Undergraduate music major (focusing on vocal performance)
Tiara Abraham has won second place in
the Sacramento Master Singers Youth Scholarship competition. For
it she sang one of only a few Vincenzo Bellini art
songs, ”Per pietà, bell’idol mio,” in the collegiate
category, age 20–22.
Lecturer in music and alum Christopher Castro (Ph.D., composition
and theory, ‘18) has accepted the position of assistant professor
of composition at Chapman University’s College of Performing
Arts, Hall-Musco
Conservatory of Music. He joins the faculty in August
2022 and will teach composition and theory.
In a continuance of the Bay Area’s West Edge Opera “Aperture”
series, frequent collaborators and UC Davis alums Ryan Suleiman
(Ph.D. music, ‘20) and Cristina Fríes (M.A. creative writing,
‘19) have once again received positive reviews for an excerpt of
their new opera project, The School for Girls Who Lost
Everything in the Fire.
The British Forum for Ethnomusicology (BFE) has awarded a
commendation to Juan Diego Díaz in its 2022 “Early Career Prize”
for his 2020 article, “The Musical Experience of Diasporas: The
Return of a Ghanaian Tabom Master Drummer to
Bahia,” Latin American Music Review.
On Saturday, April 9, 2022, at 1:00 pm (Pacific Time), Professor
Christian Baldini will conduct the Porto Alegre Symphonic
Orchestra in Brazil. On the program is a double marimba concerto
(Fantasia Brasileira) by composer Rosauro Ney, as well
as Jean Sibelius’s Second Symphony.
Daniel Godsil (PhD, composition, ‘21) is now in
a tenure-track position teaching in the Department of Music at
Columbia College (Sonora, CA), which is located in California’s
Sierra Mountains.
Composition student Emily Joy Sullivan’s Bassoon Quartet was
performed at Denison University’s TUTTI Festival. The work was
included in a program on March 25 that focused on woodwinds.
Alumnus Gabriel José Bolaños (Ph.D., composition, ‘15) is
the recipient of the 2022 Suzanne and Lee Ettelson
Composer’s Award for his work nosotros hemos puesto los
muertos for bass flute, violin, cello, and double
bass.
The UC Davis Symphony Orchestra will premiere two works,
including one responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and a
much-loved symphony by Antonín Dvořák for its concert on March 5.
The concert takes place at 7 p.m. at the Robert and Margrit
Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.
Pierpaolo Polzonetti, Jan and Beta Popper Professor of Music, has
been receiving media attention for his new book Feasting
and Fasting in Opera: From Renaissance Banquets to the
Callas Diet (University of Chicago Press, 2021). Recently he
discussed the book on BBC Radio’s “Music Matters: Art centres,
Giovanni Antonini, Opera and Food.”
The Suzuki Association of the Americas (SAA) has announced that
alumna Angelica
Cortez (B.A., music, ‘12) has been named executive
director of the organization.
An excerpt called “Gaia|Gyre|Siren” from Newtown Odyssey,
the site-specific opera composed by Professor Kurt Rohde,
was recently performed. In conjunction with the performance,
Rohde and his collaborators were interviewed
for Urban
Omnibus, a publication of the Architectural League of
New York.
Ryan Suleiman (PhD, composition, ‘20) has
joined the faculty at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. As
part-time assistant professor in the composition department,
he will be teaching classes on harmony and counterpoint.
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.
Pierpaolo Polzonetti, the Jan and
Beta Popper Professor of Music at UC Davis, has published a new
book, Feasting
and Fasting in Opera: From Renaissance Banquets to the Callas
Diet, with the University of Chicago
Press. Feasting and Fasting in Opera moves
chronologically from around 1480 to the middle of the nineteenth
century, when [Richard] Wagner’s operatic reforms banished
refreshments during the performance and mandated a darkened
auditorium
Juan Diego Díaz, assistant professor of music, will discuss his
book Africanness in Action: Essentialism and Musical
Imaginations of Africa in Brazil as part of the series
Conversations
with Latin American Authors. The event will be livestreamed
on Nov. 11 at 3:30 p.m.
Professor Laurie San Martin’s Zepplin will
have its New York premiere on October 27 at the National Opera
Center in Manhattan. The performance will be performed live as
well as livestreamed beginning at 7:30 p.m. (EST)/4:30 p.m (PST).
For live stream access, visit the National Opera
Center YouTube Channel.
