This concert is guest conducted by Matilda Hofman, features Guyanese American soprano Shawnette Sulker — acclaimed for her “heart-breaking poignancy” by the San Francisco Chronicle — and has on it three works that will demonstrate the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra’s ability to present compelling music by a variety of composers.

The program opens with Yu-Hui Chang’s Pixelandia, a 2015 multi-movement work inspired by the joy of first-wave 2D video games, “with graphics so primitive that every scan line and pixel was visible.” Music and video-game enthusiasts will be delighted to learn that the third movement is where one meets the “Boss” and that the tempo marking before the last movement is “Insert coin to continue.”

The other two pieces on the program are by twentieth-century American composers Florence Price and Samuel Barber. Price’s music didn’t enjoy the same successes as Barber’s did “on account of [her] sex and race.” Her Third Symphony in C Minor was funded by a Works Progress Administration (WPA) grant and was first performed in 1940, Michigan. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was in attendance, but the work remained unperformed until 2001 when the Women’s Philharmonic in San Francisco recorded it. The work interweaves mid-century modernist music techniques with African dance rhythms and themes. 

Barber’s Knoxville uses a poem by James Agee, sung by soprano and orchestra. The work is a musical picture of a summer’s day in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1915, in which a boy lays in a field listening to the sounds around him. This performance features Guyanese American soprano Shawnette Sulker, acclaimed for her “heart-breaking poignancy” by the San Francisco Chronicle. Knoxville was last performed at the Mondavi Center by Christine Brewer and the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra in 2009 for the Barbara K. Jackson Rising Stars of Opera program.

Program

Yu-Hui Chang: Pixelandia

Samuel Barber: Knoxville: Summer of 1915

Florence Price: Symphony No. 3 in C Minor

$12 Students and Children, $24 Adults (Reserved Seating)

About the Guest Artists

Guyanese American soprano Shawnette Sulker has been acclaimed for her “heart-breaking poignancy” and “beautifully tuned soprano” by the San Francisco Chronicle and for her “enchanting vocal splendor” by the Leipziger Volkszeitung. A consummate performer, she has been a featured artist at San Francisco Opera in their production of Porgy and Bess. Her recently sung roles include Poppea (L’incoronazione di Poppea) with both Intermountain Opera Bozeman and West Edge Opera, Die Königin der Nacht (Die Zauberflöte) with Santa Rosa Symphony, and Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare) with West Edge Opera.

She had the distinction of creating the leading role of Mary Jane Bowser in Houston Grand Opera’s workshop of Jake Heggie’s latest opera, Intelligence. Additional new music performance highlights in 2023 included creating the role of Ariel in Allen Shearer’s Prospero’s Island, performing Princess Dorain in Lori Laitman’s The Three Feathers, and singing Sparrow in Okoye’s Tales from the Briar Patch. Further new music credits include creating the role of Corina in the world premiere of David Conte’s opera Firebird Motel. More information: www.shawnettesulker.com.

Matilda Hofman has a varied and busy conducting schedule. Reviewers have described her conducting as “taut and finely controlled” and giving “a striking sense of purpose.” She is Music Director of the Diablo Symphony Orchestra, conductor-in-residence for the Empyrean Ensemble at UC Davis and Artistic Director of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. Matilda also serves as a cover conductor for the San Francisco Symphony.

Matilda is a committed educator. In the 2024–25 season Matilda will be conductor-in-residence at the University of the Pacific, and a guest conductor at the Eastman School of Music and for the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra. When Matilda is not making music she can be found hanging out with her kids or working as a Wilderness Ranger in the Trinity Alps.