Music

Two one-act chamber operas by Professor Kurt Rohde were cited by the website SF Classical Voice as winners in their annual Best of the Bay series. 

Musicians representing UC Davis faculty, staff and students are participating in a summer chamber music program called CalCap which is being held at California State University, Sacramento. Pete Nowlen, director of UC Davis Concert Bands, is the director of CalCap which runs July 22 to August 3 in two one-week sessions

Among the musicians participating in the workshops are student Oscar Santamaria, bassoonist, who performs with the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra and Concert Band, and staff member Marjorie Phillips from environmental toxicology who is a flutist.

The Department of Music, UC Davis, announces lecturer Caleb Lewis to direct both the University Chorus and the Chamber Singers beginning fall quarter, 2018. Originally from Rome, Georgia, Lewis moved to Berkeley in 2017, where he worked as a church musician, music teacher, and performer. While in Berkeley, he also worked as assistant conductor of the San Francisco Bach Choir and sang as a regular baritone soloist and chorister with San Francisco Choral Artists.

This year’s “Arts and Humanities Graduate Exhibition at UC Davis” showcases the work and research of graduate students across seven disciplines — art studio, design, art history, music, theatre, creative writing and French — at the Manetti Shrem Museum.

Music’s Sam Clark-McHale, Jonathan Favero, Ryan Suleiman and Sarah Wald will be featured in this interdisciplinary show.

New compositions by UC Davis Associate Professor of Music and composer Kurt Rohde and graduate student Addie Camsuzou recently premiered in the Bay area. Writer Jessica Balik for San Francisco Classical Voice caught a performance and wrote favorably of the new works. 

Rohde composed music for “Three Scented Candles” with text by Scott Hunter and ’s texts, while Camsuzou created music for “Opens Lark in its Constellation” with text by Luke Munson. 

Grace Noda
January 14, 1920 – March 14, 2018

Local philanthropist and lover of music Grace Noda (née Imamoto) died on Wednesday, March 14, 2018, surrounded by family and music. She was 98 years old. She leaves behind a legacy of kindness to others.

A Friend to UC Davis

UC Davis Associate Professor of Music and Swedish composer Mika Pelo has received a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship.

UC Davis graduate student Josiah Catalan won first place in the 2017 NACUSA (National Association of Composers/USA) Composition Competition  for his piece titled Wanderlust, written for flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion.

Laurie San Martin, professor of music, will receive the Andrew Imbrie Award in music given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. San Martin is among the eighteen recipients of this year’s awards in music, which total $225,000.

Aida Shirazi, graduate student in composition, will have her “Vestiges” for strings and flute premieres on March 12 by the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble in an evening titled “Sonnets to Orpheus.” The performance takes place in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music at 7:30 p.m. 

The concert will be repeated on March 17 at Berkeley Hillside Club at 7:30 p.m.

Esther DeLozier, a graduate student in music, has been appointed to the 2018 cohort of Mellon Public Scholars. She will be working with the California Arts Council on a review of their public arts grant-making programs.

This competitive program introduces graduate students to the intellectual and practical aspects of identifying, addressing and collaborating with members of a public through their scholarship. Participants take part in an interdisciplinary seminar and receive funding support over the summer as they carry out a community-engaged project.

Compositions by graduate students Philip Acimovic and Christopher Castro are to have their world premieres in an upcoming Left Coast Chamber Ensemble concert. Acimovic’s Reverent Murmurs for Two Pianos and Castro’s IV-I for Two Pianos are included in the program Visions de l’Amen.

The concert will be performed in two Bay area venues, first on Feb. 1 and 3 at the Berkeley Piano Club, then on Feb. 5 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. 

Professor Christopher Reynolds was elected an honorary member of the American Musicological Society (AMS) at their 2017 meeting in Rochester, New York, along with Thomas Forrest Kelly, Malena Kuss, and Judy Tsou.

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.”

Experience an afternoon and evening of jazz at UC Davis on Thursday Nov. 30 when the College of Letters and Science’s Department of Music’s jazz bands perform two concerts at the Ann E. Pitzer Center.

Classical works that were inspired by humanity and nature form the basis of the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra’s concert on Sunday, Nov. 5. Jeffrey Thomas, Barbara K. Jackson Professor of Music and director of the American Bach Soloists, will conduct.