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The KPBS Summer Music Series celebrates local music. Each week features performances and interviews with San Diego musicians representing a cross-section of the region's diverse music scene.

In the final installment of our series exploring two years of the pandemic's impact on the performing arts industry, we look at the live music scene and local music venues, with stories from a venue owner, security staff and a performer.

Jan van Eyck was a revolutionary painter whose discoveries were felt from the beginning to represent something entirely new. More than any other artist he made painting into the ultimate art. His works were sought by princes and merchants throughout Europe, who prized them for their remarkable qualities of verisimilitude, technical and coloristic virtuosity, and heightened expressive power. It was said he knew fabrics like a weaver, buildings like an architect, and plants like a botanist. Of his 20 extant works, two stand out as so remarkable in their iconography and symbolism that they continue to intrigue scholars to this day: 'The Ghent Altarpiece' and 'The Arnolfini Portrait.’ The 'Ghent Altarpiece' was the young van Eyck's first major public work and the first large-scale oil painting to gain international renown. The 'Arnolfini Portrait' has been a matter of intense inquiry as to its subject matter throughout its history. This docent-led talk will explore these two works, considering the questions that have kept art historians fascinated for the past six centuries. Image: “Arnolfini Portrait”

As part of his project "The Currency," Damien Hirst released a collection of 10,000 NFTs, each one corresponding to a physical artwork. Buyers could keep either the non-fungible token or the painting.

Movie choices offer unconventional biopic or effective horror.

Part rock show. Part comedy act. Part spectacle. US Air Guitar allows ordinary people to become ridiculous rock stars. Come watch Southern California's finest battle it out for a shot at the US Air Guitar National Title! Want to unleash your inner rock star? Sign up to compete! As the only official national competition recognized by the Air Guitar World Championships, US Air Guitar sends its national champions to compete for the world title in Oulu, Finland every year. Founded in 2003, US Air Guitar is the official air guitar association of the United States and is responsible for operating the US Air Guitar Championships, Regional and Finals competitions, All-Star showcases and online contests. US Air Guitar is devoted to taking our nation’s unofficial pastime out of the bedroom and putting it up on the world stage. US Air Guitar is an official member of the World Air Guitar Association. Entering its twenty-first year in the US and its twenty-sixth year worldwide, official national championships are held in countries around the globe and have included: the USA, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, The Netherlands, Romania, Russia, Switzerland, Thailand, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom, with new countries participating every year. The 2023 Air Guitar World Championships will take place this August 25th in Oulu, Finland. “It is for good reason that competitive air guitar is widely considered the purest form of human entertainment. By making the heart of the matter invisible—by objectifying nothing—air guitar derives its legitimacy not from some received expectation of cultural value, but rather from the mere presence of the people gathered to bear witness. The competitors, the judges, and the crowd are the only proof that this event even exists. And as a result, its meaning is purely subjective. Every air guitar is an empty vessel, resistant to banal interpretation. And thus, impossible to destroy.” –Kriston Rucker, co-commissioner, US Air Guitar Stay Connected on Social Media! Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Join the San Diego River Park Foundation this Earth Day weekend, April 21 - 23 to celebrate community, environmental stewardship, and connection to our namesake waterway with a FREE community mural opportunity in San Diego River's 52-acre hidden gem, Mission Valley Preserve. This multi-day event will be held along the San Diego River Bikeway in Cottonwood Grove, just west of the Sefton Park Baseball Fields. The mural will be led by San Diego River Park Foundation staff and volunteers, and the mural will be designed by local artist Helen T Kim. Activities include mural prepping, painting, and light gardening of the surrounding Cottonwood Grove area. We will also offer educational tours of the San Diego River at this time. We are looking for local artists, gardeners, volunteer leaders, families, friends, coworkers, clubs, classes, groups, and YOU help us celebrate the San Diego River with restoration of the Cottonwood Grove area and a new community mural! This event will be free but donations towards the San Diego River Park Foundation will be accepted. Come for a few hours or spend the entire day with us! San Diego River Park Foundation on Facebook/ Instagram

The Athenaeum invites you to a free open house the day following our "Talk of the Town" annual benefit celebration. There will be coffee and pastries upon opening at 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. tour of the Athenaeum with Librarian Kathi Bower Peterson, a 2 p.m. artists’ books presentation by Carol Buckley in the Elliott North Reading Room, and a 3:30 p.m. concert with vocalist Elizabeth Marcano, accompanied on piano by Kathi Bower Peterson, performing popular 1920s songs from sheet music in the Athenaeum collection. Stay Connected on Social Media! Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Join UCSD as they host a MFA Thesis Exhibition from Visual Arts Graduate Student "Blight Birth Burning in Brine is reimagining my feelings of my personal memories through misremembering, adding, and subtracting its details. Blurring truth and fiction to create new imagined memories." Dates | Monday, May 16th- Thursday, May 19th at 5pm Location | UCSD Visual Arts Facility Free Event! For further information on this event please visit: https://visarts.ucsd.edu/news-events/20220511-20_victorcastaneda.html

Thursday, June 1, 2023 at 8:30 p.m. on KPBS TV / Stream now with the PBS App + Encore Monday, June 5 at 8:30 p.m. on KPBS 2. American bass DeAndre Simmons uses his velvety voice to captivate audiences. He has performed for dignitaries such as President Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela. Comedian Ray Grady has toured the nation carving a name for himself and working alongside comedians Kevin Hart and Nick Cannon on the BET+series REAL HUSBANDS OF HOLLYWOOD.