The above video is a performance of “The Light Within” by the E.A.R. at REDCAT in L.A. last year. Click here if you cannot see the video.
The California E.A.R. Unit, one of the West Coast’s finest new music chamber ensembles, is kicking off its new season of performances as one of the headliners of the sixth annual Carlsbad Music Festival—a showcase called “marvelously enlightening” by the Los Angeles Times.
The group’s core members are CalArts music faculty Amy Knoles (percussion, Music BFA 82) and Vicki Ray (piano) and alum Eric Clark (violin, Music MFA 06). Hailed by the New York Times for its “exuberance and razor-sharp precision,” the E.A.R. Unit is resident at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT).
The Carlsbad fest, which this year also features legendary guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith and the Calder Quartet, begins with a “satellite concert” at Zipper Hall in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Sept. 23. It then launches into the bulk of the program over the weekend of Sept. 25–27 at the Schulman Auditorium in the Carlsbad City Library, 30 miles north of downtown San Diego. See the festival schedule here.
The Unit’s Friday, Sept. 25, concert will include the composition The Light Within, by John Luther Adams (Music BFA 73) and a new work by frequent collaborator Keeril Makan.
The group next returns to REDCAT on Oct. 10 with a program titled “The Lindas.”