The first performance will be at 3 p.m., with the second following at 7 p.m.

Sunday 11/08/2009: All day

University Park Campus Alfred Newman Recital Hall

Array

Gustavo Dudamel, the vibrant new music director for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducts one of Verdi’s greatest.

Gustavo Dudamel’s remarkable artistry and his unique ability to communicate and become one with an orchestra are only two of the characteristics that establish him as one of the leading figures in today’s music world. Join us in the spectacular Walt Disney Concert Hall as Dudamel conducts one of Verdi’s great works with the Los Angeles Master Chorale and featured artists Leah Crocetto, soprano; Ekaterina Gubanova, mezzo-soprano; Joseph Calleja, tenor; and John Relyea, bass.

This trip is for current USC students only. You must use the provided transportation to participate. Due to high demand, the tickets will be distributed on a lottery basis. One lottery entry per student will be allowed. The information entered must match a valid USC student ID. Students will be informed of their ticket status after the lottery closes.

Check-in for the event will begin at 11:30 a.m. on campus. Buses will depart at 12:15 p.m. and will return to campus at 5 p.m.

Lunch will be provided.

Sunday 11/08/2009: 12:15 PM - 5:00 PM

Walt Disney Concert Hall 111 South Grand Avenue Los Angeles CA 90012

Array

Winners in the Western regional finals go on to compete in the national semifinals and the grand national finals in New York City.

About The Met Auditions

Designed to discover promising young opera singers and assist in the development of their careers, The Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions are held annually in 15 regions of the United States and Canada. There are 45 districts within these regions, each providing an opportunity for talented singers to enter the auditions at the local level. The auditions are administered by National Council members and volunteers in each region.

Winners of the district auditions advance to their regional finals, where they compete to win a trip to New York to participate in the national semifinals, a competition held on the stage of The Metropolitan Opera. The semifinals are closed to the general public. Approximately 10 semifinalists will be selected as national finalists and will compete the following Sunday in a public concert, the Grand Finals Concert, accompanied by The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

The jury will award up to five Grand Winner awards of $15,000 each. The concert will be broadcast nationwide on The Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network. The remaining national finalists will receive $5,000 each, and those singers who were national semifinalists but who did not advance to the national finals will be given $1,500 to further their studies.

Many of the world’s foremost singers — including Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Thomas Hampson, Ben Heppner, Jessye Norman, Samuel Ramey, Frederica von Stade, Deborah Voigt and Dolora Zajick — have received awards from the National Council. Approximately 100 former auditioners appear annually in Metropolitan Opera productions.

Sunday 11/08/2009: 1:00 PM

University Park Campus Bovard Auditorium

Array

QD3 Entertainment and the Annenberg School present Dean Ernest J. Wilson III, communication and journalism professor Josh Kun and renowned artist Quincy Jones III for a special screening of the modern documentary Tha Carter, about Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., aka Lil Wayne.

The documentary, executive produced by Jones along with Jared Freeman, was directed by Adam Bhala Lough and produced by Lough and Josh Krause.

Wayne, an internationally known rapper whose most recent album went platinum in one week, has been said to be “the voice of his generation.” Tha Carter is “an intoxicating, cinematic journey into the thoughts and world of an extremely complicated man whose creative force is something to behold.” Following him all over the country and to Amsterdam, Lough mixes fly-on-the-wall footage of Lil Wayne in his hotel room and on his bus with artfully composed concert footage, capturing “one of the most inspired (and eccentric) musicians of modern America.”

The screening will be followed by a student-led discussion with Jones and will feature an opportunity for student blog commentaries on the QD3 Web site.

RSVP is required. To RSVP, click here.

Wednesday 11/11/2009: 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

University Park Campus Annenberg Auditorium

Array

Wednesday 11/11/2009: 7:30 PM

University Park Campus Alfred Newman Recital Hall

Array

Located in the intimate and casual setting of Ground Zero, USC Thornton’s Jazz Night series features a variety of student jazz ensembles, directed by some of the top names in the music industry. Styles range from classic New Orleans swing to up-tempo Bebop, from fusions of jazz, funk, and soul to the hippest modern jazz around the country.

Dates: 10/08/2009, 10/29/2009, 11/05/2009, 11/12/2009, 11/19/2009, 12/03/2009: 7:00 PM

University Park Campus Ground Zero Performance Cafe

Array

Acclaimed conductor Helmuth Rilling directs the USC Thornton Choral Artists in this unparalleled musical contribution.

Helmuth Rilling leads the USC Thornton Choral Artists in Bach’s Mass in B Minor. The work explores the meanings of faith, religion and spirituality through Bach’s emotional, mathematical, musical and structural treatment of the Latin text. Renowned sacred-music scholar Dr. Nick Strimple will lead a pre-concert lecture on the historical importance and relevance of this colossal work. 

Helmuth Rilling’s self-described credo is: “Music should startle people and reach deep down inside them, forcing them to reflect. It should never be merely ‘comfortable,’ never fossilized, never soothing.” Born in 1933 in Stuttgart, Mr. Rilling is a conductor, educator and ambassador for the music of Johann Sebastian Bach worldwide. He founded the Gächinger Kantorei and later the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, serving as the choir’s regular orchestral partner. In 1981, Mr. Rilling founded the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, which was dedicated to furthering the music of J.S. Bach through public concerts, master classes, symposia and residencies throughout the world. Mr. Rilling is dedicated to encouraging young musicians; in 2001, he founded the Festivalensemble Stuttgart, consisting of a choir and orchestra that drew talented young musicians from 25 different countries. Furthering this tradition of excellence, the USC Thornton Choral Artists greatly anticipate the chance to perform with one of the world’s great conductors.

6:30 p.m. Pre-concert lecture by Dr. Nick Strimple
7:30 p.m. Concert

Organized by the USC Thornton School of Music

Friday 11/13/2009: 7:30 PM

University Park Campus Bovard Auditorium

Array

The program, cleverly united by the number 125, will also include early music and jazz works.

Program

Anonymous (Arr. Adam Gilbert), Psalm 125, Sung to a Letany
Rachelle Fox, soprano
Adam Gilbert, recorder
Rotem Gilbert, recorder
Scott Shubeck, chitaronne
Jason Yoshida, theorbo
 
Franz Schubert, Quartet in Eb (Opus Posthumous 125, No. 1)                             
Allegro moderato                                                                           
Scherzo. Prestissimo
Adagio
Allegro
Peter Marsh, violin
Armen Der Kevorkian, violin
John Stulz, viola
Alexander Suleiman, cello
 
Fryderyk Chopin, Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp minor (B. 125)                                 
Giorgi Latsabidze, piano
 
Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 in D minor (Op. 125)                                    
Transcribed for two pianos by Franz Liszt (S.657)
II. Scherzo: Molto Vivace
Bernadene Blaha and Kevin Fitz-Gerald, duo-pianists
 
Intermission
 
Mauro Giuliani, Six Irish National Airs, with Variations for Guitar or Lyre Solo (Op. 125)   
Eveleen’s Bower                                                                                               
The Last Rose of Summer
Miss Baily
Robin Adair
My Lodging Is on the Cold Ground
Gary Owen
Brian Head, James Smith and Scott Tennant, guitar soloists
 
Bud Powell, Bud’s Bubble
Jerome Kern, All The Things You Are
Alan Pasqua, piano
Darek Oles, bass
Peter Erskine, drums

Sunday 11/15/2009: 4:00 PM

University Park Campus Alfred Newman Recital Hall

Array

Donald Crockett, music director

A special evening in honor of Steven Stucky, resident composer with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for more than 20 years. The program will include Stucky's signature works for new music ensemble, Boston Fancies and Ad Parnassum.

Tuesday 11/17/2009: 7:30 PM

University Park Campus Alfred Newman Recital Hall

Array

Wednesday 11/18/2009: 7:30 PM

University Park Campus Alfred Newman Recital Hall

Array

In this comedic chamber opera, the Thornton Opera takes an affectionate look at a cast of characters in a small English town.

The townsfolk struggle to pull off their annual May Festival, befuddled by the changing mores of their young people.   

Ken Cazan, resident stage director
Brent McMunn, conductor

November 19, 20 and 21, 8 p.m.
November 22, 2 p.m.

Daily: Thursday 11/19/2009 - Sunday 11/22/2009; All day

University Park Campus Bing Theatre

Array

Find out how Native American students see their world and yours at a screening featuring the next generation of filmmakers.

Did you know that Los Angeles has the second-largest concentration of Native Americans of any U.S. city? Or that USC sits on what was once Native American land?

Presented as the opening night of the 2009 L.A. Skins Fest, this event will feature films made by Native youth from the United States, Canada and Mexico. Produced by Native high school, undergraduate and graduate students, the films range from serious documentaries to animated comedies, and offer great insight into today’s Native American youth. The works explore the students’ own environments and cultures while challenging them to draw difficult conclusions about who they are and where they come from.

The screenings will be followed by a discussion with the filmmakers and festival organizers Ian Skorodin and Patricia Gomes (USC, class of 2011) and a reception with live Native music.

Organized by John Carlos Rowe (English and American Studies and Ethnicity). Co-sponsored by the 2009 L.A. Skins Fest and USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and Department of American Studies and Ethnicity.

Friday 11/20/2009: 7:00 PM

University Park Campus Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre Frank Sinatra Hall

Array

Latsabidze has pursued an ambitious performance schedule, appearing in master classes and concert performances throughout Eastern Europe, Asia, South America and the United States. While at the Tbilisi State Conservatoire, and following an audition with noted Georgian conductor Jansug Kakhidze (nicknamed "the Slavic Karajan"), Latsabidze was resident soloist at the Tbilisi Center for Music and Culture from 2000 through 2003, performing an extensive series of works for both solo piano and piano with orchestra. During this period, he was recognized for giving an exceptional performance of the 24 Etudes of Chopin in Tbilisi to an enthusiastic audience. In 2005, Latsabidze gave solo concerts throughout Austria, following which Governor Franz Voves of Styria, Austria, invited him to perform a series of private salon concerts in the historic and famous Schloss Eggenberg, Graz. In additional subsequent appearances in Austria, Latsabidze performed Beethoven's Emperor Concerto with orchestras in Vienna, Salzburg and Lienz. In June 2008, he performed all 12 Transcendental Etudes of Liszt in Hawaii (Honolulu Convention Center); shortly thereafter he repeated the same program in Nice, France, with the latter performance broadcast live on one of the leading music channels in Europe.

This concert will be filmed by Onward Entertainment for an upcoming DVD.

Friday 11/20/2009: 8:00 PM

University Park Campus Alfred Newman Recital Hall

Array

Daily: Monday 11/30/2009 - Wednesday 12/02/2009; 5:30 PM - 12:00 AM

University Park Campus Alfred Newman Recital Hall

Array

The program will feature carols and tunes from around the world. The festivities will culminate in memorable arrangements of Ding! Dong! Merrily on High; Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella; and O Holy Night! — sung by the combined choirs of the USC Thornton School with brass, piano four-hands, and percussion.

Wednesday 12/02/2009: 7:30 PM

University Park Campus Bovard Auditorium

Array

Thursday 12/03/2009: 8:00 PM

University Park Campus Alfred Newman Recital Hall

Array

The performance will take advantage of the beautiful acoustics of St. John's Episcopal Church, just beyond USC's main campus.

Friday 12/04/2009: 7:30 PM

St. John's Episcopal Church 514 West Adams Boulevard Los Angeles CA 90007

Array

The Thornton Baroque Sinfonia presents an evening of sacred music from 17th century Italy.

Friday 12/04/2009: 8:00 PM

University Park Campus Alfred Newman Recital Hall

Array

For more information, please call the Thornton Development Office at (213) 740-6474 or visit www.usc.edu/music/giving.

Friday 12/11/2009: 7:30 PM

Millennium Biltmore Hotel 506 South Grand Avenue Los Angeles CA 90071

Array

Sunday 12/13/2009: 7:00 PM

University Park Campus Alfred Newman Recital Hall

Array

Explore the music of the African diaspora in this entertaining, informative evening of music and conversation.

Scholars, students and celebrity guests will come together to present the historical evolution of bebop, doo-wop and hip-hop, three genres that emerged from the black experience.

Take a musical journey as students perform compositions from the three genres, including songs by the fathers of bebop, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie; the vocal-based R&B stylings of doo-wop; and contemporary selections of hip-hop.

Discussions will be interspersed throughout the night, exploring the unique and powerful history of these musical traditions. The evening will culminate in a rousing performance of an original composition incorporating aspects of all three genres.

Thursday 01/21/2010: 7:00 PM

University Park Campus Bovard Auditorium

Array

The USC arts schools offer an exciting array of hands-on workshops in art, photography, theater, dance, music, architecture and film.

In response to popular demand, the USC arts schools team up once again to present a daylong festival, an exciting opportunity to get your hands dirty with the arts. Learn how to salsa dance, make a sculpture, play guitar or take architectural photos. Join us, get your hands dirty, and experience the creativity and thrill of making art!

Organized by the USC arts schools

Saturday 01/30/2010: All day

University Park Campus

Array

In a phenomenal show, America’s most acclaimed tap dancer reveals the essence of tap.

The trailblazing Savion Glover will present Bare Soundz, “a remarkable explosion of steel on wood” (The Washington Post). Glover and two additional dancers perform without musical accompaniment; the dancers themselves become the musicians, creating a thrilling and hard-hitting performance of music through dance.

Savion Glover is a Tony-winning winner, hoofer, choreographer and producer who has danced on stages throughout the world. His numerous credits include the Broadway shows The Tap Dance Kid; Black and Blue; Jelly’s Last Jam; and Bring in ’da Noise, Bring in ’da Funk, and the films Tap with Gregory Hines and Sammy Davis Jr.; Bamboozled by Spike Lee; and Happy Feet, an Academy Award winner choreographed by Glover.

Tuesday 02/23/2010: 7:30 PM

University Park Campus Bovard Auditorium

Array

Gritty short films, music videos and docs from Kourtrajmé Productions, a Paris-based collective of emerging visual artists, filmmakers, actors and musicians.

“Beautiful women, ugly illegal immigrants, Romanian sneaker pimps, coked-up fashion babes, down-and-out thugs eating shish kebab at 3 a.m. Welcome to our Paris.” — Kourtrajmé Productions, as quoted in Anthem magazine

Kourtrajmé Productions is a collective of emerging French and Francophone visual artists, filmmakers, actors and musicians. The brainchild of internationally acclaimed directors Mathieu Kassovitz and Vincent Cassel, this production house and artist collective has garnered increasing attention and acclaim after getting millions of hits on online sites like Dailymotion and YouTube. Founded by Kim Chapiron, Romain Gavras and Toumani Sangaré, Kourtrajmé produces playful innovations and cutting interventions in popular culture and society that represent the cultural dreams, lives and crises of transnational urban and peri-urban French youth today.

This is a chance to explore the short films, music videos and documentaries that represent what legendary French filmmaker Chris Marker calls a “nouvelle nouvelle vague” of French cinema. Directors from the collective, including Ladj Ly and Toumani Sangaré, will be on hand to answer questions and discuss the group’s history and work.

Organized by Edwin Hill (French and Comparative Literature). Co-sponsored by the Department of French and Italian and French Cultural Services, Los Angeles.

Friday 03/05/2010: 6:00 PM

University Park Campus School of Cinematic Arts, Room 108

Array

A satellite broadcast of The Metropolitan Opera’s unforgettable new production of Hamlet, starring Simon Keenlyside and Natalie Dessay.

This event is part of an ongoing series of broadcasts presented in spectacular HD digital projection and 5.1 surround sound.

Simon Keenlyside and Natalie Dessay bring their extraordinary acting and singing skills to two of the Bard’s most unforgettable characters in this new production of Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet. For the role of Ophelia, the French composer created an extended mad scene that is among the greatest in opera.

Conducted by Louis Langrée. Presented in French with English subtitles.

The opera will be preceded by a discussion hosted by the USC Thornton School of Music.

The opera is presented as a rebroadcast of a live performance taking place at The Metropolitan Opera in New York at 10 a.m. that day.

Organized by the USC School of Cinematic Arts in association with The Metropolitan Opera.

Saturday 03/27/2010: 12:00 PM

University Park Campus Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre Frank Sinatra Hall

Array

David Schweizer directs a darkly satiric musical based on Melville’s last novel, The Confidence-Man.

The richly imaginative work of the great American novelist Herman Melville has inspired numerous contemporary adaptations, from the opera of Benjamin Britten to the performance art of Laurie Anderson. At this event, USC students will perform a work-in-progress by USC professor Joseph Boone and composer Benjamin Boone, based on Melville’s The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade. This tale unfolds on a Mississippi riverboat on All Fools’ Day, just before the War Between the States threatens to explode and expose the empty promises that lie at the heart of the American Dream.

The play will be directed by David Schweizer, who has won widespread acclaim for his productions in New York City and Los Angeles.

Organized by Joseph Boone (English)

Related Event
September 10-11, 7 p.m. And God Created Great Whales. Rinde Eckert reprises his 2000 Obie Award–winning performance as a monomaniacal composer desperately attempting to complete an opera based on Melville’s Moby-Dick.

Thursday 04/01/2010: 7:00 PM

24th Street Theatre 1117 West 24th Street Los Angeles CA 90007

Array

Scholars, musicians and musicologists describe how Wagner's Ring Cycle influences the way we think, feel and imagine the 21st century world.

How have The Ring themes and symbols permeated literature, philosophy, psychology, and even movies and cartoons? A panel of USC scholars, musicians and musicologists takes on the idea of the hero, violence and the cult of masculinity, "the mythic," the development of fascist theories (and governments), the power of the unconscious, the allure of death, and the mob.

No singing required. Mind-opening insights guaranteed.

The panel will be preceded at 6:30 p.m. by a USC Master of Liberal Studies Program admissions open house.

Moderator

• James R. Kincaid, USC Aerol Arnold Professor of English

Speakers

• Judith Halberstam, USC professor of English, American Studies and Ethnicity, and Gender Studies
• Edwin McCann, USC professor of Philosophy
• John P. Nuckols, vice president, Advancement, L.A. Opera
• Paul Stein, violinist, Los Angeles Philharmonic
  

Speakers are subject to change.

Registration will open in Spring 2010.

Tuesday 04/06/2010: 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM

University Park Campus

Array

A dynamic multimedia presentation explores the exciting possibilities for using art and technology to explore humanity and create community.

The extraordinary work of internationally acclaimed electronic artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is engaging, provocative and beautiful. Born in Mexico City and currently living in Montreal, Lozano-Hemmer develops large-scale interactive installations in public space, usually deploying new technologies and custom-made physical interfaces. Using robotics, projections, sound, Internet and cell phone links, sensors and other devices, his installations aim to provide, in his words, “temporary anti-monuments for alien agency.” His kinetic sculpture, responsive environments, video installations and photography have been shown in more than 30 countries, and his work has been commissioned for such events as the United Nations’ World Summit of Cities in Lyon (2003), the celebration of the expansion of the European Union in Dublin (2004), the 40th anniversary of the Tlatelolco student massacre in Mexico City (2008), and the Vancouver Olympics (2010).

In this multimedia event, Lozano-Hemmer will discuss his award-winning work.

Organized by Visions and Voices. Co-sponsored by the USC Fisher Museum of Art and the USC Roski School of Fine Arts.

Wednesday 04/14/2010: 7:00 PM

University Park Campus Bovard Auditorium

Array

Preeminent conductor James Conlon explores Wagner’s controversial personality in relation to bigotry, racism and prejudice.

James Conlon, the music director of L.A. Opera, will look at these issues as they relate to Wagner’s time and ours. The event will be presented in conjunction with the USC Thornton production of the Wagner opera Das Liebesverbot.

James Conlon has cultivated a vast symphonic, operatic and choral repertoire and has developed enduring relationships with the world’s most prestigious symphony orchestras and opera houses. Since his New York Philharmonic debut in 1974, Conlon has appeared as a guest conductor with virtually every major North American and European orchestra and has frequently been a guest conductor at the Metropolitan Opera. In addition to serving as the music director of L.A. Opera, he is the music director of the Ravinia Festival (the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra) and the Cincinnati May Festival.

In an effort to raise awareness of the significance of works of composers whose lives and compositions were suppressed by the Nazi regime, Conlon has also been devoted to extensive programming of this music in North America and Europe. At both the Ravinia Festival and the L.A. Opera, he continues to program works by these composers, including Alexander von Zemlinsky, Viktor Ullmann, Pavel Haas, Kurt Weill, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Erwin Schulhoff and Ernest Krenek.

In 2009, Conlon won two Grammy Awards (Best Classical Recording and Best Opera Album) for conducting L.A. Opera’s production of Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. During the 2009–10 season at the L.A. Opera, Mr. Conlon will conduct Wagner’s Ring cycle, beginning this season with the first two installments of the cycle, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre. It will be Conlon’s first time conducting this work in the United States.

Tuesday 04/20/2010: 7:00 PM

University Park Campus Bing Theatre

Array

An exciting evening of dance by the award-winning School of Theatre Repertory Dance Company.

Daily: Thursday 04/29/2010 - Friday 04/30/2010; 7:00 PM

University Park Campus Bing Theatre

Array