Serena Yang (Ph.D. student in
musicology) was awarded a $10,000 grant from the Taiwanese
government to support her research and graduate studies. Her
article, “Mode and Atonality in Japanese Music: Pitch Structure
in Minoru Miki’s Jo no kyoku” was recently published in
the Music
Research Forum (University of Cincinnati).
The Empyrean Ensemble — the professional “new music” group
at UC Davis — opens its season on Sunday (Nov. 8) at 7
p.m. with a concert featuring edgy new works in the Mondavi
Center’s Vanderhoef Studio Theatre. There will also be a free
concert featuring excerpts from the program at noon on Thursday
(Nov. 5).
The concert is titled “Newly Written, Here and There,” and the
concert will feature six recent works by composers living in
different parts of the United States. On the program:
The UC Davis Jazz Ensembles, directed by Sam Griffith, perform
their fall 2015 program in the Mondavi Center’s Vanderhoef
Studio Theatre on Friday, Nov. 13, at 7 p.m.
The UC Davis Early Music Ensemble will present its fall-quarter
concert at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 18, at St. Martin’s
Episcopal Church, 640 Hawthorn Lane in Davis. A donation of $20
general or $10 for students is suggested at the door.
A well-known jazz musician and professor at the University of
California at Davis visited American River College on Thursday
to discuss how students could succeed in the music industry in
his lecture during a jazz clinic.
Jacam Manricks said that being a successful musician is more
than just playing music. Manricks urged the students to not
only think about the artistic side of music, but the business
aspects of the industry as well.
Two classic works of chamber music by Johannes Brahms
— the Piano Trio in C Major, and the String Sextet in G
Major — will be featured in a free noon concert on
Thursday, Oct. 29, in Jackson Hall at the Mondavi Center.
With 10 days to fill, Sacramento State’s Festival of New
American Music (www.csus.edu/music/fenam) has a lineup
Nov. 6-15 to please all music lovers with a variety of
forms and artists, and even includes a couple of former members
of the Grateful Dead.
FeNAM’s featured composer is Kurt Rohde, who will present a
keynote address at noon, Friday, Nov. 13. A recipient of
the Rome Prize, Berlin Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship, Rohde
also is a founder of and performs with the Left Coast Chamber
Ensemble.
Finnish cellist Anssi Karttunen will visit the Mondavi Center’s
Vanderhoef Studio Theatre at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 26, for a free
concert. It will feature a piece titled “Manzi,” with music by
Davis composer Pablo Ortiz performed by Kartunnen on solo
cello. A dance video with choreography by Diana Theocharidis —
featuring dancers Romina Pedroli and Aníbal Jiménez, recorded
by videographer Jean-Baptiste Barrière — will accompany the
music.
The Camellia Symphony Orchestra, under conductor Christian
Baldini, will perform in Sacramento at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct.
24.
Returning by popular demand will be soprano Carrie Hennessey,
singing arias from “Don Giovanni” and “Le nozze di
Figaro” by Mozart and “Don Carlos” by Verdi. Opening
the program will be “Midsommarvaka” (Swedish Rhapsody No.
1) by Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén (1872-1960). Concluding
will be the moody Symphony No. 4 by Finnish composer Jean
Sibelius (1865-1957).
The Chamber Music Society of Sacramento will highlight the
double bass — an instrument that often plays a background role
in classical music — as the group hosts bassist Thomas
Derthick at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 24, at Congregation Bet
Haverim, 1715 Anderson Road in Davis.
Derthick is principal bass of the Sacramento Philharmonic,
Sacramento Ballet and Sacramento Choral Society. He frequently
performs with the Chamber Music Society of Sacramento and has
recorded and toured with the Empyrean Ensemble of UC Davis.
On Friday, UC Davis offered a tour of the
still-under-construction Ann E. Pitzer Center to donors and music
lovers Grace Noda, third from right, Grant Noda, center back,
Malcolm MacKenzie, far right, and Natalie MacKenzie, second from
right, who were early supporters of the project. The
17,500-square-foot building will include a 399-seat recital hall,
which will double as a lecture hall. There also will be a lobby
for receptions, book or CD signings, etc., several much-needed
practice rooms, storage space for instruments, office space
and more.
Michael Accinno, Ph.D. candidate in musicology at UC Davis, is
one of the contributors to The Oxford Handbook of Music
and Disability Studies, a newly released collection of peer
reviewed essays published by Oxford University Press. His essay
“Disabled Union Veterans and the Performance of Martial Begging”
documents the lives of disabled military veterans who performed
as organ grinders in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War.
The Design Museum at UC Davis is hosting “Rattled,” an
exhibition of more than 100 baby rattles (many of them
historic) from the collection of Lu and Maynard Lyndon, the
founders and owners of Placewares+LyndonDesign in Gualala, on
the coast in Mendocino County.
“That the overtures are as much of a pleasure to listen to as
the arias is thanks to the exceptional qualities of the
Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) under conductor Christian
Baldini—never rushing, usually finding the perfect tempo in
common with his and Robin Ticciati’s predecessor in perfect SCO
Mozart, Sir Charles Mackerras.”
From their annual summer festival to their subscription series
of concerts, American Bach Soloists has made an impact on the
early vocal music scene in the Bay Area. So it’s no surprise
the group won this category with 51.21% of the vote, followed
by Schola Cantorum (31.76%) and the International Orange
Chorale of San Francisco (17.03%) — also fantastic choral
performers.
Just because a group invokes Bach in its very name doesn’t mean
there isn’t room for it to explore the music of other
composers. The American Bach Soloists proved the point on
Thursday with a grand, and even grandiose, account of a
little-known operatic gem of the French Baroque, Marin Marais’
1709 opus Sémélé….
This sparkling recording features the Scottish Chamber
Orchestra under Christian Baldini
conducting a personal selection of arias from six
of Mozart’s well-loved operas, alongside their respective
overtures. The soprano Elizabeth Watts, winner
of the 2006 Kathleen Ferrier prize, is the featured soprano and
she brings character and depth of understanding to her
performance.
In recognition of outstanding contributions to the academic
environment at UC Davis through active engagement with faculty
and fellow students, along with excellent academic achievement
and demonstrated leadership in the music major.