Beyond the Stage

The late neurologist, naturalist, historian of science, and author explores the place music occupies in the brain and how it affects the human condition.

Cal Performances Reading Room are books suggested for reading in conjunction with events scheduled during Cal Performances’ 2020–21 season.

A pre-concert conversation with Julia Bullock and Cal Performances Executive and Artistic Director Jeremy Geffen.

A pre-concert conversation with Bria Skonberg and Cal Performances Executive and Artistic Director Jeremy Geffen.

Following each performance of Manual Cinema’s Christmas Carol, ticketholders will be welcomed to “Puppet Time,” a behind-the-scenes “meet the artists” event for audiences of all ages. Manual Cinema’s artistic directors will take viewers back-stage in their studios to share the numerous theatrical mediums and devices utilized to perform Christmas Carol.

Every previous major disaster in human history, from the Black Plague to the Great Depression, has elicited a reimagination of the world, a reinvention of collective life through culture. The COVID-19 pandemic is no exception.

In “Changing the Narrative: What Stories Can We Tell Now?” UC Berkeley faculty members Anthony Cascardi and Catherine Gallagher discuss the ideas of Fact or Fiction in shaping humanity’s narrative about the current global pandemic, climate change, and the stories we tell about this moment in history.

Cascardi is dean of arts and humanities and the Sidney and Margaret Ancker Distinguished Professor of comparative literature, rhetoric, and Spanish at UC Berkeley. Gallagher is professor emerita of English; her 2018 book Telling It Like It Wasn’t: The Counterfactual Imagination in History and Fiction examines narratives of events that never occurred—such as the South winning the Civil War and JFK escaping assassination.

This talk was produced by the Townsend Center for the Humanities, as part of its series “(Re)making Sense: The Humanities and Pandemic Culture.”

Read more about Cal Performances’ Illuminations: Fact or Fiction series.

A pre-concert conversation with members of the Dover Quartet and Cal Performances Executive and Artistic Director Jeremy Geffen.

A pre-concert conversation with Leif Ove Andsnes and Cal Performances Executive and Artistic Director Jeremy Geffen.

A pre-concert conversation with Yo-Yo Ma, Kathryn Stott, and Cal Performances Executive and Artistic Director Jeremy Geffen.

Free and open to the public online

Arts + Design’s Monday evening series, Together: Reinventing Politics, Reimagining Health, presents the three creators of Real Enemies—composer Darcy James Argue, writer and director Isaac Butler, and film designer Peter Nigrini—in a discussion about the American fascination with conspiracy theories that fuels their immersive, multimedia production. The conversation will be moderated by Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, UC Berkeley University Librarian and Chief Digital Scholarship Officer, and a professor in the UCB School of Information and the Department of Economics.

The late neurologist, naturalist, historian of science, and author explores the place music occupies in the brain and how it affects the human condition.

Cal Performances Reading Room are books suggested for reading in conjunction with events scheduled during Cal Performances’ 2020–21 season.

In conjunction with its streaming presentation of Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) hosted an informative conversation and Q&A with Ric Burns, the film’s director; Kate Edgar, Sacks’ editor and researcher, and executive director of the Oliver Sacks Foundation; and Bill Hayes, photographer, writer, and Sacks’ partner. The discussion was moderated by scientist and soprano Indre Viskontas, who holds faculty positions at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the University of San Francisco, and whose scientific work is featured in Sacks’ book Musicophilia. Oliver Sacks: His Own Life – Forum Discussion is available free of charge, courtesy of BAMPFA.

Matthew Whitaker’s performance and all related activities are part of the Cal Performances Illuminations: Music and the Mind series.

Where does imagination come from? Neuroscientists have only recently begun to examine the elusive nature of creativity in connection to music. One key area of study is the notion of improvisation—a foundational element in many musical art forms, including jazz and hip hop. In this 90-minute video from the Kennedy Center, UCSF Professor of Otolaryngology Dr. Charles Limb shows how encouraging and developing musical improvisational skills in children has led to a better understanding of how creativity is implemented in the human brain. In this talk, Dr. Limb is joined by the Kennedy Center Artistic Director of Jazz Jason Moran, Freestyle Love Supreme co-founder Anthony Veneziale, music therapist Ed Roth, and jazz pianist Matthew Whitaker, who helps with a demonstration. Thank you to the Kennedy Center for generously sharing this video free of charge.

Matthew Whitaker’s performance and all related activities are part of the Cal Performances Illuminations: Music and the Mind series.

A pre-concert conversation with Matthew Whitaker and Cal Performances Executive and Artistic Director Jeremy Geffen. 

The classic and authoritative text, and the fascinating life story of its author.

Cal Performances Reading Room are books suggested for reading in conjunction with events scheduled during Cal Performances’ 2020–21 season.

A pre-performance conversation with co-Artistic Director of Manual Cinema Drew Dir, UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ, and Cal Performances Executive and Artistic Director Jeremy Geffen.

Olmsted demonstrates that it was only in the 20th century that strange and unlikely conspiracy theories became central to American politics.

Cal Performances Reading Room are books suggested for reading in conjunction with events scheduled during Cal Performances’ 2020–21 season.

A pre-performance conversation with composer Darcy James Argue, director Isaac Butler, media designer Peter Nigrini, and Cal Performances Executive and Artistic Director Jeremy Geffen.

Real Enemies, featuring Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, was inspired by Kathryn S. Olmsted’s 2013 book Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I through 9/11. Watch as Professor Olmsted of UC Davis’ History Department, writer and director Isaac Butler, and MacArthur Fellow journalist and writer Mark Danner of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism as they had a lively conversation about the grip of conspiracy theories on the American imagination.

We encourage you to read Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I through 9/11 (Oxford University Press), available from any online bookseller.

A pre-concert conversation with Nathalie Joachim and Cal Performances Executive and Artistic Director Jeremy Geffen.

The late neurologist, naturalist, historian of science, and author explores the place music occupies in the brain and how it affects the human condition.

Cal Performances Reading Room are books suggested for reading in conjunction with events scheduled during Cal Performances’ 2020–21 season.

A pre-concert conversation with members of the Tetzlaff Quartet and Cal Performances Executive and Artistic Director Jeremy Geffen.

The renowned New Yorker music critic and author reveals how Richard Wagner became the proving ground for modern art and politics―an aesthetic war zone where the Western world wrestled—and continues to wrestle—with its capacity for beauty and violence.

A signed copy of Wagnerism is available from our partners, Pegasus Books on Solano Avenue in Berkeley.

Cal Performances Reading Room are books suggested for reading in conjunction with events scheduled during Cal Performances’ 2020–21 season.

A pre-concert conversation with Tessa Lark and Cal Performances Executive and Artistic Director Jeremy Geffen.