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.
As part of an ongoing study stretching from Davis to Germany
and across the many islands of Indonesia, the UC
Davis Department of Music is holding a second
conference on Indonesian music. “Rethinking The History Of
Indonesian Music” on Nov. 5 brings together scholars from
around the globe
Professor Laurie San Martin, music department chair, and alumnus
Josiah Catalan
(Ph.D., music, ‘21) will have compositions performed at the
Festival of New American Music at Sacramento State University on
Nov. 9. Their works were commissioned and will be performed by
Earplay, a
Bay area-based chamber ensemble.
Professor Laurie San Martin, music department chair, has received
a commission from the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at
Brigham Young University. San Martin’s commission will be for
Ensemble Ari, a group of Korean American musicians in the San
Francisco Bay Area.
“Reimaginings” celebrates choral music that reinterprets the
genre through stylistic fusion, juxtaposition, rearrangement,
and revival of historical works by composers who have been
excluded from the Western Classical canon. All three UC Davis
choirs (University Chorus, Chamber Singers, and Early Vocal
Ensemble) will perform. Repertoire highlights include
Isabella
Leonarda’sMagnificat(1698),
Afro-Brazilian classical composer
José Maurício Nunes Garcia’s Laudate
Dominum, CPM 76 (1813), and works by Reena Esmail, Jerod
Impichchaachaaha’ Tate,Tomás
Luis de Victoria, and Rosephanye
Powell, among others. Despite its composition date,
the Laudate Dominum likely has never
been heard in California and is a premiere of sorts.
LiKWUiD, spoken word
Josh Henderson, violin, bass, guitar
Ju-Young “J.Y.” Lee, cello
Mikael Darmanie, piano
Rick Martinez, drums
Black Voices is an original concert program that integrates
classical, jazz, hip-hop, and spoken word—sounds and poetry
created by African-American artists—in an effort to lift up
lesser-known contributions that define the multifaceted culture
of the United States. Featuring the award-winning artist
LiKWuiD, the program utilizes poetry of Langston Hughes,
Ntozake Shange, and the Sacramento-based Maya Angelou. It also
features original spoken word material, set against music by
Duke Ellington, William Grant Still, Harry Burleigh, and
original compositions by Warp Trio members.
Described as “a talented group that exemplifies the
genre-obliterating direction of contemporary classical music”
(Columbia Free Times), Warp Trio is an
internationally touring cross-genre chamber music experience.
Reflecting the combination of Juilliard-trained members
juxtaposed with members steeped in rock and jazz styles, the
one-of-a-kind trio (that even has a fourth member!) can be seen
performing classical works in prestigious halls on the same tour
where they headline a standing room only show at a rock venue. In
addition to their electrifying public performances, they have
gained a reputation for their innovative educational workshops
with students from grade school through university
level.
Maintaining a busy performance schedule, Warp has performed
hundreds of concerts across the United States, in addition to
tours throughout The United Kingdom, Spain, Switzerland, Holland,
Germany, West Africa, and the Caribbean. Highlights of recent
seasons include headlining performances at The LEM Festival for
Experimental Music in Barcelona, and the Omaha Under the Radar
Festival, being featured guests at the 2020 MASA Jazz Festival in
Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, and the sold-out world premiere of their
Triple Concerto for Piano Trio and Orchestra with the New York
City-based Urban Playground Chamber Orchestra. They have been one
of the honored recipients of a New York Foundation for the Arts
Grant, and in the 2020 season, they were the recipients of the
Chamber Music America Ensemble Forward and Classical
Commissioning grants.
Individually, the members of Warp Trio hold degrees in
performance from the Juilliard School, Cincinnati-College
Conservatory of Music, and New York University. The beneficiaries
of an incredibly diverse range of education, among the ensemble,
they have received chamber music training from members of the
Guarneri, Juilliard, Emerson, and La Salle Quartets as well as
jazz instruction from figures such as Ray Anderson, Tony Moreno,
Dave Pietro, and Mike Richmond.
Warp Trio is an Internationally touring cross-genre chamber
music experience. Every chamber music program needs this kind
of energy. While the beginning and ending compositions by Haydn
and Brahms provided expected pleasures, it was the Warp Trio’s
own jazz/tango/classical works that gave the concert a kick in
the pants. —Cape Code Times
The Bacchetto / Sabey Duo is a collaborative project of San
Francisco-based composer-performers Nick Bacchetto and Ben
Sabey. The duo creates new works for piano and live electronics
using MIDI Polyphonic Expression instruments controlling analog
modular synthesis, which is spatialized into any speaker
configuration via the new Dolby Atmos renderer.
Ben Sabey is a composer of chamber, orchestral,
and electronic music, lately specializing in expressive
polyphonic control of analog synthesis and spatialization.
Nick Bacchetto is a composer and pianist whose
creative works derive from a tension between algorithmic and
intuitive composition, and explore concepts such as fractal
geometry and natural selection.
Christian Baldini, director and
conductor
with the San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows
Since its inception in 2010, Rising Stars of Opera has featured
vocal artistry, stirring arias and a glimpse at the opera stars
of tomorrow; and every ticket has been free to the public
thanks to Barbara K. Jackson. Rekindling an old tradition, we
relaunch Rising Stars of Opera with several singers from the
acclaimed San Francisco Opera Center performing a wide range of
great arias with full orchestral accompaniment from our own UC
Davis Symphony Orchestra.
Composed by New Zealand-born American composer Annea Lockwood,
Immersion (1998) for marimba and two
tam-tams was written for Dominic Donato and Frank Cassara and
arranged for the Talujon Percussion Quartet in 2001. It grew out
of a fascination with the rich beating frequencies generated by
long cluster rolls in the low register of the marimba and the
interaction between the marimba and a quartz bowl gong tuned to
F.
Composed for a flexible number of collaborative performers,
Frederic Rzewski’s Coming Together was
written in response to the 1971 uprising at the Attica
Correctional Facility. Our performance of Coming
Together will feature both undergraduate and graduate
student instrumentalists, playing alongside the professional
musicians of the Empyrean Ensemble. The performance will feature
Omari Tau, voice, reciting a text written by Sam Melville
that reflects the conditions at Attica during his incarceration
there.
Steve
Reich: Pendulum Music
performed in the Noda Lobby
The program ends with Steve Reich’s Pendulum
Music (1968) in a performance staged by Alysa Banks
(B.A., human development, with minors in music and sociology
’21), in the lobby of the Pitzer Center. Pendulum Music
makes use of multiple microphones swinging, pendulum-style, over
loudspeakers. Featuring dramatic squawks of feedback, the piece
concludes when the inertia of the swinging microphones naturally
come to rest. Sharp rhythms gradually wind down into a sustained
drone piece. The composer writes, “If it’s done right, it’s kind
of funny.”
