Join UCI Libraries to celebrate the opening of its newest exhibit, Electrifying Music: The Untold Story of Remi Gassmann.

Thursday, February 1, 2024
5:30 – 7:30 pm
Langson Library Lobby
Refreshments will be served

Event will include a musical performance and remarks by Anne LeBaron (composer, harpist, and member of the School of Music faculty at CalArts) and Michael Dessen (composer, trombonist, and chair of the Music Department, jazz program coordinator, and director of the Gassmann Electronic Music Studios at UC Irvine).

Immediately after the program, attendees are invited to stay for a reception and exhibit viewing.

PROGRAM

5:15 pm    Guest check-in

5:30 pm    Exhibit viewing

6:00 pm    Musical performance and remarks*

7:00 pm    Reception

SPEAKERS AND PERFORMERS

Anne LeBaron is a member of the School of Music faculty at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) and a West Coast experimentalist who is an innovative performer on the harp. Her compositions, including seven operas, have been performed worldwide, and her awards include the Alpert Award in the Arts, a Fromm Foundation commission, a Guggenheim, and grants from the NEA and Opera America. Her opera-in-progress, “LSD: Huxley’s Last Trip,” depicts the history of psychedelics in America. Selected scenes are slated for performances on June 14–15, 2024, as part of the annual Partch Ensemble concert at REDCAT in downtown Los Angeles. Her most recent recording, “Unearthly Delights,” features acoustic and electronic chamber works. Several works from her multiyear project of 1,000 musical portraits, “The Heroine With a Thousand Faces,” premiers in concert at UCLA on February 7, 2024, and LeBaron’s first opera “The E & O Line,” a collaboration with Thulani Davis, will be performed at festival venues in Russia next year.

Michael Dessen is chair of the Music Department, jazz program coordinator, and director of the Gassmann Electronic Music Studios at UC Irvine. A composer-trombonist, he creates highly interactive, improvisatory music and collaborates with leading creative artists. Dessen’s releases as a composer-bandleader include four critically acclaimed albums on Clean Feed Records, and his music has been recognized with awards from Chamber Music America, New Music USA, and the Fromm Foundation. He has worked extensively in telematic music, composing, performing. and co-directing dozens of networked (multisite) concerts with international collaborators as well as leading programs connecting youth in California and South America to explore the pedagogical and intercultural potentials of musical telepresence. As an artist-researcher, he has published writings on topics including networked music, the Asian American creative music movement and intercultural African diasporic collaboration. 

ABOUT THE EXHIBIT

In an homage to twentieth-century electronic music, Electrifying Music celebrates the life and legacy of Remi Gassmann, an American composer and pioneer in electronic sound and music. Best known for his innovative ballet scores and his soundtrack to Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Birds, Gassmann helped introduce twentieth-century audiences to new musical aesthetics and compositional styles and championed the emerging works of his contemporaries. The exhibit also features an array of visually stunning graphic scores and traces historical milestones in electronic sound and music.

Curated by Oliver Brown and Scott Stone

Exhibit will be on display in UCI Libraries Langson Library February through December 2024 during regular library hours.

For more details, see the Remi Gassmann Papers in the UCI Libraries Special Collections and Archives.

* The main program for this event will be livestreamed on the UCI Libraries YouTube channel: