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ArtPower to traverse wide world of music, dance and much more in 15th season at UCSD

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ArtPower will celebrate its 15th anniversary — beginning this fall — with one of the most diverse lineups in the history of this proudly diverse music, dance, spoken-word and multimedia performance series.

The 2018-19 season at the University of California at San Diego’s La Jolla campus will feature more than two dozen performances covering a dizzying array of creative approaches and genres.

The featured artists hail from across the United States and as far as China, Mali, Russia, France, Cuba, Israel and England. Fourteen of the performers will make their San Diego area debuts, while 16 will appear here under the auspices of ArtPower for the first time.

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The lineup ranges from Grammy Award-winning guitar master Bill Frisell and the Beijing Dance Theater to Cape Verdean vocal star Maria de Barros and the Ariel String Quartet, which will conclude ArtPower’s five-part chamber music series by performing the first part of a Beethoven cycle that they will conclude here next year.

Among those artists making their debuts will be Russia’s Hermitage Piano Trio, rising jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold, Cuban percussion ace Pedrito Martinez and choreographer David Roussève — who in 2015 and 2016 was the interim dean of the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture — and his REALITY dance troupe.

Also making his ArtPower debut will be cellist Matt Haimovitz. He is teaming with Indian-American pianist Vijay Iyer for a concert that will mix Iyer’s genre-shredding original compositions with pieces by everyone from Bach and Billy Strayhorn to Ravi Shankar and John McLaughlin.

Social commentary through art

At least a few of the performances in the upcoming season will offer social commentary about the world in general and the state of this nation specifically.

One of them is the premiere of “Winchester,” a multimedia chamber opera about gun violence that features music by Lei Liang and a libretto by Matt Donovan. Steven Schick will serve as its music director while soprano Susan Narucki, the driving force behind “Winchester,” will be the featured singer. (Liang, Schick and Narucki are all professors at UCSD.)

Then there’s performance-artist and rapper Dahlak Brathwaite’s one-man “Spiritrials,” which addresses how addiction and religion intersect with the American legal system and the realities of being a young black man in America.

And, in the case of the vital African and African-American artists who will perform — from the Zimbabwean Afro-fusion band Mokoomba to New Orleans-based multi-instrumentalist Leyla McCalla — cultural crosscurrents that connect the past and present will be explored through music.

“Our mission is to enrich the cultural landscape of the campus and the San Diego community with artists from all over the world, and — in particular — artists who are pushing boundaries and allowing us to think of our lives through different lenses and cultures,” said Molly Clark, Art Power associate director of artistic planning and education.

“Especially in the last few years, we’ve made it a goal to represent the under-represented on stage. We do that to make the general public aware of cultures different from their own and also to connect with students who don’t see themselves represented.

“In recent years, UCSD has really made an effort to connect more with African-American and Latino students, and I think ArtPower has done a good job in following the lead of the university in making feel they are an important part of this community.”

Clark’s comments were seconded by ArtPower Executive Director Jordan Peimer, who noted the series’ multi-pronged goals. From 1996 to 2014, he was the vice president and director of public programs at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles

“What defines our work at ArtPower,” Peimer said, “is a commitment to introducing new artists to San Diego and artists who are constantly pushing their art forms, and — of course — to arts education.

“We are constantly working to expand the presence of the university and are one of the most prominent indications of its dedication to the arts in community.”

Attendance has jumped

The 2017-18 ArtPower season drew 8,100 attendees to 22 events. That’s a significant jump from the 6,000 people who attended the 2016-17’s 27 performances.

This increase is doubly impressive given the fact that part of ArtPower’s mandate is its focus on vibrant performers who, in many cases, are not known to a mainstream audience.

“The majority of artists we bring here are artists the students have not heard of before, but I think the students have plenty of opportunities to go see artists they know,” said Clark, who noted that 27 percent of the past season’s attendees were UCSD students. That is the highest student attendance for arts programming at any of the UC campuses.

“Part of our job is to expose them, and the greater San Diego audience, to new artists,” Clark continued. “Luckily, the students are starting to trust us. Once they’ve been to one ArtPower event, they tend to return. And we try to find ways to encourage people who attend our jazz series to attend our global music series, and vice versa. We look at artists who have genre crossover appeal.”

Clark and Peimer credit the increased student interest to the work done by ArtPower Associate Director of Marketing and Communications Joanna Szu, who oversees four assistants and 10 unpaid student interns.

Whenever possible, visiting ArtPower performers conduct master classes and workshops at UCSD during the day. Szu and her interns promote ArtPower events in person on campus and via social media. While the students do not book the artists, their responses to the performances provide valuable insights.

“We definitely get feedback from them after each performance,” Szu said.

“Either formally or informally, we debrief with them about how they experienced each performance, which becomes beneficial for us as we work forward.”

2018-19 ArtPower season

When: Oct. 10 to May 15

Where: All events take place at venues on the UC San Diego campus, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla

Tickets: Season subscription packages go on sale Monday. Single tickets go on sale July 23 at the UC San Diego Box Office in Price Center Plaza, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday-Friday and online and by phone.

Phone: (858) 534-8497

Online: artpower.ucsd.edu

Oct. 10: Gabriel Kahane, “8980: Book of Travelers,” The Loft@UCSD (8 p.m.; $18-$30)

Oct. 12: Keyon Harrold, The Loft (8 p.m.; $18-$30)

Oct. 19: Braxton Cook, The Loft (8 p.m.; $18-$30)

Oct. 24, Oct. 26 and Oct. 27: “Inheritance,” a chamber opera by Lei Liang and Matt Donovan. Conrad Prebys Music Center Experimental Theater (7 p.m.; $25)

Nov. 9: David Roussève & REALITY, “Halfway to Dawn,” Mandeville Auditorium (8 p.m.; $25-$43)

Nov. 14: Maria de Barros, The Loft (8 p.m.; $15-$25)

Nov. 16: Quatuor Modigliani, Conrad Prebys Concert Hall (8 p.m.; $40-$54)

Nov. 29: Orkesta Mendoza, Price Center East Ballroom (8 p.m.; $30)

Jan. 10: Somi, The Loft (8 p.m.; $18-$30)

Jan. 18: Ariel Quartet, Beethoven Cycle, Part 1, Conrad Prebys Concert Hall (8 p.m.; $40-$54)

Jan. 23: Bill Frisell, “When You Wish Upon a Star,” Price Center East Ballroom (8 p.m.; $30)

Jan. 30: Beijing Dance Theater, Mandeville Auditorium (8 p.m.; $25-$43)

Feb. 1: Hermitage Piano Trio, Conrad Prebys Concert Hall (8 p.m.; $40-$54)

Feb. 5: Leyla McCalla, The Loft (8 p.m.; $18-$30)

Feb. 12: Msaki and the Golden Circle, The Loft (8 p.m.; $15-$25)

Feb. 22: Manual Cinema, “No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks,” Mandeville Auditorium (8 p.m.; $15-$25)

Feb. 26: Habib Koité & Bassekou Kouyate, Price Center East Ballroom (8 p.m.; $25)

Feb. 28: Ephrat Asherie Dance, Mandeville Auditorium (8 p.m.; $25-$43)

March 6: Sammy Miller and the Congregation, The Loft (8 p.m.; $18-$30)

March 7: Vijay Iyer & Matt Haimovitz, Conrad Prebys Concert Hall (8 p.m.; $45-$59)

March 13: Alfredo Rodríguez & Pedrito Martinez, The Loft (8 p.m.; $18-$30)

April 24: Mokoomba, Price Center East Ballroom (8 p.m.; $25)

April 26: St. Lawrence String Quartet, with Stephen Prutsman, Conrad Prebys Concert Hall (8 p.m.; $40-$54)

May 9: Dahlak Brathwaite, “Spiritrials,” Price Center East Ballroom (8 p.m.; $25)

May 15: Dorrance Dance, “ETM: Double Down,” Mandeville Auditorium (8 p.m.; $25-$43)

george.varga@sduniontribune.com

Twitter @georgevarga

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