Music

The California Choral Directors Association (CCDA) has awarded UC Davis alumna Susanna Peeples with a 2021 Early Career Choral Conductor award. The award was given at this year’s CASMEC conference (virtually, of course). Peeples graduated from UC Davis in 2009 and earned her master of music degree (in music education) from the University of the Pacific. She teaches choir, piano, and guitar, at Granite Bay High School, where she was named that school’s Teacher of the Year by her peers in 2020.

The Society for American Music has chosen UC Davis Associate Professor of Music Beth Levy as their Vice President. They have also elected members at large Mark Burford and Marian Wilson Kimber.

Her book Frontier Figures: American Music and the Mythology of the American West (UC Press) was published in 2012. Her other interests include eighteenth- and nineteenth-century aesthetics, reception history, and representations of music in literature.

Alumna Angelica Cortez (B.A., music, ’13) recently joined the staff of The Juilliard School as Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Program Manager (EDIB). 

UC Davis graduate student Josiah Tayaq Catalan has been awarded the 2021 commission for a new work, which will be composed for solo piano. The commission provides for a “private score reading and feedback session with the Contemporary Players and SF Search panelists, a premiere of the commissioned work on [their] at the CROSSROADS series concert held in San Francisco on April 10, 2021, plus an archival recording.”

A new work by Aida Shirazi, doctoral student in music composition, will be premiered by the Camellia Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Associate Professor Christian Baldini on Saturday, Nov. 21 at 5 p.m. (PST).

Shirazi’s “umbra” was recorded outdoors in Sacramento, with musicians wearing masks and socially distancing. The work was commissioned by the Camellia Symphony Orchestra. 

Works by Aida Shirazi, a doctoral student in music composition, are featured on several recent and upcoming live or recorded online concerts.

Her “albumblatt” will be part of a concert by pianist Sarah Cahill broadcast on BBC Radio on Nov. 20. It is part of Cahill’s “The Future is Female” project that commissioned works by women composers from around the world.

Two UC Davis alumni are among 20 composer-librettist pairs preparing a new opera for consideration to be performed at West Edge Opera’s “Aperture” project. “Aperture” is an online performance space for new opera works, which launches in November of 2020.

“Broken,” a composition by Mika Pelo, associate professor of music, was given its premiere performance by celebrated pianist-composer Rolf Hind on October 7 at King’s Place in London. The concert, “Is it too soon to talk about all this?,” featured a series of short works. 

Hind has collaborated extensively with composer John Adams and played on the soundtrack to the Academy Award-winning film “Call Me By Your Name.” 

Professor Emeritus Albert J. McNeil was a transformative force in the music department during his 21 years as a faculty member (1969–90). UC Davis is celebrating McNeil’s 100th birthday.

The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble begins its all-online concert season with a program titled Soft-Spoken. It features flutist and UC Davis lecturer in music Stacey Pelinka in Soft-Spoken, a world premiere from the multi-talented artist David Dominique, Zeppelin, a flute and cello duo by UC Davis professor of music Laurie San Martin, and Kurt Rohde’s (also a UC Davis professor of mu

The online premiere for Sarah Wald’s piece for horn and cello, Overboard, will be streamed via the Bowdoin International Music Festival website this Saturday. 

Event: Bowdoin Festival Composition Showcase

Date: Saturday, August 1, 2020

Time: 2:00 PM ET (11:00 AM PT)

Recently William Storz (B.A. Music, ’20) received the 2020 David S. Saxon Award for Excellence in the Performance of Early Music bestowed by UC Davis Music Department. Storz also received the honor in 2019.

Since last year, one of Storz’s major accomplishments was assisting Phebe Craig, lecturer in music, in cataloguing the music department’s extensive collection of early music instruments. The project was a major undertaking in efforts of documentation and helping to oversee restoration of the instruments.

Recent undergraduate music majors will be continuing their music studies at the graduate level.

On June 5, Professor Laurie San Martin, chair of the music department, presided (via Zoom) over the annual end-of-year celebration for the music class of 2020 and department faculty and graduate students.

“Spring quarter 2020 was the most challenging ever,” said San Martin. “With the cancellations of the department’s in-person classes and performance schedule, our students, faculty, and staff overcame obstacles of absorbing new technology for remote instruction in order to complete the academic year and graduate the class of 2020.”

The Department of Music is proud of its students. Not only have they risen to the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, but in the wake of the senseless killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, they have committed themselves to social justice.