Sibarg Ensemble
Sara Saberi, oud & vocals
Hesam Abedini, vocals
Dhiren Panikker, piano & keyboard
Rodolfo Zuñiga, drums and
CSUF New Music Ensemble
February 20, 2026
RONALD S. ROCHON
President, California State University, Fullerton
AMIR H. DABIRIAN
Provost and VP for Academic Affairs
ARNOLD HOLLAND, EDD
Dean, College of the Arts
DR. RANDALL GOLDBERG Director, School of Music
KIMO FURUMOTO
Assistant Director, School of Music
BONGSHIN KO
Assistant Director, School of Music
SCHOOL OF MUSIC FULL-TIME FACULTY AND STAFF
FACULTY
CONDUCTING
Kimo Furumoto instrumental
Dr. Robert Istad choral
Dr. Christopher Peterson choral
Dr. Dustin Barr instrumental
JAZZ AND COMMERCIAL MUSIC
Bill Cunliffe jazz piano; arranging; Fullerton Jazz Orchestra, Fullerton Big Band and combo director
Rodolfo Zuñiga* jazz studies, jazz percussion, and music techology; Fullerton Chamber Jazz Ensemble director
PIANO, ORGAN, PIANO PEDAGOGY
Bill Cunliffe jazz piano
Alison Edwards* piano, piano pedagogy, class piano
Dr. Robert Watson piano
MUSIC EDUCATION, TEACHER TRAINING, AND TEACHING CREDENTIAL
Dr. Christopher Peterson choral
Dr. Gregory X. Whitmore* instrumental
MUSIC IN GENERAL EDUCATION
Dr. John Koegel*
Dr. Katherine Reed
MUSIC HISTORY AND LITERATURE
Dr. Vivianne Asturizaga musicology
Dr. John Koegel* musicology
Dr. Katherine Reed musicology
STRINGS
Kimo Furumoto Director of Orchestra Studies and University Symphony Orchestra conductor
Bongshin Ko cello
Dr. Ernest Salem* violin
THEORY AND COMPOSITION
Dr. Hesam Abedini composition, theory
Dr. Pamela Madsen composition, theory
Dr. Ken Walicki* composition, theory
VOCAL, CHORAL, AND OPERA
Dr. Robert Istad* Director of Choral Studies and University Singers conductor
Dr. Kerry Jennings* Director of Opera
Dr. Christopher Peterson CSUF Concert Choir and Singing Titans conductor
Dr. Joni Y. Prado* voice, academic voice courses
Dr. Bri’Ann Wright general education
WOODWINDS, BRASS, AND PERCUSSION
Dr. Dustin Barr Director of Wind Band Studies, University Wind Symphony, University Band
Jean Ferrandis* flute
Sycil Mathai* trumpet
Ken McGrath* percussion
Dr. Gregory X. Whitmore
University Symphonic Winds conductor
Michael Yoshimi* clarinet
STAFF
Michael August Production Manager
Eric Dries Music Librarian
Gretchen Estes-Parker Office Coordinator
Will Lemley Audio Technician
Jeff Lewis Audio Engineer
Chris Searight Musical Instrument Services
Paul Shirts Administrative Assistant
Elizabeth Williams Business Manager
* Denotes area coordinator
Welcome to the spring 2026 events season at Cal State Fullerton’s College of the Arts. We have been hard at work in every classroom, practice room, and studio across campus preparing to share new sounds and bold creativity with all of you. We are thrilled you are here.
Our students and their success form the core of our purpose in the College of the Arts but unlike their counterparts in other colleges, their paths are not solely formed through classroom learning; they are revealed in the moments when talent meets opportunity. Like when a dancer attends an intensive, or when a musician travels abroad on tour, or an actor or artist is mentored – this is where promise is transformed into possibility. The Dean’s Fund for Excellence gives students access to meaningful experiences like these and many more, including masterclasses, research opportunities, materials, and professional conferences. You can help ensure creativity isn’t limited by circumstance. Consider a gift of any amount to the Dean’s Fund for Excellence today.
This spring semester is brimming with performances and exhibitions for all to enjoy –some that will make you laugh and others that will make you think. In the School of Music, Sibarg Ensemble, featuring our own Hessam Abedini, explores the musical intersections of Iranian music and jazz on February 20. In April, Benjamin Britten’s comic opera “Albert Herring” follows the shy, virtuous title character as he rebels against his prudish upbringing. Join us in the Little Theatre beginning March 5 for the musical “Once Upon a Mattress” – an uproarious sendup of Hans Christian Anderson’s fairytale, “The Princess and the Pea.” If you’re craving something completely different, Eugène Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros” opens March 19 to hold a mirror to the absurdity of mob mentality and the struggle to maintain individuality in the face of mass hysteria. And in late spring, our dancers and choreographers return to demonstrate their inimitable power and grace in “Spring Dance Theatre.”
Across the walkway from where you’re seated are the College of the Arts Galleries. You can still catch exhibitions from Soo Kim and Carol Caroompas until May, or stop by the galleries on Wednesdays for our bi-weekly Student Galleries opening receptions. They are always full of energy, and you might even find student artwork to purchase and take home!
Whether you’re returning to our venues or here for the first time, we are so excited to present another season to you. Thank you for joining us.
Sincerely,
Arnold Holland, EdD Dean, College of the Arts
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PROGRAM
“Improvising the In-Between” reflects the mixed feelings that emerge in times of political tension—between fear and hope, distance and belonging, and the public narratives of politics and the private realities of people’s lives. Through Persian/Jazz improvisation, Sibarg Ensemble brings original compositions and traditional melodies reimagined into a shared musical space where difference is not erased but heard. The performance offers unity among people through deep listening—not as a slogan, but as a practice of collaboration and making something new together in real time.
This Unbending Creature (2024)..............................................
Hesam Abedini
Sibarg Ensemble and CSUF New Music Ensemble
Warsaw (2026) ......................................................................... Rodolfo Zuñiga
Sibarg Ensemble and CSUF New Music Ensemble
Benshin (2019) ......................................................................... Hesam Abedini
Sibarg Ensemble and CSUF New Music Ensemble
Sāri Galin ........................................................................... A shared folk song
Sāri Siroon Yār Armenian folk song
Rim-bara-bebop (2020) Hesam Abedini
Improvisation 1
Improvisation 2
End of Shāhnāmeh (2018) ......................................................... Josh Charney
City is a Swamp (2018) ............................................................ Hesam Abedini
This Unbending Creature (2024)
HESAM ABEDINI
Based on a poem by Fereydoon Moshiri (1926-2000)
Translated by Dr. Fatemeh Keshavarz
I am troubled
With the humanity’s dire end… now more than ever.
So troubled… that I shudder with the thought
Not able to see, or to read, or to think
This unbending creature
Alas…
Cry, and they will not learn or notice
Scream and they will remain deaf
They cannot see
That to this growing mass of people
And the bloody strife they are entangled in
Will soon be added the fear of starvation
They cannot see
That if you give the earth blood in the place of water
It will never grow wheat for you.
Benshin (2019)
HESAM ABEDINI
Based on a poem by Fereydoon Moshiri (1926-2000)
Stay, don’t leave— what if the night is half gone?
Let the dawn smile upon us a little longer.
Stay and see: the daughter of the morning sun
Envies the glow of our longing…
Stay, don’t leave— what if the night is half gone?
Stay, for I have spent endless nights awake with thoughts of you.
Stay, don’t leave— for in the heart of night, beneath the moon’s soft glow, Nothing is sweeter than love’s words, silence, and gaze.
Stay, don’t leave— don’t speak of another time, Who knows if we will ever meet again?
Stay, don’t leave— see the purity of my longing, Tonight, the lamp of love burns bright in this house.
Don’t let my soul burn in the darkness of your absence.
Stay, don’t leave— don’t go, for now is not the time to part.
End of Shāhnāmeh (2018)
JOSH CHARNEY
Based on selected lines from Shāhnāmeh of Ferdowsi (11th c.) and a poem by M. Akhavan Sales (1929-1990)
Selected lines of a poem by M. Akhavan Sales
The waves have gone to sleep, lull and subdued
The storm is not drumming
The blazing fountains have dried up
There is neither news nor noises
In the non-throbbing of the necropolis
Even one can’t hear an owl’s hoot
Mute and stifled,
The Wretched of the Earth
Stifled and mute, the wrathful
All stories have been buried
Under an eternal silence
The sighs losing their ways in chests
The birds hiding their heads under their wings
The gallows have been removed, the blood have been washed away
The house was empty, and the landlord had no food or water
And there was nothing left to write home about!
Selected lines from Shāhnāmeh of Ferdowsi:
Translated by Dr. Babak Mazloumi
They hide all the treasures
They strive not yielding their achievements to the foe
No faith has remained in this world
The tongues and souls are brimming with tyranny
They shed blood for the worldly gains
Bad times seem halcyon
They seek their own profit at the expense of others
Using “religion” as their pretext
City is a Swamp (2018) HESAM ABEDINI
Based on a poem by Fereydoon Moshiri (1926-2000)
Translated by Dr. Babak Mazloumi
The city is a swamp, it’s breathless, the voices are lost
There is absolute silence, no voice, no song
There is no loophole to a dawn, coming from faraway
There is no window for the morning, to smile at us
No hand appears holding, a librating sentence
Nor a forgiving God, having mercy on us
With all the hopelessness, depression, and darkness
With all the brutalities, tyranny, and aggressions
Like a sea, one day, this suppressed land
Would be all roaring, tempestuous, and crying
+As San Diego Troubadour noted, Sibarg Ensemble embodies “an organic authenticity that reflects strong ties to both traditional Persian music and improvisational aspects of jazz.” Founded in 2008 by vocalist Hesam Abedini at Tehran Music Conservatory, Sibarg broke new ground as both the conservatory’s first intercultural ensemble and the first to bring together students from both the women’s and men’s music schools. Since relocating to the US in 2010, the ensemble has performed at UCLA’s Royce Hall, USC’s Bovard Auditorium, and the Carlsbad Music Festival, as well as Springfest SD, Mount Saint Mary’s Women in Music Festival, Central Stage Berkeley, UCI’s Smith Hall, UCSD’s Conrad Prebys Music Center, Red Poppy Art House, Open Gate Theatre, Teatro Universitario Benito Juárez. Their debut album “Cipher” (2018) exemplifies their dynamic approach to intercultural musicmaking, where traditional Iranian music and jazz improvisation interweave in an ever-evolving creative dialogue.
Eric Dries, director • Pamela Madsen, artistic director
CSUF New Music Ensemble, under the direction of Pamela Madsen and Eric Dries focuses on the instruction in the techniques of contemporary concert music, and preparation of performances of contemporary instrumental, vocal, improvisational and electroacoustic music literature from the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. We study and perform a wide range of repertoire from the contemporary period: from, experimental, atonal, to extended tonal, minimalism, post-minimalism, post-modernism to multimedia collaboration, film music, deep listening and improvisational forms to explore both the repertoire and performance practice in New Music. As part of the New Music Series we work with guest composers, performers and perform with contemporary New Music Ensembles. Chosen by Los Angeles Audience Choice Award as the Best New Music Ensemble in 2022, we have worked with guest ensembles Los Angeles based Brightwork newmusic, Stacey Fraser, HEX Vocal Ensemble and guest artists Jean Ferrandis, and Dominique Williencourt last season.
Julia Craft – Keyboard
Cooper Koerner – Alto Saxophone
Alex Lopez – Trumpet
Cruz Boschini – Trombone
Shannon Hayden – Cello
Scott Dilbeck – Voice
Soft Washburn – Voice
Christian Polo – Voice
Sara Saberi grew up in Tehran, the capital of Iran. At the age of 11, she began her musical journey at the Tehran Music Conservatory under the supervision of oud masters Mansour Nariman, Hossein Behrouzinia, and Mohammad Firoozi. She went on to earn her degree from Aali Music University. In Iran, Sara performed with several ensembles, including the Khorshid Ensemble and the Maah Ensemble, both led by Majid Derakhshani, as well as Avaye Norouz, led by Siavash Imani. In the US, she has performed with various musicians and ensembles such as the Majnoon Ensemble and the Sibarg Ensemble, among others. From 2011 to 2014, Sara was privileged to serve as the oud concertmaster with the National Orchestra of Iran (Orchestra-ye Melli-ye Iran), under the direction of Bardia Kiaras and Arash Gooran, where she had the honor of performing with Maestro Hossein Alizadeh. She is particularly proud of founding her all-women ensemble, Chista, and is a strong advocate for women’s freedom in music, especially in her country.
Hesam Abedini is an Iranian–American composer, performer, improviser, and educator whose work explores intersections of classical Persian music, jazz, Western contemporary traditions, and computer music. His works reflect a polystylistic approach to intercultural musicmaking, bringing diverse traditions into dialogue through improvisation and composition. His music has been performed by ensembles such as the JACK Quartet, Del Sol Quartet, Eclipse Quartet, Hypercube, loadbang, and Amalgama Ensemble. As the founding member of the Sibarg Ensemble, he has helped shape a distinctive intercultural voice combining classical Persian music and jazz.
Hesam is also active as a curator, producer, and filmmaker. His interdisciplinary projects include the NEA- and Roshan-sponsored documentary From Isfahan to Irvine, archived at the Library of Congress, and several albums: Cipher (with Sibarg Ensemble), Kooch-e Khamân (co-produced with Del Sol Quartet, Billboard Classical Chart #5), Ode to Love (with Namâd Ensemble), and Circadian Etudes (with The Assembly for Distance Alchemy). He is a writer for the Pish Radif website, an educational platform created to make classical Persian music accessible to learners from all backgrounds. His curatorial projects include Music of Exile at the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles and the Doornavâzi Festival, highlighting intercultural voices in performance and dialogue.
Educated at the Tehran Music Conservatory, the Yerevan State Conservatory, UC San Diego (B.A.), and UC Irvine (Ph.D. in Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology), Hesam studied with Lei Liang, Chinary Ung, Anthony Davis, Mark Dresser, Christopher Dobrian, Michael Dessen, Kojiro Umezaki, and Hossein Omoumi. He has taught at UC Irvine, Saddleback College, Soka University of America, and Butte College. In 2025 he joined the School of Music at California State University, Fullerton as Assistant Professor of Composition–Music Theory, where he also serves as Assistant Director of the CSUF New Music Series.
Dhiren Panikker is a Los Angeles–based pianist, composer, scholar, and educator whose work bridges performance, research, and pedagogy. An active pianist, he has appeared at venues across Southern California including Libretto, The Jazz Bakery, Blue Whale, and the Catalina Jazz Club. His recent solo piano album Moonlight Becomes You (2024) features reimagined works by popular American composer Jimmy Van Heusen. As the leader of Trio Sangha, Dhiren integrates concepts from Indian classical rhythmic practice within a contemporary jazz framework (Lost Locations, 2012).
Dhiren holds a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of California, Riverside (2019) and an MFA in Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology from UC Irvine (2010). His scholarly research examines jazz as a site of intercultural exchange and political expression, with particular attention to race, gender, and the cultural politics of improvisation in the post-9/11 era. His work has been published in Jazz and Culture and Critical Studies in Improvisation, and he has presented at numerous national and international conferences, including meetings of the Society for Ethnomusicology, the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, and the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation.
A dedicated educator, Dhiren currently serves as a visiting lecturer at Scripps College and Mt. San Antonio College, where he teaches courses in jazz piano, improvisation, popular music, world music, and ethnomusicological methods. In addition to his academic work, he is the co-founder of Innovation Music Studio, Inc., a boutique music school offering personalized instruction in pop, jazz, and improvisation. Through his teaching and mentorship, Dhiren empowers students of all ages to develop technical fluency and creative expression.
Drummer, and composer Rodolfo Zuñiga is a native of San Jose, Costa Rica, now residing in the LA area. Since his arrival in U.S., he’s become one of the most sought-after sidemen and educators. He has shared the stage with Gary Campbell, Ira Sullivan, Bill Mays, Silvano Monasterios, Tomasz Dabrowski, Errol Rackipov, Stephen Scott, Troy Roberts, Bill Cunliffe, Martin Bejerano, Dave Fernandez, Camila Meza, John Hart, Michael Dease, Jonathan Kreisberg, Alex Norris, Chris Dingman, Rotem Sivan, Andy Laverne, Othello Molineaux, Adam Kolker, Randy Brecker, Lew Tabackin, Joe Locke, and Don Friedman to name a few.
Rodolfo is a tenured professor and Director of Jazz Studies at Cal State University-Fullerton. He held previous positions at Florida International University, Broward College and Miami Dade College teaching Jazz, Music Production and Music Business. He has performed and presented at the Jazz Education Network convention and has been a Thelonious Monk Institute clinician. He has taught masterclasses at The Royal Conservatory of Music in Denmark, The American Modern School of Music in Paris, The Universidad de las Americas in Ecuador, The New World School of the Arts in Miami, and The Universidad Nacional, Universidad de Costa Rica and The Symphonic Conservatory in San José,Costa Rica.
As a leader and composer, Rodolfo’s quartet “Surfaces” has released two albums and maintains a busy schedule performing in the US and in Central and South America. In 2005 the group was awarded the Carnegie Hall Residency under the direction of Dave Douglas. In that same year Rodolfo was chosen to be part of Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead Residency featured at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. More recently, Rodolfo has put together an octet version of “Surfaces” which is comprised of a jazz trio, string trio, electric guitar and vocals. This large ensemble is planning a forthcoming 2026 release.
As a sideman, Rodolfo has toured the world with highly creative jazz projects performing in festivals like Copenhagen Jazz Festival, The Cully Switzerland Jazz Festival, Jazz Fest Málaga, The Ecuador Jazz Festival, Jazz Sur Le Ville Marseille, The Guatemala Jazz Festival, Ground Up Music Festival, The Jacksonville Jazz Festival, and The St. Petersburg Jazz Festival. In addition, Rodolfo is the drummer for multi-Grammy award winner and best-selling Latin Pop artist Julio Iglesias. As part of this group, he has performed at iconic venues like The Royal Albert Hall in London, The Kremlin Palace in Moscow, The Dubai Opera House, Rockefeller Center in Noew York, The Al Majaz Amphitheatre in Sharjah, UAE, The Forest Opera in Poland, The Yad Eliyahu Stadium in Israel, and The Auditorio Nacional in Mexico.
Rodolfo is a proud Zildjian Cymbals and Vic Firth endorser. www.rodolfozuniga.com
Pamela Madsen, artistic director
CSUF New Music Ensemble
Pamela Madsen is a composer, performer, theorist, writer and curator of new music. From massive immersive concert-length projects, solo works, chamber music to multi-media opera collaborations her work focuses on issues of social change, exploration of image, music, text and the environment. With a Ph.D. in Music Composition from UCSD, studies with Brian Ferneyhough, Mellon Foundation Doctoral Research Award in theory at Yale University, Post- Doctoral research in Music Technology at IRCAM, Paris, and Deep Listening Certificate with Pauline Oliveros, her creative projects and research focuses on the evolution of compositional thought, improvisation, electronic music, and women in music.
Madsen’s works have been commissioned and premiered world-wide by such artists as Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, Brightwork newmusic, ModernMedieval, Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, Tony Arnold, Nicholas Isherwood, Stacey Fraser, Claire Chase, Jane Rigler, Anne LaBerge, Brian Walsh, Lisa Moore, Vicki Ray, Aron Kallay, Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo, Ashley Bathgate, Trio Solisti, New York New Music Ensemble, Either/Or, yesaroun’ duo, California Ear Unit, Verdehr Trio, Zeitgeist, JACK, Ethel, Lyris, Formalist and Arditti string quartets with multi- media collaborations with visual artists Quintan Ana Wikswo, Camille Seaman, Jimena Sarno and Judy Chicago.
Major concert-length projects include Madsen’s Opera America and National Endowment for the Arts Funded Opera: Why Women Went West, National Endowment for the Arts and New Music USA supported Oratorio for the Earth; Luminous Etudes: Visions of the Black Madonna of Montserrat; Luminosity: Passions of Marie Curie multi-media opera; Melting Away: Gravity for orchestra, with Arctic photographer Camille Seaman; We are All Sibyls-Envisioning the Future Project multi-media opera installation with visual artist Judy Chicago. Selected as Huntington Library Mellon Research Fellow, Alpert Award Panelist, Creative Capital artist “on the radar” with awards from Opera America, National Endowment for the Arts, New Music USA, Meet the Composer, American Scandinavian Foundation, artist residency fellowships at MacDowell Colony, UCross, Wyoming, Women’s International Studies Center, New Mexico, Wurlitzer Foundation Award, with international Russia/Siberia Concert tour, featured composer at Pulsar Festival, Denmark, she is a frequent guest artist at festivals and universities worldwide. She is Director of the Annual New Music Festival, InterArts Collaborative Projects at Cal State Fullerton where she is Professor of Music Composition, Music Theory and Director of the New Music Ensemble.
Eric Dries, director
CSUF New Music Ensemble
Eric Dries is a pianist, improviser, composer and educator who explores the innovative fields between traditional jazz, free improvisation, and contemporary classical music. His work explores a wide range of stylistic practices from jazz and contemporary music worlds in diverse performance situations. Dries is interested in expanding experimental ideas while honoring the fundamental tenets of the jazz tradition. His solo piano performances reinterpret and invigorate the tradition of jazz standards with a foundation of rhythmic experimentation and harmonic and melodic expansion. Dries has performed and recorded with some of the top studio and freelance musicians in southern California where he is in high demand at high profile performance venues, and jazz festivals. Dries early notated compositional works explore virtuosic solo instrumental experimentation and unusually orchestrated chamber ensemble combinations. His current compositional work combines the rigor of compositional technique with improvised frameworks of traditional jazz and experimentalism of new music to create systems of group dynamics that encourage performer-composer collaboration and new sonic exploration in each performance. He holds a Ph.D. in Composition and M.A. in Music Theory from University of California San Diego, where he studied with Rand Steiger, George Lewis, Anthony Davis, Roger Reynolds and Brian Ferneyhough, with post-doctoral studies and research in Music Technology at IRCAM. He studied jazz improvisation and composition with bassist Richard Davis and saxophonist Les Thimmig at University of Wisconsin Madison where he received his BM in Music Composition, studying with Stephen Dembski. Dries currently is a Lecturer in Music composition, theory, jazz, and music technology at California State University Fullerton School of Music.
$500,000 +
Mrs. Junko Klaus
$100,000-$499,999
Johnny Carson Foundation
$50,000-$99,999
CSU Northridge Foundation
Leo Freedman Foundation
Ms. Susan Hallman in Memory of Ernie Sweet ‘77
Mr. Matthew Scarpino & Ms. Karyn Hayter
Mr. Steve & Mrs. Robin Kalota
Dr. Sallie Mitchell*
Dr. Tedrow & Mrs. Susan Perkins
Mrs. Louise Shamblen
$25,000 - $49,999
Mr. Darryl Curran
Mrs. Lee C. Begovich
Mrs. Marilyn Carlson
Ms. Mary A. and Mr. Phil Lyons
Mr. Bob & Mrs. Terri Niccum
Mr. Ernest & Mrs. Donna Schroeder
Dr. Ed & Mrs. Sue Sullivan
$10,000-$24,999
Dr. Joseph & Dr. Voiza Arnold
Mr. John Aimé & Ms. Robin de la Llata Aimé
Dr. Marc Dickey
Mrs. Evelyn Francuz
Mr. Edward & Mrs. MaryLouise Hlavac
Ms. Kathleen Hougesen
Ms. Kathy Mangum
Mr. James & Mrs. Eleanore Monroe
Mrs. Norma Morris
Mr. John Brennan & Ms. Lucina Moses
$5,000-$9,999
Mr. Nick & Mrs. Dottie Batinich
Continuing Life LLC
Ms. Harriet Cornyn
Mr. William S. Cornyn
Dedicated 2 Learning
Mr. Richard & Mrs. Susan Dolnick
Ebell Club of Fullerton
Friends of Jazz, Inc.
Dr. Margaret Gordon
