Reviewer Lilly O’Brien of the San Francisco Classical Voice sat
down with pianists Keisuke Nakagoshi and Eva-Maria Zimmermann to
talk about their upcoming performance of their
Pictures-at-an-Exhibition-like performance project
called “Zofo-Moma,” which they will perform at UC Davis on
Friday, February 14.
West Edge Opera’s “Snapshot”
Festival program was comprised of four short operas,
including UC Davis Graduate student Ryan
Suleiman’s Moon, Bride, Dogs, which was set to
a libretto by UC Davis graduate student in creative writing
Cristina Fríes. Michael Zwiebach of the San Francisco
Classical Voice reviewed the performance and said of it—
The very title of “Moon, Bride, Dogs,” an eerily beautiful new
chamber opera by composer Ryan Suleiman and librettist Cristina
Fríes, serves as both the cast of characters and a hint at the
piece’s terse M.O. There’s nothing in this 20-minute opus that
doesn’t need to be there, but it covers plenty of ground in
just a few deft strokes.
West Edge Opera’s “Snapshot”
Festival program was comprised of four short operas,
including UC Davis Graduate student Ryan
Suleiman’s Moon, Bride, Dogs, which was set to
a libretto by UC Davis graduate student in creative writing
Cristina Fríes. The work was originally premiered at UC
Davis in May 2018 by the Brooklyn Art Song Society along with
five other pieces for voice and piano in collaboration with
the Program in Creative Writing.
A collaboration between writer Cristina Fríes—alumna of UC
Davis’s Creative Writing program—and current doctoral candidate
in UC Davis’s music composition program will premiere Bones
of Girls in Sacramento January 24–25.
Taproot new music festival offers a lineup of new music groups
and commissioned works over four days. “The festival is
rooted in this place and produces unique works,” said Sam Nichols, festival coordinator, composer and
music department faculty member. “The different groups and people
come together and meet one another and share. We didn’t just want
groups parachuting in and performing what they might perform
elsewhere and then leave.”
Music major Matthew Rasmussen ‘20 will play the Weber
Bassoon Concerto with the Solano Symphony
Orchestra. He is one of three winners of the orchestra’s
2019 Young Artist’s Competition. Matthew is the
principal bassoonist in the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra and
studies with UC Davis lecturer in music David Granger.
Taproot new music festival offers a lineup of new music groups
and commissioned works over four days. “The festival is
rooted in this place and produces unique works,” said Sam Nichols, festival coordinator, composer and
music department faculty member. “The different groups and people
come together and meet one another and share. We didn’t just want
groups parachuting in and performing what they might perform
elsewhere and then leave.”
Two versions of a miniature opera by Ryan Suleiman, a doctoral
student in music composition and theory, and Cristina Fríes, who
earned an M.A. in creative writing from the English department,
will have performances in Sacramento, Berkeley and San Francisco
this month.
In addition to teaching horn and the concert bands at UC Davis,
lecturer in music Pete Nowlen is director of the Rancho Cordova’s
Civic Light Orchestra called “Symphony d’Oro.” Through this
orchestra he builds on local connections.
Graduate student Ryan
Suleiman’s short opera Moon, Bride,
Dogs will be performed twice in a partnership with Bay
Area new music ensembles EARplay and West Edge Opera called
“Snapshot.” His opera is written to a libretto by UC Davis
graduate student in creative writing Cristina Fríes and was
premiered at UC Davis in May 2018 by the Brooklyn Art Song
Society along with five other pieces for voice and piano in
collaboration with the Program in
Creative Writing.
The Howard
Mayer Brown Fellowship for a minority graduate study in
musicology for 2019 was awarded to UC Davis music graduate
student Serena
Yang.She is the first UC Davis
student to earn the Brown fellowship from the American
Musicological Society.
UC Davis Associate Professor of Music Mika Pelo is one of fifteen
composers who has been awarded a 2019 Fromm Music Foundation
commission. The foundation seeks to strengthen composition and to
bring contemporary concert music closer to the public. In
addition to the commissioning fee, a subsidy is available for the
ensemble performing the premiere of the commissioned work.
Distinguished Professor of Music Anna
Maria Busse Berger was elected an honorary member of the
American Musicological Society (AMS) at their 2019 meeting in
Boston. According to the AMS By-laws, Honorary and Corresponding
members of the AMS are those scholars “who have made outstanding
contributions to furthering its stated object and whom the
Society wishes to honor.”
The American Musicological Society has given its annual award for
a book in the category of teaching to UC Davis Professor of Music
Carol A. Hess. Experiencing
Latin American Music (UC Press) draws on human
experience as a point of departure for musical
understanding. Students explore broad topics—identity, the
body, religion, and more—and relate these to Latin American
musics while refining their understanding of musical concepts and
cultural-historical contexts.
Music student Lauren Risha has had her paper—”‘In the Hands
of a Nobleman’: Enlightenment Values and Collective Morality in
Mozart’s Don Giovanni‘”—published in the 2019–20 UC
Davis Prized Writing publication. This year’s collection is the
30th anniversary of the annual publishing by the University Writing Program.
UC Davis Professor of Music Kurt Rohde
has been appointed the new Artistic Director of
the Composers Conference. The Composers
Conference, guided for nearly 50 years by Pulitzer
Prize-winning composer Mario Davidovsky, who recently passed
away, offers a unique opportunity for emerging composers,
professional musicians, amateur chamber players, and
conservatory-level instrumentalists and singers.
UC Davis Professor Kurt Rohde will be at the Bogliasco
Foundation in Genoa, Italy, for Fall Quarter
2019. While in residence, Rohde will compose
seeking all that’s still unsung, a new work for
string quartet and electronics commissioned by the Lydian
Quartet. Rohde’s new piece listens to the rapidly changing
sonics of the “outside” natural world and brings them “inside.”
It is an interior mirroring of the sounds that surround us and
that we take for granted, many of which are disappearing.
Eight composers from as close as Davis and as far away as Ankara,
Turkey have been invited to participate in the Taproot New Music Festival at UC Davis from Jan.
30 to Feb. 2. These composers will have their works
premiered by Quince Ensemble, Spektral Quartet, and the UC
Davis Empyrean Ensemble.
