UC San Diego has always been home to excellent education, cutting-edge research, world-class healthcare and trailblazing visual and performing arts. The opening of the Epstein Family Amphitheater continues that tradition and amplifies UC San Diego’s position as a premier cultural destination for our binational region.

The community’s newest state-of-the-art performing arts venue joins a collection of crowd favorites on our campus, including the Conrad Prebys Music Center, ArtPower, Liontree Arena, Birch Aquarium, Mandell Weiss Center for the Performing Arts, University Art Galleries, Stuart Collection of public art, and the La Jolla Playhouse. Spaces like these forge strong connections and heighten the community’s intellectual and emotional ownership of one of its most prized assets, its premier public university.

There is a uniquely elevating alliance between the pursuits of a major public research university and the expression of art. Art and research both address the most important questions of our time with ambition and intellectual courage. Both ask important questions that propel discussion and discovery. And both respond to humanity in meaningful and impactful ways. This is what makes art so powerful at UC San Diego.

Tritons enjoy and inspire art that is bold, fresh and unafraid to explore, discover and declare. For example, using hydrophones, researchers from our Scripps Institution of Oceanography captured sounds in the Arctic Ocean that no one had heard before. Upon hearing the recordings, a group of artists/scholars led by Professor Lei Liang composed Hearing Seascapes, a series of pieces that explored the origins of these sounds and why we were hearing them. Their work evokes the realities of the impact of climate change and forces important conversations required for change to happen.

It is this kind of expression and artistry that demonstrates UC San Diego’s unique distinction of being created and born as an experimental campus. The Epstein Family Amphitheater was designed with our spirit of experimentation and innovation in mind. It is not only a space curated for professional performances, but it is also open to faculty and students to experiment. Just like our art galleries and other performance spaces on campus, the Epstein Family Amphitheater is equally accessible for experimentation by the faculty and students, for the students and for our greater San Diego community.

UC San Diego’s Epstein Family Amphitheater confirms our commitment to provide access to arts, culture, education and entertainment to all. Made possible by the generous support of Dan, Phyllis and the entire Epstein family, San Diego has a new home to showcase the very best of our region and beyond. Please enjoy a memorable evening of world-class music, and plan to return often. Welcome to the Epstein Family Amphitheater, and welcome to UC San Diego.