In harmony with other venues on the UC Davis campus and across
the state of California, The Arts departments are committed to
providing as safe an experience as possible to our greater
community—and will do so until state or county guidelines are
lifted.
One of the most important priorities of the music department
today is establishing a fund to cover the otherwise out-of-pocket
expenses for individual music lesson instruction for UC Davis
students. These students gain necessary one-on-one instruction
from a career professional in their field and use those skills in
individual and group performances—including the UC Davis Symphony
Orchestra, Choruses, Percussion Ensemble, Baroque, Early Music,
and more. We seek everyone’s support in this endeavor.
One of UC Davis’s highest priorities is the safety of its
students and all members of its community. UC Davis
prohibits all forms of sexual harassment and sexual violence,
including sexual assault, dating and domestic violence, and
stalking. Such conduct violates University policy and may
violate California law.
UC Davis music faculty, lecturers, and graduate composer
alumni will participate in this year’s virtual Festival
of New American Music, taking place at Sacramento State
University’s School of Music, Nov. 7–14.
Laura Rose Schwartz (B.A., music, ‘13) will have a new work,
Figment, performed by the Camellia Symphony Orchestra on
Nov. 6 at 7:30 p.m. in Sacramento. Conducted by Christian
Baldini, UC Davis professor of music and music director and
conductor of the Camellia Symphony Orchestra, Schwartz’s
composition was commissioned by the orchestra.
Zachary James Watkins is a composer and
electronic music artist. He will be visiting UC Davis’s music
department several times over the 2021–22 school year, including
a May 2022 performance of his piece Affirmative Action
with The Living Earth Show (an artist-in-residence guitar and
percussion duo), and working with graduate students in
composition and creative writing for their collaborative
performance work in late May 2022, titled “See / Hear /
Say,”which is funded by the Davis Humanities
Institute Research and Arts Clusters Grant.
Watkins has received commissions from Documenta 14, the Kronos
Quartet, The Living Earth Show, sfsound, and the Seattle Chamber
Players among others. His 2006 composition Suite for String
Quartet was awarded the Paul Merritt Henry Prize for Composition.
Zachary has performed in numerous festivals across the United
States, Mexico, and Europe and his band Black Spirituals opened
for pioneering Drone Metal band Earth during their 2015 European
tour. In 2008, he premiered a new multi-media work entitled
Country Western as part of the Meridian Gallery’s
Composers in Performance Series. Zachary completed
Documentado / Undocumentado (Moving Parts Press, 2017),
a multimedia interactive book in collaboration with Guillermo
Gómez Peña, Gustavo Vasquez, Jennifer Gonzalez, and Felicia Rice.
Zachary has been an artist-in-residence at the Espy Foundation,
Djerassi, and the Headlands Center for The Arts.
Watkins studied composition with Janice Giteck, Jarrad Powell,
Robin Holcomb, and Jovino Santos Neto at Cornish College. In
2006, Zachary received an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording
Media from Mills College where he studied with Chris Brown, Fred
Frith, Alvin Curran, and Pauline Oliveros.
The choirs of UC Davis present “A World Anew,” an evening
celebrating the joy, resilience, and healing power of singing
together. The program will feature all three of UC Davis’s
choirs: the University Chorus, the Chamber Singers, and the Early
Music Vocal Ensemble, performing repertoire spanning from the
twelfth to twenty-first centuries. Highlights include works by
Rosephanye Powell,
Melissa Dunphy,
William
Byrd, and Sydney
Guillaume, among others.
