Renga, a new collaboration between UCSD percussionist and conductor Steven Schick and San Diego Symphony violinist Kat Hatmaker, is featured at this special KPBS Night, with free admission for KPBS members. The evening celebrates a vital mission shared by the Department of Music and by KPBS-FM: to present innovative high-quality arts and to engage new audiences. Dean of Arts & Humanities Seth Lerer will be on hand to welcome everyone, and Schick will introduce the music.

Admission to the concert is also free to UCSD faculty, staff, students and alumni, as a special Dean's Night event.

The evening's program include's UCSD composer Lei Liang's Trans for solo percussion (performed by Schick), along with Haydn's Symphony #80 and Morton Feldman's For Samuel Beckett.

Renga's roots reach back to when Schick attended the University of Iowa with Hatmaker's father, who earned a PhD in music theory. Hatmaker grew up in Chicago, earned an undergrad and when she came to San Diego in 2006 to join the San Diego Symphony she soon introduced herself to Schick. As they gradually got to know each other and it became apparent that they shared common musical ground, they founded Renga as co-artistic directors.

"Renga," according to Hatmaker, is Japanese for a poetry collaboration where each poet invents a single line, followed by lines by a succession of poets in a sort of chain reaction. Renga's first project was recording Liang's Verge in 2012 (the piece had been commissioned and premiered by the New York Philharmonic). The May 28 concert at UCSD is Renga's second, and the ensemble--which Hatmaker calls "a flexible group of co-conspirators"--will also perform at the Ojai Festival in 2015, when Schick serves as the festival's artistic director.