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.
Professor Carol A. Hess has published a new book, Aaron
Copland in Latin America: Music and Cultural
Politics (University of Illinois Press). In it she
gives an in-depth examination of the composer’s exchange of music
and ideas with Latin American composers.
Professor Kurt Rohde has been given a 2022
San Francisco Arts Commission fund. The $20,000 commission will
be used to support 4:30 Movie, a new twenty-minute
micro-opera using poems by Donna Masini published
in 4:30
Movie (Norton, 2020). These funny, touching,
ruthless poems take the reader through the diagnosis,
treatment and death of the author’s sister from cancer.
Using the language of how movies are made and consumed, Masini
tells the story of her sister’s struggle, and of her grief—both
during her treatment and after her death.
The
National Endowment for the Arts has awarded an Arts
Project Grant to the Newtown Creek
Alliance, which is in the process of creating a site-specific
performance piece composed by Professor Kurt Rohde. The Newtown Creek separates the
border of Queens and Brooklyn, and has a history of being one of
the most polluted waterways in the country. The piece is
called the Newtown Odyssey,
which is being actively developed through workshops with artists
and local community organizations.
Doctoral students Dean Kervin Boursiquot and Trey Makler will
have compositions premiered by the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble on
Jan. 29 and 30 in the Bay Area.
The Bacchetto / Sabey Duo is a collaborative project
of San Francisco-based composer-performers Nick Bacchetto and
Ben Sabey. The duo creates new spatial audio works for
piano and a custom modular analog synthesizer controlled by an
MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) instrument.
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.
Program
Gaetano Donizetti: “Caro elisir, sei mio” from L’elisir
d’amore
Georges Bizet: “Habanera” from Carmen
Giacomo Puccini: “Signore ascolta” and “Nessun dorma” from
Turandot
Francesco Cilea: “Acerba voluttà” from Adriana
Lecouvreur
Jacques Offenbach: “Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour” from Les
Contes d’Hoffmann
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.
