Featuring Karis, Schick, Steiger, Terrazas and Kanasevich Compositions by Rand Steiger, Anqi Liu and Alex Stephenson Conducted by Steven Schick Conrad Prebys (1933-2016) was an extremely generous philanthropist who made the largest and most important gift to the UC San Diego Department of Music that we have ever received, enabling us to complete the Conrad Prebys Music Center in 2009. His subsequent gifts enabled us to establish an endowment for graduate student support (and name our concert hall in his honor) and to establish the Conrad Prebys Presidential Chair in Music. To honor the memory of Mr. Prebys, and to commemorate the establishment of the Endowed Chair five years ago, the Department of Music presents a concert of the music of Rand Steiger, the current holder of the Chair. The program will include the premiere of a new work for solo piano Simple Gifts, Variations for Conrad Prebys, performed by Professor Aleck Karis, along with Beacon (2015), for flute and electronics, performed by Professor Wilfrido Terrazas, and Cyclone (2013), for clarinet and electronics, performed by clarinetist Gleb Kanasevich.

The program will conclude with Steven Schick conducting Palimpsest in a performance of Steiger’s innovative composition Ecosphere in a new version with revised electronics. Steiger’s work broke new ground in the use of realtime digital signal processing of musical instruments when it was commissioned and premiered by IRCAM and the Ensemble Intercontemporain at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2002. Schick will also lead the premiere of two new works written for the occasion for the same 16-piece ensemble by graduate composers Anqi Liu and Alex Stephenson.

PROGRAM: Simple Gifts (Variations for Conrad Prebys) - Rand Steiger (Aleck Karis, piano) Cyclone - Rand Steiger (Gleb Kanasevich, clarinet) How Light Arrives… (premiere for Ecosphere ensemble) - Anqi Liu Cantus (premiere for Ecosphere ensemble) - Alex Stephenson Beacon - Rand Steiger (Wilfrido Terrazas, flute) Ecosphere - Rand Steiger [DSP]