Music 2A, 6A, and 16A must be taken concurrently for a total of 7
units. This set of courses comprises first-year theory
requirements for music majors and begins once a year, in the
fall quarter.
Performance Track Jury Auditions are postponed until early
fall.
Students who were planning on taking the auditions are advised to
sign up for the fall auditions once the call is out. Students
that pass the audition in the fall will be allowed to hold junior
recitals in the spring the same year, in order to not delay
progress in the track.
More information will be posted as it becomes available.
Please feel free to email Professor Mika Pelo should you have any
questions.
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.
The Department of Music is proud of its students. Not only have
they risen to the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic,
but in the wake of the senseless killings of George Floyd,
Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, they have committed themselves
to social justice. We resoundingly support our students’ efforts
to make the world a more inclusive and safer place, and we
continue to elicit their input on how best to address the
systemic racism that endangers people of color. We stand
with our students in protesting violence against black and brown
members of our community.
Laurie San Martin, professor and chair of the music department,
has announced that Distinguished Professor of Music Anna Maria
Busse Berger will retire in July 2020. Busse Berger joined the
department in 1988.
The UC Davis Department of Music brings life to both classic and
newly created works. Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic we will
not offer in-person concerts in the Fall of 2020. We hope we
can return to presenting in-person concerts sometime between
January and June of 2021. In fact, we have many spectacular and
diverse programs planned by the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra,
Empyrean Ensemble, Chorus, Concert Band, and others.
Beginning in October, we will livestream weekly noon
concerts thanks to generous gifts made to the Joy S. Shinkoskey
Series of Noon Concerts Endowment. Gifts to the endowment are
made by local Davis resident Brett Hewitt and others, and support
professional musicians from our region. If you are able, consider contributing to
the fund.
We are also exploring the possibility of streaming a few creative
performances by our student ensembles. We will release more
information as our options become more clear. Any streamed
concerts will be shown on the Music at UC Davis YouTube
channel.
Graduate student composer Aida
Shirazi has been selected to be one of ten composers from
around the world to participate in the IRCAM Cursus Program for Composition
and Computer Music in Paris, France, in 2020–21. At Cursus, which
was founded by composer-conductor Pierre Boulez,
the ”philosophy is that the computer is a tool for musical
creation.” In 2019 Shirazi participated in IRCAM’s ManiFeste
summer festival.
