UC San Diego will host a new music festival this month featuring more than 200 student performers across five stages over seven-plus hours.
The festival, called The Arcades, is billed as “an undergraduate collage of music.” It began as a two-part course in UCSD’s Department of Music last fall, piloted by professor Steven Schick and put together by a steering committee of 15 students.
The inaugural course explores all aspects of launching a music festival, from establishing a budget and booking venues to crafting a lineup and a marketing strategy.
This spring, the course transitioned into paid positions for its students. And now the group is in the final stages of preparing its inaugural show, scheduled for noon to 7:30 p.m. Sunday, May 18, on the university’s La Jolla campus.
“I’ve never done anything like this,” Schick said. “I’m not sure things like this have been done that often, if ever. … So there’s not a template that says ‘This is how you do it.’”
Other than his role in managing expenses and providing guidance, the responsibilities of organizing and developing the festival were completely in the students’ hands, Schick said. That included a presentation to UCSD s and key donors, which Schick described as “extremely well-done.”
“Nearly everything they’ve done has been just amazing,” he said. “They have an astonishing sense of invention [and] they are excited and enthusiastic. … Just so much that is impressive.”
The steering committee based the festival name on 18th-century Paris arcades, with an added theme of contemporary video games.
The Arcades is set to feature more than two dozen genres, from the timeless style of the six-piece jazz-funk band Honeytones to the “bold and emotionally resonant” piano ballads of Sapphire Gray (second-year music major Annabel Metcalf) and the raw pop sounds of Uglyfruit (second-year music major Angie Kim). Many of the performers will be making their live-audience debut.
Variety was a key factor in planning the event, said second-year music major Lauren Ong, whose solo music combines elements of folk and classical.
“Music, to me, is almost like a tool of translation,” Ong said. “If you think of it, a lot of the most powerful pieces of music — regardless of genre — are motivated by emotion. I think the arts is one of the only ways in which we can immortalize and capture emotion in a tangible, physical form.”
Each stage will home in on a different sound, from the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall’s focus on chamber orchestras to a songwriters circle at the Orchestra Rehearsal Room. Other sites include the Experimental Theater, the Recital Hall and an outdoor courtyard.
The steering committee received a whopping 400 submissions from prospective performers. Metcalf said listening to each audition recording felt like “hearing a little slice of their soul.”
“I haven’t met most of them, but just by listening to these videos, I already know a little bit about them,” Metcalf said. “And hopefully with all of these people together in this big space all performing at once, there will only be an amplified feeling that there’s something that connects us.”
That connection also can be seen among of the steering committee.
“I feel like we’ve all become pretty close friends in the process of doing this, especially when compared to other classes … where one person is talking and everyone is kind of listening,” said third-year music major Michael McLaughlin, saxophonist for the Honeytones.
Kim agreed, saying “I think the committee itself kind of represents how we want the music community at UCSD to come together.”
The course and the festival were made possible through a 2023 gift from Marco Londei and Liqun Wang, founders of the Farfy Foundation. According to UC San Diego, they were inspired to fund the effort after meeting with students and faculty involved in music creation and performance.
In the final stretch of preparation, the steering committee is focusing on promotion and tying up loose ends.
“There’s going to be a lot of work to do the day of, but I am confident this will come together,” said second-year biotechnology major Malia Lewton.
General ission to The Arcades is free, though donations are accepted. To or learn more, visit squadup.com/events/the-arcades. ♦
