‘A New Life for the Harpsichord’ is noon concert Thursday
Thursday, April 20, Recital Hall, Ann E. Pitzer Center, 12:05 – 1 p.m., free, a Shinkoskey Noon Concert
Performers include Cathie Apple, flute; Cindy Behmer, oboe and UC Davis lecturer in music; Sandra McPherson clarinet; Amy Lindsay, violin; Timothy Stanley, cello; and Faythe Vollrath, harpsichord and UC Davis lecturer in music
Left abandoned and untouched for centuries, the rediscovery of the harpsichord in the early 20th century not only led to new views on Baroque music, but inspired contemporary composers to write for this revitalized, but old instrument. The following pieces are some of the most important works of this early contemporary literature.
The program will include Manuel de Falla: Concerto for Harpsichord, Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Violin and Cello (1926), Libby Larson: Kathleen, As She Was (1989), and Elliott Carter: Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord (1952).
Valente Lecture: ‘The Efficacy of Sound: Power, Potency, Promise in Translocal Cuban Music’
April 20, 4 – 5:30 p.m., Room 266, Everson Hall
In Cuba, women batá drummers (bataleras) and Ifá priestesses (ìyánífá) are looking towards contemporary Yorùbáland, Nigeria, as a site or power and promise in translocal ritual practice. In this lecture, Dr. Meadows explores how logics of heightened efficacy—and particularly the efficacy of sound—circulate in Cuba through engagement with the African continent and the broader Américas. Through the efficacy of sound, women carve out access to previously-prohibited, gendered ritual instruments (i.e., the sacred batá drum set) and ritual posts (Ifá priesthoods), ultimately influencing gendered participation in Cuban ritual and popular musical spheres.
Ruthie Meadows is an Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research focuses on global circulations of music and sound in the Hispanophone and circum-Caribbean, with attention to transatlantic forms of engagement, queer studies and gender studies, ritual and popular music, and ecology. In 2021, Meadows received the Society for Ethnomusicology’s (SEM) Jaap Kunst Prize, recognizing the most significant article written in ethnomusicology during the first ten years of a scholar’s career. Her first book, Efficacy of Sound: Power, Potency, and Promise in the Translocal Ritual Music of Cuban Ifá-Òrìṣà (forthcoming, University of Chicago Press, 2023), interrogates the contentious Nigerian-style Ifá-Òrìşà ritual movement in Cuba.
Death’s Futurity: The Visual Life of Black Power book event
Thursday, April 20, 4:30 – 6 p.m., Manetti Shrem Museum
This book launch and signing event celebrates Death’s Futurity by Sampada Aranke, Ph.D. ’13, (Duke University Press), co-curator of the museum’s current exhibition Mike Henderson: Before the Fire, 1965-1985. Her book examines the importance of representations of death to Black liberation. Aranke analyzes posters, photographs, journalism and films that focus on the murders of Black Panther Party members Lil’ Bobby Hutton, Fred Hampton and George Jackson to construct a visual history of the 1960s and 1970s Black Power era. By foregrounding the photographed, collaged, filmed and drawn Black body, Aranke demonstrates that corporeality is crucial to efforts to shape visions of a Black future free from white supremacy.
Aranke is an assistant professor in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the director of Mellon Archives Innovation Programs at the Rebuild Foundation, Chicago. Harden is a visual arts curator and program manager at the California African American Museum and an independent arts writer. Harden has curated exhibitions at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), Oakland Museum of California, the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) and Art + Practice, among others. She is a 2018 recipient of The Creative Capital, Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, and a 2020 Annenberg Innovation Lab Civic Media Fellow.
Death's Futurity is available for purchase at the event and through UC Davis Stores.
Danzantes Del Alma Annual Show: Historias de Nuestra Tierra
Saturday, April 22, 6 p.m., Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center
Founded in 1977, Danzantes Del Alma is a holistic retention program under the Cross Cultural Center that fosters and nurtures student leadership, intellectual curiosity, and artistic expression through the art of ballet folklórico.
For the second year in a row, Danzantes Del Alma returns to the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts to celebrate the beauty of Mexican culture with a variety of vibrant and energetic dances from regions throughout Mexico including Nayarit, Guerrero, and Jalisco. Join Danzantes del Alma for their 44th Annual Showcase as they retell las historias de nuestra tierra.
Find more information and purchase tickets here.
Coming up in the arts
Thursday Concert: Wendy Richman, viola
April 27, 12:05 – 1 p.m., Recital Hall, Ann E. Pitzer Center, free, a Shinkoskey Noon Concert
The program will include Joseph Vasinda: Kaleidoscopes, Max Gibson: parallax, Zoë A. Wallace: Sun Flower/Light, Joseph Donald Peterson: Abstractions for Three Violas
with Ellen Ruth Rose and Joseph Donald Peterson, Felix Mendelssohn: Adagio from String Sinfonia VIII with Emma Eyestone, Samantha Sharp, and Maya True-Fogel, and Sakari Dixon Vanderveer: In This Watershed Moment (2022) with Emma Eyestone, Joseph Donald Peterson, Maya True-Fogel, and Samantha Sharp.
Wendy Richman has been celebrated internationally for her compelling sound and imaginative interpretations in a wide range of genres. Her debut solo album, vox/viola (New Focus Recordings, 2020), features nine commissioned works for singing violist by leading contemporary composers. She is a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, with whom she performs regularly in New York City and around the world, and she has performed regularly with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the period instrument ensemble Tesserae. Dr. Richman is a faculty member at both UCLA and California State University-Northridge (CSUN), where she teaches a variety of academic music courses and applied viola, and she is a sought-after clinician at universities and conservatories across the country.
The History of Tea and the Teapot in lecture
April 27, 4 – 5:30 p.m., Art Annex, Main Room 107
Jim Connell, professor of ceramics at Winthrop University, will investigate the histories of tea and teapots. His lecture explores some of the early myths surrounding the discovery of tea in China. From the early legendary Chinese Emperor Shen Nung to the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma, these early myths have captivated people’s imagination. “The History of Tea and the Teapot” traces the history of the first teapots i Yixing China, the advancement of porcelain teapots, and the exportation of tea and the teapot to Europe and beyond.
Organized and co-sponsored by The Global Tea Institute and the Department of Art and Art History.
Department of Art and Art History Visiting Artist Lecture Series: Sky Hopinka
Thursday, April 27, 4:30 – 6 p.m., Manetti Shrem Museum
Sky Hopinka, who was born and raised in Ferndale, Washington, is a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians. His video, photo and text work centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and landscape, and designs of language as containers of culture expressed through personal, documentary and nonfiction forms of media. His work was part of the 2017 Whitney Biennial and Cosmopolis #2 and has been screened at Sundance, Punto de Vista, and the New York Film Festival. In fall 2022, Hopinka received a MacArthur Fellowship for his work as a visual artist and filmmaker.
Organized by the Department of Art and Art History. Supported by the College of Letters and Science and co-sponsored by the Manetti Shrem Museum.
New Exhibition at Gallery 625: 'Near and Far: The World in Focus'
Through May 30
An exhibition of photography highlighting unique and unexpected perspectives of people, place and things from around the world. In conjunction with Photography Month April, a celebration of photographic arts in our region coordinated by Viewpoint Photographic Art Center.
Find more information here.