Tuesday January 24 8 pm University of California San Diego Mandeville Center Recital Hall Violinists János Négesy and Päivikki Nykter perform Books I & II of Short Circuits for prepared violins Also on the program: Works by Henryk Górecki, Drake Mabry and Hindson. What is a musical instrument but a mechanical device that produces sound? Once we've established that fact, most concerns regarding the "preparations of violins" should indeed evaporate. In my Short Circuits the two violins are engaged in a music of sound effects. It is a set of works that may seem "broken" or full of accidental noises, very quiet, made up of very short pieces. By the time one catches on to each piece's small "space" it may be half over. The violins are "prepared" with objects such as a paper clip, chopsticks, a thimble, and so on, constantly altering the sound of the violins. Because all the effects must come from a limited number of strings, the preparation is mutable: throughout the piece the performers are constantly preparing and re-preparing their instruments. Short Circuits has unveiled itself gradually as I wrote the three Books over a period of several years, premiering each individually, starting with Book II in 1996. By now all three Books of 20 individual pieces are complete and have been performed by their dedicatees, János and Päivikki.

Wednesday February 15 12:30 pm Mesa College Recital Hour Room C119 Flutists Elizabeth Ashmead and Adan Provencio reprise Versus Antiqui for piccolo and flute The piece Versus Antiqui (Antiquated Verses) attempts to be a touchstone for several associations with music for flute and sacred music. Utilizing various sonorous possibilities of the flute and piccolo, both regarding the performance techniques of each and the coloristic combinations of the two together, these associations are both inferred and explicit through pitch and tone. The piece is a set of five movements, three old Western musical forms book-ended with quasi-Eastern meditative pieces that bring to mind the ancient form of Japanese shakuhachi performance with special micro-tonal and timbral effects (including singing while playing). The inner movements include a "mensuration canon", a canon whose subject is played simultaneously in two (even three) different tempi at a fixed ratio between the two instruments; a song ballad; and a loose set of variations on an old Lutheran hymn revealed at the end of movement 4. The piece is about 12 and a half minutes long.

Sunday September 19 (passé) 3 pm (pre-concert talk, 2 pm) Mesa College Apolliad Theatre Audrey Andrist performs West coast premiere of Triptych for solo piano; James Stern and Audrey Andrist perform World premiere of song and dance... for violin and piano Also on the program: Claude Debussy's Sonata for Violin and Piano ; César Franck's Sonata for Violin and Piano Saturday August 14 (passé) 10:30 am Town & Country Resort and Convention Center Regency Ballroom Coming Together: San Diego Flutists play music of San Diego Composers: Also on the program: Flutists Elizabeth Ashmead, Claire Chase, Ann Erwin, John Fonville, Tallon Perkes, Adan Provencio, Harvey Sollberger, Nancy Turetzky, and other current and former San Diegans perform music by Erickson, Fonville, Korneitchouk, Lam, Lorge, Reynolds, Sollberger, and Turetzky.