UC San Diego Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor, composer Lei Liang has been collaborating with Scripps oceanographers John Hildebrand and Joshua Jones in exploring the sound of the Chukchi Sea in the Arctic—one of the most inaccessible places to humans on earth. The resulting composition, Six Seasons, combines the sound of the ambient environment (ice, waves, wind), its inhabitants (beluga whales, bowhead whales, bearded seals)—captured by hydrophones deployed at the sea floor—and creative response from one of the world’s leading contemporary music string quartets, Mivos Quartet.
Venue: Prebys Experimental Theater
Inheritance
Inheritance is a timely multimedia chamber opera about gun violence in America, based on the true story of Sarah Winchester, heir to the Winchester rifle fortune. An eccentric widow self-imprisoned in her labyrinthine mansion, Winchester was haunted by the spirits of the thousands killed by Winchester weapons.
With music by Lei Liang and libretto by Matt Donovan, Inheritance interweaves Winchester’s story with events from contemporary American life, asking complex questions about complicity, atonement, and gun violence in our society. Led by music director Steven Schick and directed by Cara Consilvio, the performance also features Grammy Award–winning soprano Susan Narucki.