#Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience

By Larry Blumenfeld. In late February at Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, Remy Ohara, a UCLA music student, sounded a shofar, the ram’s horn usually used for High Holiday services at Jewish temples—first in short blasts, then longer sustained tones. Surrounded by a brass and percussion orchestra and flanked by two sections of

Thousands witnessed three days of "Music and Justice" hosted by the Lowell Milken Center for Music of the American Jewish Experience. Many came to see Darius, Chris and Dan Brubeck on stage, to hear two world premieres, or to catch glimpse of real life freedom riders. But the week was much more than that. The Brubecks visited classes, jammed with students, and reflected on their father's legacy at a conference.

“Want to give us a blast?” the bassist Chris Brubeck asked the young woman in a music studio at the University of California, Los Angeles, on Wednesday morning. Remy Ohara lifted a long, corkscrewing shofar to her lips and blew a resonant call. Brubeck had brought a few other shofars with him as options, but it was clear from the moment Ohara, a sophomore trumpet student, started playing that this one had what he was looking for.

When composer and UCLA instructor Diane White-Clayton was commissioned to create a new work for the sweeping “Music and Justice” concert being presented by UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music and the Lowell Milken Center for Music of the American Jewish Experience, she found inspiration by connecting the past with the present.

On Feb. 28, the Brubecks, Arturo O'Farrill, Tonality, and a host of other artists will be joined on stage by a very special guest: Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely, one of the Freedom Riders who battled segregation in 1961.

As events go, it doesn’t get much bigger than the upcoming Gates of Justice concert on Feb. 26 at Royce Hall. International stars? Check. Jazz royalty? Check. Anticipated world premieres? Check. As key contributors to the Music and Justice series presented by the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience, UCLA students will be on

On Sunday, Feb. 26, Brubeck’s “The Gates of Justice” will be performed at Royce Hall as part of “Music and Justice,” a series by the Lowell Milken Center for Music of the Jewish American Experience that will feature prominent musicians, scholars and critics. “Some of the most powerful conversations we can have don’t begin with words,” said Anna Spain Bradley, vice

Inna Faliks, the renowned concert pianist, and professor and head of the piano department at the School of Music reflects on how music helped her connect more deeply with her Jewish heritage.

UCLA has opened North America’s first permanent academic home for the study of music of the American Jewish experience. Housed in the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, the new Lowell Milken Center for Music of Jewish Experience will foster artistic creativity, scholarship, performance and other cultural expression, thanks to a $6.75 million gift from the Lowell Milken Family Foundation.