List of 3 items.

• Democracy and Distrust in Artificial Intelligence

  A talk by Sonia Katyal, Associate Dean and Roger J. Traynor Distinguished Professor of Law, UC Berkeley
  
  Since the release of ChatGPT less than 5 months ago, talk about AI—its promise and perils, and how it will shape, and perhaps threaten, our world—is everywhere. Professor Katyal has been studying these issues for years and will discuss how the rise of AI is challenging how we think about creativity, trust, and prediction, and why AI is already raising questions about the future of civil rights, the rule of law, and democracy. She will also talk about what we can do to address some of the challenges posed by AI as the technology takes an increasingly central role in an uncertain future.

  
  During the Obama administration, Katyal was selected by U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker to be part of the inaugural U.S. Commerce Department’s Digital Economy Board of Advisors. 

• The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

  A Talk by Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute

  
  Are we alone in the universe? That seems increasingly unlikely given the recent revelation that there could be more than a trillion planets in our own Milky Way galaxy. Yet the scientific hunt for extraterrestrial life is now into its sixth decade, and we still haven’t discovered any cosmic company.
  

   

  New approaches and technology for discovering extraterrestrial life provide hope that we could uncover evidence of sophisticated civilizations within our lifetimes. If so, what might the aliens be like?

   

  Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute, discusses one of the most profound questions humanity can ask: Is there anyone out there? Seth is host of the SETI Institute’s weekly science radio show, “Big Picture Science.” He is a recipient of the Carl Sagan Award for the Popularization of Science, and the Klumpke-Roberts Award for outstanding contributions to the public understanding and appreciation of astronomy.
  
  Feel free to read his recent Wall Street Journal essay Could the Government Really Cover Up UFOs?, about an upcoming report expected from U.S. military intelligence agencies on what they know about 144 "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena."

• Performing Arts and The Pandemic

  Live Renaissance chamber music concert and discussion on how COVID-19 has impacted music and the arts
  
  With Elisabeth Reed, Julie Jeffrey, David H. Miller, Farley Pearce, and soprano Jennifer Paulino. Moderated by Andrew Luchansky.

  
  

  A live performance of early music by a viola da gamba consort and voice ensemble. The event is a rare opportunity to hear a group of internationally renowned artists—Elisabeth Reed P '25, Julie Jeffrey, David H. Miller, Farley Pearce, and soprano Jennifer Paulino—perform a variety of exquisite Renaissance compositions in the intimate setting of the Buttner Auditorium. Cellist and professor of chamber music, Andrew Luchansky P '25 will moderate a conversation with the musicians to discuss their backgrounds, passion for the viola da gamba, and this unusual instrument's singular repertoire. The group will also discuss the unprecedented challenges the pandemic created for performing artists, and what is ahead for the live music scene in the Bay Area and beyond.

  

  ARTIST BIOS:

  Elisabeth Reed, a College Prep parent, teaches Baroque cello and viola da gamba at University of California at Berkeley and at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she is co-director of the Baroque Ensemble. A soloist and chamber musician with Voices of Music, Archetti, Pacific Musicworks, and Wildcat Viols, she has also appeared with the Smithsonian Chamber Players, the American Bach Soloists and the Seattle, Portland, Pacific, and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestras. She can be heard on the Virgin Classics, Naxos, Focus, Plectra, and Magnatunes recording labels and has many HD videos on the Voices of Music Youtube channel. She is a Guild-certified practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method™ of Awareness Through Movement™ with a particular interest in working with musicians and performers. 

  
  

  Julie Jeffrey has been playing the viol since 1976. She has performed throughout the U.S., in Canada, Mexico, Europe and Australia, and teaches privately and at workshops in the U.S. and abroad. Ms. Jeffrey is a founding member of Sex Chordae Consort of Viols, Wildcat Viols, Antic Faces, and The Barefoot All-Stars, and she embodies half of the viol duo Hallifax & Jeffrey. She is co-founder and co-director of Barefoot Chamber Concerts, and has served on the board of directors of The Viola da Gamba Society of America, The Pacifica Viola da Gamba Society, and The San Francisco Early Music Society.

  
  

  David H. Miller is a musicologist and performing musician, and Assistant Professor of Practice in the Department of Music at the University of California, Berkeley. David holds a BA in music from Harvard University and a PhD in musicology from Cornell University. His research focuses on modernist music, particularly that of Anton Webern, and its performance and reception in the United States. As a performer, David plays a variety of early bowed bass instruments, including the viola da gamba, violone, and Baroque double bass, focusing on the music of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. He has worked with ensembles such as the Handel and Haydn Society, Trinity Wall Street, New York Baroque Incorporated, and the Arcadia Players, and collaborates frequently with the Renaissance band Seven Times Salt. 

  
  

  Farley Pearce is a San Francisco based freelance musician who plays cello, viols, violone, and contrabass. He has performed with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and the baroque orchestras of Portland, Vancouver, and Los Angeles. He appears in many YouTube videos with the Voices of Music ensemble.

  
  

  Jennifer Paulino, soprano, is celebrated for her “graceful yet powerful” and “sensitive and clear” voice (San Francisco Classical Voice). Specializing in baroque, contemporary, and chamber music, Ms. Paulino has performed as a soloist in Australia, Denmark, Poland, The Netherlands, and across the U.S. In 2012, she was the Cal-Western regional winner and a national finalist in the NATS Artist Award Competition. Ms. Paulino is on faculty at the San Diego Summer Choral Festival, and holds degrees from The Royal Conservatory of The Hague and Westminster Choir College.

  
  

  Andrew Luchansky, a College Prep parent, is professor of cello and chamber music at the California State University Sacramento, School of Music. He has performed at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in New York as principal cellist in the Musica Sacra orchestra and in Spain, Italy and Denmark as a chamber musician and soloist with Camerata Deia. As a member of the Classical Band he performed in Germany at the Schleswig-Holstein music festival and recorded for Deutsche Grammophon. Mr. Luchansky teaches string pedagogy at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and cello and chamber music at the SF Conservatory Pre-College. He is the founder/director of the Sacramento State String Project, a nationally recognized service-learning program that provides string instrument lessons to underserved children from Sacramento. He is also the founder and artistic director of The New Millennium Series which presents eminent concert artists from all over the world.