Music

• Rebecca Clarke: Sonata for Cello and Piano
• Stephanie Ann Boyd: Cosmos (2025)
• Griffin Candey: Honey, for cello and voice
• Amy Beach: Chanson d’amour
• Jules Massenet: Elegie and On dit
• Charles Go

The Mighty Wallops came together in 2024 over a shared love for early jazz and blues.

Faculty, graduate and undergraduate students from the department of music will participate in a living sound installation, the Arboretum Sound Lab, as part of the National Gathering of 

Ensemble-in-residence at UC Davis, Empyrean presents engaging and eclectic programs, inviting audiences to experience new musical sensations delivered with high artistry by its extraordinary players.

Sam Nichols, director • Matilda Hofman, resident conductor

Benjamin Kreith and Hyeyung Sol Yoon, violins • Charlton Lee, viola • Kathryn Bates, cello

• Edward Simon: Guardian of the Oceans
• Julius Eastman: Gay Guerilla

luminous yet corporeal L.A. Times

• Reena Esmail: Varsha
• J.S. Bach: Sonata in C Major, BWV 1005
• Shahab Pāranj: Sarv PREMIERE
• Paul Ben-Haim: Sonata in G, op. 44

Free, a Shinkoskey Noon Concert

Collaborators and star performers of their instruments — Grammy Award-winning pianist Michelle Cann and Mexican Japanese American flutist Ráyo Furuta — will give an unforgettable performance at the Pitzer Center.

Unheard-of Ensemble is a Brooklyn-based clarinet, violin, cello, and piano quartet breaking boundaries between new music and the communities it serves.

Unheard-of Ensemble is a Brooklyn-based clarinet, violin, cello, and piano quartet breaking boundaries between new music and the communities it serves.

• Gamelan Ensemble • Heni Savitri, director
• Mariachi Los Mesteños • Oscar Garibay

Free

This talk will explore the ways that show tunes have staged and musicalized Black and brown characters in U.S. musical theatre, with a focus on voice and affect. In addition to color and sound, the title here also references the emotional pitch at which such performances must operate.

To be announced

Free

Both the UC Concert Band and the California Youth Symphony celebrate their 75th year.

In Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony, we hear the tunes of Russian revolutionary anthems (“Listen,” “You Fell as Victims,” “Rage, Tyrants”) — folk songs that carry the memory of the people massacred by the Tsar in 1905 on Bloody Sunday.

Pete Nowlen, coordinator

To be announced. 

Free

This program is a celebration of the big band tradition, featuring jazz musicians from right here in our campus community. The bands will dig into Miles Davis's bebop staple Half Nelson and Jimmy McHugh's beloved standard Exactly Like You, among other selections.

Otto Lee, director, with additional coaching by Michael Schwagerus

To be announced. 

Free

Pete Nowlen, coordinator

To be announced. 

Free

Illuminating choral works written by female composers over two centuries, central work of the program is a multi-movement work — Iluminare — by award-winning composer Elaine Hagenberg.

Tenor Joe Lerangis is the Priscilla E. Browning Director of Choral Music at Yale University.