Events Featuring "Untitled Head" by Jun Kaneko

Jun Kaneko's Monumental Sculpture has Arrived

Experience the Music Academy’s exhilarating new celebration of rhythm, sculpture, and innovation – featuring Jun Kaneko’s monumental Untitled, Head – currently on site on the Music Academy’s campus.

Standing 13 feet tall and weighing nearly 2,000 pounds, the cast bronze work will be available for viewing through Monday, June 28 before it moves to The Granada Theatre — becoming a powerful bridge between art, music, and performance.

You are invited to experience its transformation into a striking percussion instrument live onstage for two unique Summer Music Festival performances on July 3 and July 5.

Untitled, Head is on loan from the artist with generous support from Andre Yew.

Performances Starring Untitled, Head

PercussionFest

Thu, Jul 3, 7:30 PM • the Granada Theatre • $35–125

Feel the Beat! See the Music! Join us for PercussionFest — a thrilling, family-friendly spectacle where percussion takes center stage. Witness everyday objects transformed into instruments, synchronized rhythms brought to life, and dazzling performances featuring theatrical lighting and short films.

PercussionFest features the West Coast premiere of The Bells by rock legend Stewart Copeland (The Police) and solo movements from Grammy-nominated composer Andy Akiho’s shimmering orchestral work Sculptures. The event promises a mesmerizing fusion of theatrical lighting, short films, and jaw-dropping musical performances — with Jun Kaneko’s sculpture, Untitled, Head, as a the main centerpiece, producing laughter-like effects to haunting, weeping tones.

Academy Festival Orchestra: Akiho's Sculptures

Sat, Jul 5, 7:30 PM • the Granada Theatre • $35–125

The Academy Festival Orchestra, led by acclaimed conductor David Danzmayr, will present the complete Sculptures alongside Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra, with Kaneko’s towering work Untitled, Head soaring 15 feet above the musicians as part of the striking visual and musical experience.

Program

ANDY AKIHO Sculptures (Music Academy co-commission)
RICHARD STRAUSS Also sprach Zarathustra

How to Visit the Sculpture

Untitled, Head is available for public viewing on Fé Bland Plaza at the Music Academy through Monday, June 28. Visitors are welcome to view the sculpture during Music Academy business hours, Monday through Friday, 9 am to 5 pm, or until sunset via the Academy’s pedestrian access gates.

Admission is free, and no appointment is necessary. Fé Bland Plaza is located directly in front of Hahn Hall at the Music Academy’s Miraflores campus, 1070 Fairway Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93108.

About Andy Akiho

Andy Akiho, the Music Academy’s 2025 Mosher Guest Artist for Percussion and Composition, is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and a seven-time GRAMMY-nominated composer. Called “trailblazing” by the Los Angeles Times, Akiho is celebrated for bold, inventive works that unravel intricate and unexpected patterns while constantly pushing the boundaries of classical music. His compositions are sought after by leading orchestras and ensembles around the world, and his performances highlight the theatricality and physicality of live music in thrilling new ways.

Also a virtuosic steel pannist, Akiho has a deeply physical relationship with playing, which undoubtedly informs his compositions. His style is also shaped by his unique path as a composer: having spent most of his 20s playing steel pan by ear in Trinidad and New York City, Akiho only began writing music at age 28. LEARN MORE

About Jun Kaneko

Jun Kaneko was born in Nagoya, Japan in 1942. He studied painting with Satoshi Ogawa during his adolescence. In 1963, he came to the United States to continue his studies at Chouinard Art Institute and with Peter Voulkos, Paul Soldner, and Jerry Rothman during the time now defined as The Contemporary Ceramics Movement in America. Kaneko has taught at some of the nation’s leading art schools, including Scripps College, Rhode Island School of Design, and Cranbrook Academy of Art.

His artwork now appears in numerous international and national solo and group exhibitions annually and is included in more than eighty museum collections. Jun Kaneko has also designed three opera productions – Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, Beethoven’s Fidelio , and Mozart’s The Magic Flute, which were commissioned by Opera Omaha, the San Francisco Opera, and the Washington National Opera. LEARN MORE

Untitled, Head: The Backstory

In 2023, the Omaha Symphony embarked on a collaboration with artist Jun Kaneko and award-winning percussionist and classical composer, Andy Akiho to create a suite of new music inspired by Jun’s work. Over the course of a year, Akiho took up residency in a studio loft to engage directly with Jun and his staff. Akiho worked day and night in Kaneko’s studio, turning the artist’s Dangos, Heads, and Columns into unique percussion instruments. As he experimented with sound, Akiho and Kaneko found mutual inspiration in each other’s work, and Kaneko gave Akiho carte blanche to use the sculptural forms as instruments.

The resulting suite of music, titled Sculptures, represents the culmination of the deeply collaborative friendship between Kaneko and Akiho. The symphonic work incorporates ceramic and bronze sculptures which were used as both percussion and string instruments.

Sculptures premiered in March 2023, performed by the Omaha Symphony under the baton of Music Director Ankush Kumar Bahl. The symphony’s recording, released in September 2023, earned widespread critical acclaim and garnered Akiho three Grammy nominations. In November 2023, the Oregon Symphony, led by Music Director David Danzmayr gave the West Coast premiere.

Akiho’s piece was Commissioned by the Omaha Symphony in consortium with Oregon Symphony and Music Academy of the West.