David Byrne’s “American Utopia” keeps listeners on their toes right from the first minute of the album. Wistful piano melodies begin the first song before delving into hard industrial beats, giving listeners a taste of how Byrne turns musical norms on their heads throughout the album. Read more...
Photo: (Courtesy of Nonesuch Records)
This article was updated March 8 at 10:41 p.m. Lee Tusman and Campbell Watson will turn a snowstorm into electronic music at their upcoming performance. Tusman and Watson will perform Saturday evening at the Ace Hotel in New York City. Read more...
Photo: (Sarah Goldacker/Daily Bruin)
Two bright red Chinese dragon figures, rescued from dumpsters by a staff member, will come to life Tuesday night in a performance by the Music of China Ensemble. Read more...
Photo: Chi Li, director of the Music of China Ensemble, instructs Xiaorong Yuan, a graduate student in ethnomusicology, in playing the erhu, a two-stringed instrument played with a bow. The ensemble will hold a performance Tuesday evening, featuring various Chinese musical forms, such as Kun opera and a traditional fan dance. (Jenna Nicole Smith/Daily Bruin)
Marcel Burgunder, a second-year mathematics of computation student, created the concept album “The Colours of My Soul” with his original piano compositions in order to express visual sensation through sounds. Read more...
This post was updated March 1 at 7:02 p.m. Dancers will embody divining rods, gasp for air and groove like they’re in a nightclub in “glory us weirdos.” These dance moves are part of Friday’s show, which will present graduate dance students Kristianne Salcines and Levi Gonzalez’s in-progress thesis works. Read more...
Photo: Graduate dance student Levi Gonzalez rehearses his piece, “Polyversa Discoteca,” with several undergraduate dance students. Gonzalez said he drew inspiration for his unfinished work from queer theory research in the fall. (MacKenzie Coffman/Daily Bruin)
“This post was updated Feb. 28 at 2:40 p.m.” Nicky Sohn wrote an opera last year while traveling across three different countries and attending two music festivals. Read more...
Photo: Doctoral candidates in composition Michel Klein and Nicky Sohn each wrote their first operas, which will debut at a workshop reading Friday. Their operas are respectively based on the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac, and Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” (Farida Saleh/Daily Bruin)
Vance Joy’s “Nation of Two” sounds like One Direction decided to give indie folk music a go. Though “Nation of Two” retains the same musical style of Joy’s first album with his ukulele riffs and slightly strained vocals, the album’s production is a step up from “Dream Your Life Away.” Joy adds in more harmonies, horns and drums to his ukulele-filled repertoire, taking on a slightly more personal tone and delivering an album full of summer jams despite some bland lyrics. Read more...
Photo: (Photo courtesy of Atlantic Records)
