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Festival of World Music

Presented by UC Riverside at University Theatre

March 17, 2007

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The Department of Music at the University of California, Riverside, presents the third annual UCR Festival of World Music on March 17, Saturday, at 7:00P.M. in the University Theatre, featuring the musics of Asia and Latin America. Audience members willing to be thrilled, lulled, charmed, and moved by the sounds of Java, the Philippines, Mexico, the Andes, and Japanese America are invited to join us. This fast-moving program will feature UC Riverside students, faculty, and staff as well as community members. This program will highlight the ethnomusicology program in the Department of Music, which has expanded dramatically in the last few years. Two of the ensembles are led by UCR music faculty, both ethnomusicologists. Prof. René T.A. Lysloff has led the UCR Gamelan Ensemble since 1996 and is a noted specialist in the music and shadow theater of Central Java, Indonesia. Prof. Jonathan Ritter, an expert in the highland musics of Peru, will lead the performance of Mayupatapi, the UCR Latin American Music Ensemble. The other three ensembles are led by renowned culture bearers from Los Angeles who teach at UCR. Tagumpay “Pi” de Leon directs the UCR Rondalla Ensemble, which performs music from the Philippines. Rondalla is a traditional ensemble of small stringed instruments. It is at once quintessentially Filipino and also an intensely intercultural music, reflecting 500 years of Spanish cultural influence. The UCR Taiko Ensemble is taught and led by Rev. Shuichi Thomas Kurai, already well known to Riverside audiences for his virtuosic drumming. Laura Sobrino directs the UCR Mariachi Mexicatl, the latest ensemble to join the world music scene at UCR, featuring traditional music of Mexico. This festival enacts the Department of Music’s commitment to education through cross-cultural performance. It will feature over 50 students, some drawn to these musics through heritage and others by curiosity. The end result is an energetic evening of wildly varied sounds, each representing different places and differently-sounded world views.