The fall season of UC San Diego Park & Market’s Intersections Concert Series delighted audiences with the likes of the Don Byron Quartet, Yale Strom and Hot Pstromi, and Southwestern College’s Mariachi Garibaldi.
The Don Byron Quartet, composed of Don Byron on clarinet/saxophone, Joe Berkovitz on keyboard, Mark Helias on contrabass, and Dru Heller on drums, dazzled guests in Park & Market’s Guggenheim Theatre in September. Don Byron has been a singular voice in an astounding range of musical contexts, exploring widely divergent traditions while continually striving for what he calls “a sound above genre.” As a clarinetist, saxophonist, composer, arranger, and social critic, he redefines every genre of music he plays, be it classical, salsa, hip-hop, funk, rhythm and blues, klezmer, or any jazz style from swing and bop to cutting-edge downtown improvisation.
Byron’s Intersections performance was not his first time visiting UC San Diego; check out this conversation from 2001 he had with UC San Diego’s Bennetta Jules-Rosette on his research into the “musics of the border crossing.”
Klezmer ensemble Yale Strom and Hot Pstromi performed in the Guggenheim Theatre in October. Klezmer is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe that utilizes standard orchestral instruments as well as the accordion and cimbalom. The ensemble began playing together in 1982, and much of their repertoire comes from Strom’s years of ethnographic research in Eastern Europe. Many of the klezmer melodies and Yiddish songs the band performs come from Jews and Roma who played before and after the Holocaust that Strom had an opportunity to interview (and even perform with) in his research.
In November, Southwestern College’s Mariachi Garibaldi blew audience members away with the roaring sounds of guitar, vihuela, guitarrón, violin, trumpet, and more in an Intersections performance directed by Jeff Nevin. Nevin’s background in conducting and mariachi music brought a unique perspective to Mexican symphonic pieces from composers like Revueltas, Chavez, Moncayo, Galindo, and Marquez. Mariachi Garibaldi, representing the first and only school to offer a college degree in mariachi music, showcased the talent that has garnered them recognition on national news broadcasts and in international performances from Brazil to Russia. Many former students have moved on to receive bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music and perform mariachi professionally, including with some of the top mariachis in the country; they are beginning to fill the great need for mariachi instructors across the country today.
Future Intersections events are listed online. For more information about creative, cultural, and civic engagement collaborations, or Intersections at Park & Market, contact Andrew Waltz at awaltz@ucsd.edu. For more information about other upcoming events at Park & Market, please visit our Events page.