On Saturday, March 9, the San Diego Center for the Arts presents the ARC Trio, featuring pianist
Rick Helzer, bassist Justin Grinnell and drummer Nathan Hubbard.

The concert which begins at 8 pm, will be held at Villa Musica, located in the Sorrento Valley area at 10373 Roselle St. Suite 170.

Villa Musica is a small, intimate performance-space with great acoustics and a nice grand piano. I saw Joshua White and David Borgo there last month, and can easily recommend it.

"The ARC Trio formed in late 2005, after I had spent the previous several months mentioning to Rick that we should get together with Justin," said Hubbard. "Of course everyone knew each other, as Justin and I had both gone through Helzer's theory and composition courses at SDSU.

"So it made sense, and after a few rehearsals , everyone was interested in performing in front of an audience. We started with some older Helzer pieces and a few Thelonious Monk and Wayne Shorter pieces. Since then, we have all written pieces for the group. Our first release Triptych Mirror, is a nice document of the group's sound -- Helzer's rich harmonic language as a starting point--with Grinnell and myself venturing off into unknown territory.

"We haven't performed in a few years due to my sojourn in Arizona, so we're looking forward to jumping back into it with some old classics as well as the debut of a few brand new tunes."

Photo courtesy Nathan Hubbard