San Diego's Top Weekend Arts Events: From New Dark Music To High Tech Mythology

Speaker 1: 00:00 Our weekend preview includes an album release from a local woman led metal band and the San Diego symphony performs music inspired by ping pong. Plus it's your last chance to see a contemporary animation installation at the San Diego museum of art journey. Me as KPBS arts editor, Julia Dixon Evans. Julia, welcome. Hi Marine. Now first step is a local band holding an album release tonight. Tell me about the band. Speaker 2: 00:28 Ours. Ours was formed about five years ago by a husband and wife, Carrie Gillespie, feller and Scott feller. Carrie is also the founder and front person for Hexa and she has several other solar projects too. She's one of the hardest working people in San Diego's music scene. Speaker 1: 00:44 They have a new album out and are playing a live show tonight to celebrate. Tell us about the new album. Speaker 2: 00:50 So who will meet me here is their first full length album. It's out today and it's heavy but not an in your face sort of way. The sound is dark and curious, kind of experimental kind of metal, kind of not. It's atmospheric and it has quite the range. These songs are very long and simmering. Every so often there's something stripped down and pure though almost glass like about Carrie's voice. And I think that's what sets ours apart. It's a pretty classic, dark, immersive sound with all these lyrics about rage and the apocalypse, but it cuts away to something quiet and fragile. One song tracks really plays up that contrast between the gloom and Carrie's voice with these layered harmonies. Speaker 1: 01:36 Let's listen to a bit of the song tracks by hours. Speaker 3: 02:02 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 02:02 local band hours plays at black cat bar in city Heights tonight at nine with a brand new album who will meet me here. The San Diego symphony will perform Sabellius and Rachmaninov alongside living composer texts to Kim this weekend. Guest conductor is wound soon. Kim, who is recently announced as the new director of the San Francisco opera and will be the first Asian woman at the helm of an opera in the United States. So Julia, tell us about this lineup. Speaker 2: 02:33 Yeah, they're performing a new piece. Tech Sue Kim's spin flip it debuted in soul in 2015 has been been played just a few other times in the United States and in fact one of those other performances was with [inaudible] son Kim is spin flip a rare work compared to say the Sabellius Concerta. That's also on the bill. Sure. But when I talked to Clement, so is the Symphony's director artistic program. He said that three or four performances of a contemporary work by living composer like texted Kim is actually a lot. So many of these new contemporary compositions aren't performed again after their premiere. So that tells you a little bit about how special texted Kim's pieces or maybe it's the pingo. That piece was inspired by ping pong techsy Kim shares his name with a famous table tennis coach in South Korea. According to his program notes, people often ask him if he's good at ping pong. No he's not, but it at least inspired a song. Then music tries to mimic the sounds of a ping pong game, pops and slaps and the title spin flip. It's actually also a scientific term, the interplay between electrons and protons. And hydrogen atoms. And it's also used when a black hole kind of swallows a smaller black hole and the orientation and flips. So there's a lot of depth and reckoning inside of a playful piece. Let's listen to techs who Kim's spin flip Speaker 4: 04:17 [inaudible], [inaudible] [inaudible]. Speaker 2: 04:24 That's a little bit of spin flip. What else will the symphony be performing? They'll play John Sebelius's violin concerto in D minor. It's one of the most performed concertos in American classical music and violinist and emerging star Nancy's out. We'll take the lead. It's a really gorgeous and strong piece with sweeping melodies and they're also doing rock on and off. Symphony number three and a minor. It's a bit more volatile of a piece alternating bright and moody really makes for a broad selection of pieces in this show. San Diego symphony performs works by Sabellius Rockmont enough and tech. So Kim tonight and Saturday night at Copley symphony hall. Now closing this weekend at the San Diego museum of art is a fascinating installation by contemporary Los Angeles based artist Nick Roth. Tell us about this work. So Nick Roth created a triptych of video panels to display computer generated animation. Each of these three panels represents a fate. Speaker 2: 05:27 They have vines and stems growing and tangling up. And these tiny grotesque eyeballs pop up. And then at Crimson thread weaves across all of their frames is pretty mesmerizing and it's installed in this small darkened room in the museum with mirror set up to reflect the videos in this infinite line. And the videos are set to music. Yes, a Terry Riley composition performed by the Kronos quartet. It's beautiful, haunting orchestral and choral music, but it also includes actual space sounds. These blips and squeals recorded from NASA plasma wave receivers on the Voyager probe missions. I love the, it combines this 2000 year old myth of the fates with something so futuristic. Let's listen to a little of the music from the installation. Speaker 4: 06:30 [inaudible] Speaker 2: 06:33 Nick Roths fates closes on Sunday at the San Diego museum of art. And I've been speaking with KPBS arts editor, Julia Dixon Evans. Julia. Thank you. Thank you Marine.