Hearing Extremes

On Friday, May 24, the Qualcomm Institute’s IDEAS series presents “Hearing Extremes” with renowned composer and UC San Diego Professor of Music Lei Liang, and New York City-based new music chamber group loadbang.

“Hearing Extremes” introduces original compositions by UC San Diego doctoral students in collaboration with researchers from the university’s Jacobs School of Engineering and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Through the “Hearing Extremes” seminar, students and scientists develop interdisciplinary projects outside the walls of their respective departments, to think of the entire campus as a place for “great learning,” to reconsider what each participant’s role might be in regard to the collaboration, and to create works that would not be possible without a fully integrated approach that reflects the knowledge, technology and global issues of our time.

loadbang will perform the students’ pieces for a live audience.

RSVP to ideasqi@ucsd.edu.

About the IDEAS Program

The Initiative for Digital Exploration of Arts and Sciences (IDEAS) program aims to encourage interdisciplinary performing, visual, and literary-artists, as well as engineers and scientists, to take advantage of the Qualcomm Institute’s advanced audio-visual facilities, services and personnel in staging performances and presentations of new and experimental works and research. To learn more and to access a list of upcoming IDEAS performances for the 2024 season, visit https://ideas.ucsd.edu/.

About loadbang

loadbang is building a new kind of music for mixed ensemble of trumpet, trombone, bass clarinet, and baritone voice. Since their founding in 2008, they have been praised as ‘cultivated’ by The New Yorker, ‘an extra-cool new music group’ and ‘exhilarating’ by the Baltimore Sun, ‘inventive’ by the New York Times and called a ‘formidable new-music force‘ by TimeOutNY. Creating ‘a sonic world unlike any other‘ (The Boston Musical Intelligencer), their unique lung-powered instrumentation has provoked diverse responses from composers, resulting in a repertoire comprising an inclusive picture of composition today. 

loadbang has premiered more than 500 works, written by members of the ensemble, emerging artists, and today’s leading composers. Their repertoire includes works by Pulitzer Prize winners Raven Chacon, David Lang, and Charles Wuorinen; Rome Prize winners Andy Akiho and Paula Matthusen; and Guggenheim Fellows Chaya Czernowin, George Lewis, and Alex Mincek. They are the ensemble-in-residence at Cornell University through the Steven Stucky Memorial Residency for New Music, and through a partnership with the Longy School of Music of Bard College in Boston, they are the ensemble-in-residence at Divergent Studio, a contemporary music festival for young performers and composers held each summer. Visit loadbang’s website for more.