All campus events including classes, public concerts and recitals have been canceled for Wednesday, officials announced.
Activities will resume Thursday, said Neal Stulberg, co-director of the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, in an email statement. He said Maryann Gray, assistant provost in the office of the Executive Vice Chancellor Scott Waugh, canceled all activities on Wednesday.
Stulberg said individual recitals are canceled, but he is trying to reschedule the UCLA Symphony performance for a future date. A musical from Positivity Productions theater group, an event dedicated to musician Eduard Pashinyan and a panel about racism featuring rapper Macklemore were all planned for Wednesday but have been canceled by organizers. “Ignite: Foundations Choreography Spring 2016 Exhibition” will continue, according to a post on the dance group’s Facebook page.
A new student-run theater group Positivity Productions canceled its second performance of the musical “Tick, Tick … Boom!” on Wednesday because of the campus lockdown. The UCLA venue, Northwest Campus Auditorium, closed access to the theater for the night, said Jonny Perl, a third-year communication studies student and the show’s producer, co-director and lead actor. He said the group wants to reschedule another showing of “Tick, Tick … Boom!” this weekend.
“We think that the show will serve as an appropriate tribute to the events that happened due to how it handles the subject of mental health,” Perl said.
READ MORE: Full coverage of campus reactions to Wednesday’s murder-suicide.
Cancelations are understandable, said Maxim Kuzin, conductor of Opera UCLA’s performance of “The Tragedy of Carmen” and the UCLA Symphony’s performance originally planned for Wednesday.
As soon as he heard of the lockdown, Kuzin reached out to the music department to determine whether the performances would go on as scheduled. Kuzin, a graduate student, said the UCLA Symphony is trying to find an alternative date because students worked hard in preparation.
“I personally completely understand and I would not feel comfortable giving a concert under the circumstances, emotionally,” Kuzin said. “I think it was a wise decision to cancel the events.”
Graduate student Anahit Rostomyan, organizer of the Ciro Zoppo Event 2016, said the university canceled her project to perform music of composer Eduard Pashinyan. After winning the 2015 Ciro Zoppo Graduate Student Award a year ago, Rostomyan began preparing for this event. She said it will be rescheduled for next week or fall quarter 2016.
“I was hoping I could share his music with everyone here,” she said.
Rostomyan said she was prepared for the event Wednesday and it was difficult coming to terms with not presenting material, though she’s hopeful she’ll still have the chance to play.
However, Foundations Choreography’s spring showcase will continue at 7 p.m. Wednesday because it was unable to reschedule, the dance group announced on the event’s Facebook page.
The post reads, “Amidst this tragedy, we would like our showcase to serve as a reminder of the joy of doing something we love with the people we love.”