John Tejada, a frequent guest on Touched Music compilations, hatched the idea of turning the final project for his CalArts “Advanced Electronic Music Production” class into a compilation album for the established label. John Tejada Presents Future Stars features 15 of Tejada’s students at their best, as well as an exclusive original track by Tejada himself called “NYC83,” which imagines an alternative of a classic b-boy breakin’ tune. Established as a non-profit, the record label benefits Macmillan Cancer Support in the UK among others. Touched Music will release Future Stars digitally on Friday, May 15, 2020, with 100-limited edition CDs to follow shortly after. The best way to support the charity—and the only way to procure the beautiful physical CD—is to purchase from Bandcamp. The release will also be available on Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, Bleep and many other platforms.

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Electronic music-based nonprofit Give a Beat, DJ Times magazine and DanceGruv Radio have partnered for a new radio series called Prose of a Con featuring the poetry and prose of Russell Wardlow, a resident at Omaha Correctional Center. The six-part series will run bi-weekly from Sunday, October 13 through Sunday, December 22, 2019, at 5:00 pm EST on DanceGruv Radio with each episode showcasing Wardlow’s prose and poetry read aloud by DJs across the electronic music community. Wardlow composes his work entirely behind bars. His poignant and insightful readings speak to the healing power of artistic expression to help transcend the harsh reality of the prison system.

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Electronic music-based nonprofit Give a Beat launched the Prison Electronic Music Program in two California correctional facilities in July 2019 as part of a contract awarded by California Arts Council’s Arts in Corrections (AIC) program. The goal of Give a Beat’s year-long program—which focuses on the fundamentals of DJing and beat production—is to help students develop their own sound expressions and technical acumen while also learning business development and music history. It is designed to help students return to the workforce with valuable technical, social, and entrepreneurial skills. Led by passionate DJs and music producers, currently the course is being taught at California City Correctional Facility (CAC) and Kern Valley State Prison (KVSP). This first Prison Electronic Music Program will run through June 2020. It is Give a Beat’s most expansive and long-term music production offering/course to date.

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LOS ANGELES, CA – Coin & Ghost in association with Vs. Theatre Company present the World premiere of Love Is Another Country, a radical reimagining of Sophocles’s Antigone at Vs. Theatre in Los Angeles from Friday, February 1 through Saturday, March 2, 2019. The third production of Coin & Ghost’s inaugural season, Love Is Another Country is a new play written by the prolific Bay Area theatre artist Lisa Marie Rollins and her first full-length work to be produced in Los Angeles. Directed by Kendall Johnson, the production brings together the ancient tale of Antigone with the deaths of innumerable black men and women at the hands of police. Part ritual, part rage, part collective ask to the audience, the play follows three women of the Chapman family as they navigate living as black women in a country that claims to love them. Read the rest of this entry »

On April 11, 2018, the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts announced its 2018 Artist Project Grants recipients. Among the ten recipients, Fulcrum Arts was awarded a $40,000 grant for its ambitious Lawrence English project Sirens, which will launch during its A×S Festival starting November 2, 2018. In fact, Sirens will be the highlight of Fulcrum Arts’ 10-day biennial festival. English will create a site-specific installation utilizing some of the remaining 160 civil defense sirens – the original role of their sound was as an agent for alert and protection from WWII through the Cold War – that are scattered across Los Angeles. Reappropriating the sirens for the project, the artist will employ sound as a means to create a spatial mapping, reconfiguring Los Angeles’s geographic, political and historical landscapes. 

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Angel City Chorale (ACC), the acclaimed Los Angeles choir led by Founder-Artistic Director Sue Fink, will celebrate its 25th birthday this year with an extraordinary spring concert event, One World, Many Voices II, during the first weekend in June. An exhilarating sequel to ACC’s original 2009 production, One World, Many Voices, this concert will embrace the power of diversity that ACC is known for, with vibrant songs representing different cultures from around the world. Now, globally recognized*, Angel City Chorale welcomes dear friends from South Africa to make this special anniversary edition truly memorable; the show will feature a powerful guest appearance from Cape Town’s Amy Foundation youth choir, as well as a new commissioned work from Grammy award-winning composer Christopher Tin. One World, Many Voices II is set to take place at the Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles over two special evenings on Saturday, June 2, and Sunday, June 3, 2018. Tickets range in price from $22 for children to $75 for VIP packages (see “Ticketing & Venue Details” towards the bottom of this press release). The performances will each start at 7:00pm. Read the rest of this entry »

After the sold-out and award-winning success of The Day Shall Declare It in 2015, Wilderness returns to the Los Angeles Arts District to remount its immersive, site-specific theatre experience, opening Tuesday, May 10, 2016 and running through Sunday, June 19, 2016. [UPDATE: The show has been extended thru July 31st by popular demand!] The internationally acclaimed physical theatre piece weaves together dynamic movement with a collage of American labor literature from Tennessee Williams and Studs Terkel, exploring the concept of work in America: what it does for us – and what it does to us. Developed and co-directed by Annie Saunders and Sophie Bortolussi (Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More), The Day Shall Declare It will run for a limited time, to audiences of only thirty people per show. The intimate performances will run six nights a week. The 2016 version sees the addition of “The Paradise,” an exclusive pop-up bar with live music curated by Vagrant Bartenders. Read the rest of this entry »

Angel City Chorale (ACC), the acclaimed Los Angeles choir led by Artistic Director Sue Fink, will kickoff the holidays with its festive annual winter concert and sing-along, which takes place the first weekend in December at the Wilshire United Methodist Church in Los Angeles. This year’s 22nd edition, Sing Joy, will entertain audiences over two very special nights on Saturday, December 5, and
 Sunday, December 6, 2015. The concert will feature seasonal favorites that echo the diversity of Los Angeles with selections from African, Jewish, Middle Eastern, South American, British, as well as American holiday traditions. Audiences will also get the chance to join in with the choir on familiar carols. Read the rest of this entry »

Arts organization Create:Fixate (C:F) presents Branching Out on Saturday, November 7, 2015. C:F will also be branching out into a new location, holding this installment of the highly anticipated ongoing event series at Werkartz, a new multidisciplinary arts complex in LA’s Chinatown. For over a decade, C:F has established its unique signature blend of presenting vibrant visual art and music in an immersive cultural experience. These one-night-only events feature top emerging talent from around the globe, with an emphasis on the local talent of Los Angeles. Find Your Grind Foundation is a major supporter of the event. The excitement begins at 4:00pm with a three-hour gallery preview. The main event starts at 7:00pm and closes at 1:30am. Read the rest of this entry »

Give a Beat is proud to announce A Positive Spin: Remixed, the new non-profit organization’s global launch event in Downtown Los Angeles, on Saturday, October 24, 2015. The inspirational event starts with a daytime electronic music production/DJing workshop for youth from 3:00pm to 6:00pm at Impact HUB LA. Scratch DJ Academy will provide gear and instructors for the workshop. The main event will follow, from 6:00pm to 9:00pm, featuring performances by Pleasuremaker (aka Joey McGuire) of Afrolicious with the legendary Sandra Izsadore (the Queen Mother of Afrobeat) and Gabriel ‘Gato’ Ferrer on percussion. Alex Simpson, the Associate Director of California Innocence Project, and exonerated football player Brian Banks will also make moving presentations. Moving to nearby Pattern Bar, A Positive Spin: Remixed will culminate with an after-party from 9:00pm to 2:00am, featuring DJ Garth, Wiseacre,Tamara, Sascha Lahti, and more. Read the rest of this entry »