Debut Performance of NIRUSU III at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts)

Valencia, October 14 -- NIRUSU III, the trio of Susan Allen, Nicholas Chase and Rus Pearson, debut its improvisational explorations with a concert at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) on November 2, 2005 at 8 p.m. The multi-media performance will be held at the Roy O. Disney Music Hall. CalArts is located at 24700 McBean Parkway in Valencia, California. Admission is free.

For their performance, NIRUSU III integrates a visual track of live and prerecorded video into real time improvisation to create sonic and visual environments.

The trio combines the diverse backgrounds of these acclaimed musicians -- Allen in classical music, Chase in electro-acoustic music and visual design, and Rus in jazz. Susan Allen is an internationally renowned harpist who is both an alumna and current faculty member at CalArts. The LA Weekly cites Allen as one who "moves birdsong moments through trilling vibrations -- inverse, obverse and beautiful", by El Naciónal in Caracas, Venezuela as "a sort of paradigm for the female world and a first-rate harpist: expressive and with a magnificent ability", and by the Darmstadter Echo (Germany) as a "sovereign interpreter."

Chase, a CalArts alumnus who has received numerous awards for his work, including the first President's Distinguished Alumnus Award in Music from CalArts. He has been hailed as "brilliant" by Strad Magazine. The Los Angeles Times calls his work "flamboyant, avant-garde...brawling yet taut...the Rite of Spring meets Metallica." and the LA Weekly wrote "the human brain at its most imaginative."

Master bass virtuoso from the UK, Rus Pearson has recently recorded and toured with jazz great David Liebman.

In their debut on November 2nd, the trio NIRUSU III will work improvisationally with graphical video imagery, electronics and bass and harp/kayageum sounds in cutting-edge explorations of state of the art music and visuals.

The group will tour the UK and Norway during the 2006-2007 concert season.

CalArts has a multidisciplinary approach to its studies of the arts through six schools: Art, Critical Studies, Dance, Film/Video, Music, and Theater. CalArts encourages students to explore and recognize the complexity of the many aspects of the arts. It is supported by a distinguished faculty of practicing artists and provides its BFA and MFA students with the hands-on training and exposure necessary for an artists' growth. CalArts was founded in 1961 and opened in 1969 as the first institution of higher learning in the United States specifically for students interested in the pursuit of degrees in all areas of visual and performing arts.