo. The performances have been brought transparent sculptures have been exhibited to Glow by one of its network partners, Cal Arts internationally to great acclaim. Echelman’s Community Arts Program (CAPS). project, which is located near the terminus Glow will turn of Bay Street, involves several custom- both the historic photo made nets, each approximately 100 feet in Santa Monica The historic Santa Monica diameter, that will be configured together Carousel and the Carousel will become The in a geometric/biomorphic form suspended Pacific Wheel (the Rest Is Noise: A Carousel Ride Through the 20th Century photo courtesy | Marc Pally 4 classical kusc members guide | august 2013 Santa Monica Basks in Glow world’s largest solar-powered Ferris wheel) into system on the Ferris wheel, visible for miles works of art. The Rest Is Noise: A Carousel Ride along the beach. Through the 20th Century—which was conceived Before visiting Glow, visitors should visit by Patrick Scott and produced by Glow’s network www.glowsantamonica.org. In addition to a partner Jacaranda, Music at the Edge—invites map of the 15 works—as well as information audience participants to ride the carousel while on dining, parking, transportation, surrounded by 24 speakers, each of which will bike valet locations, and other visitor broadcast a major piece of 20th-century music, amenities—there are downloadable apps from Mahler to Adams. Riders will hear 12-second custom-made by several Glow artists clips of musical selections as they revolve, with as integral parts of their projects. Also the experience of movement intensified by 100 available for download is an audio guide years of music condensed into five minutes. to Glow produced by KCRW that includes Victoria Vesna’s project, Octopus Mandala interviews with every artist along with a Glow (OMG!), will invite riders in the Pacific short musical selection.