Brain-body music with Grace Leslie Thursday at Mondavi

Thursday, May 19, 7:30 p.m., Vanderhoef Studio Theatre

Piece 1: Vessels (2015-2020)

Pieces 2-3: from Fais de moi un instrument (2021)

As a Stanford student, Grace Leslie imagined a new kind of electronic music, engineered to harmonize the brain with the nervous system. Leslie has continued to develop this Brain-Body music as director of the Brain Music Lab at Georgia Tech, and as an active electronic musician committed to harnessing the expression granted by new music technology to understand the link between music and emotion. Vessels and Fais de moi un instrument are brain-body performances that combine flute and electronics improvisation that is triggered by electrical readings of Leslie’s brain, heart and skin.  

This performance is being presented as part of SHAPE (Science, Humanities and Arts: Process and Engagement), an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded program in which UC Davis students encounter the humanities, arts, and sciences integrated to express and examine the power each holds as a means of responding to our world.

In addition, there will be a post performance Q&A with Grace Leslie, 9 – 9:30 p.m. directly following the performance. The panel will include Grace Leslie and SHAPE faculty Gözde Goncu Berk and Mitchell Sutter.

Find more information and purchase tickets here. 

Noon concert: ‘A Hesterian Musicism Approach to Afrofuturism’

Thursday, May 19, 12:05 – 1 p.m., Recital Hall, Ann E. Pitzer Center, Free, A Shinkoskey Noon Concert

The Karlton Hester Jazz Trio (“Hesterian Musicism”) includes Karlton Hester, saxophone and UC Santa Cruz Professor of Music; David Smith​, bass; and Motoko Honda, piano.

The program will feature QE Depth of Awareness (Electroacoustic composition #1), Quantum Spirit Dance Mix (Electroacoustic composition #2), The Freedom Principle (Spontaneous Composition), Free Hesteria, Saturnday Head, and Byrd Math.

Find a direct link to the livestream here.

Find more information here.

Hester will then give a lecture, 4 – 5:30 p.m. in Room 266, Everson Hall, following the performance. Find more information here.

Hester, composer-flutist-saxophonist, began his career as a composer and recording artist in Los Angeles where he worked as a studio musician and music educator. He received his Ph.D. in composition from the City University of New York Graduate Center and is currently Director of Jazz Studies (and member of the Digital Arts and New Media faculty) at UC Santa Cruz. A performer on both flute and saxophone, he is founding music director of the Fillmore Jazz Preservation Big Band (in San Francisco), director of Hesterian Musicism, and served as the Herbert Gussman Director of Jazz Studies at Cornell University from 1991 to 2001. Hester specializes in premeditated, spontaneous, and electro-acoustic composition. His compositions span a wide range; from numerous solo cycles for various woodwinds to chamber configurations, music videos and electro-acoustic symphonic works written in an eclectic array of styles.

Hesterian Musicism is the creative process through which Hester’s compositional and performance styles merge to give rise to aesthetic environments where other musicians, kinetic and visual artists, and poets, can meet to produce new art forms through imaginative effort. Its philosophical basis involves intrinsic freedom of expression, focused and disciplined spontaneity, and a structural basis that explores the creative components of diverse sources from the whole earth. Contemporary Trans-African Experiments create ways in which to search for universal musical concepts that can be examined for their inherent capabilities as commonage. Hester’s interdisciplinary experimental approaches re-contextualize African American music as prioritized global music that aligns with emerging discourses regarding Afrofuturism and aspires to have both students and general listeners engage music and research with a variety of perspectives on issues that encourage discussion beyond colonial musical and sociocultural contexts. 

Jazz Combos of UC Davis perform

Thursday, May 19, 5 – 7 p.m., Recital Hall, Ann E. Pitzer Center, Free

Program to be announced.

Find a direct link to the livestream here.

Theatre and Dance presents ‘Outside the Lines, Spring 2022’; new works, choreography

Thursday, May 19 – 21, 7 – 8:30 p.m., Wright Hall

The Department of Theatre and Dance will present the spring 2022 edition of Outside the Lines on May 19-21 in the Main Theatre, Wright Hall.

The program includes new works by doctoral student Diego Martinez-Campos, graduate students Ann Dragich and Edward Talton-Jackson, and undergraduate students. The choreography has been developed under the guidance of Professor David Grenke. 

Content warning: contains adult situations. 

Adult tickets are $10, faculty/staff tickets are $8, and student/senior tickets are $5. Tickets may be purchased at the UC Davis Ticket Office, located on the north side of Aggie Stadium, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, by phone 530-752-2471 during the same hours, or here.

The Department of Theatre and Dance is part of the UC Davis College of Letters and Science. For information about other department productions, visit theatredance.ucdavis.edu.

Student recitals highlight weekend

Senior Recital: Mars Lewis, Percussion

May 20, 5 – 6 p.m., Recital Hall, Ann E. Pitzer Center, Free

The program includes Akira Miyoshi: Selections from Conversation, Mark Applebaum: Aphasia , Elliott Carter: Canaries, Eckhard Kopetzki: Canned Heat, and Keiko Abe: The Wave.

Find a direct link to the livestream here.

Senior Honors Recital: Tiara Abraham, Soprano

May 22, 3 – 4 p.m., Recital Hall, Ann E. Pitzer Center, Free

with Karen Rosenak, piano

The program includes G.F. Handel: “I know that my Redeemer liveth” from Messiah, J.S. Bach: “Mein Gläubiges Herze” from Cantata BWV 68, Albert Hay Malotte: The Lord’s Prayer, H.T. Burleigh: Go Down Moses, Franz Schubert: Frühlingsglaube, Ricky Ian Gordon: Will There Really Be a Morning, Tiara Abraham: Untitled, Joaquín Rodridgo: Cuatro madrigales amatorios, Claude Debussy: Nuit d’étoiles, Vincenzo Bellini: “Ma rendi pur contento” from Sei Ariette, Manuel de Falla: “Nana” from Siete Canciones populares Españolas, and Lori Laitman: “If I” from Four Dickinson Songs.

Find a direct link to the livestream here.

UC Davis Symphony Orchestra Saturday: Twilights

Saturday, May 21, 7 p.m., Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts

$12 Students and Children / $24 Adults

Christian Baldini, director and conductor

The program includes Richard Wagner: Rienzi Overture; Johann Strauss: “Mein Herr Marquis” from Die Fledermaus with Tiara Abraham, soprano (winner of the 2022 Concerto Competition); Jan Koetsier: Allegro con brio from Concertino, op. 77 with Alex Rossi, tuba (winner of the 2022 Concerto Competition); David Felder: Die Dämmerungen; and Carl Maria von Weber: Overture to Der Freischütz

Find more information and purchase tickets here. 

Coming Up Next Week

Graduate Student Ensemble Tuesday

May 24, 12 – 1 p.m., Recital Hall, Ann E. Pitzer Center, Free

The program includes Emily Joy Sullivan: Bootstrapping, Dean Kervin Boursiquot: Nightingale, Trey Makler: Hiding Place, Joseph Vasinda: Frame No. 1, Terry Riley: In C, and Emily Joy Sullivan: Confetto.

Musicians include Paul Engle, Joseph Donald Peterson, Emily Joy Sullivan, Devin Romines, Joseph Vasinda and Leanny Muñoz.

Find a direct link to the livestream here.

Weekday recitals

Senior Recital: Olga Tatar, Violin

May 24, 2 – 3 p.m., Recital Hall, Ann E. Pitzer Center, Free

with Karen Rosenak, piano, and others

The program includes J. S. Bach: Adagio from Sonata No. 1 in G Minor, Arvo Pärt: Frätres, Béla Bartók: Selections from Romanian Folk Dances, Johannes Brahms: Selections from Sonata No. 3, and Édouard Lalo: Allegro non troppo from Symphonie espagnole.

Find a direct link to the livestream here. 

Junior Recital: Louie Lee, Clarinet

May 24, 4 – 5 p.m., Recital Hall, Ann E. Pitzer Center, Free

with Karen Rosenak, piano

The program includes Gioachino Rossini: Variations for Clarinet, Robert Schumann: Fantasiestücke, op. 73, Adolf Schreiner: Immer Kleiner (Always Smaller), and a humorous clarinet-fantasy for clarinet and piano.

Find a direct link to the livestream here.

Concert Bands of UC Davis with The USAF Band of the Golden West

In Memory of Bill Hollingshead, UC Davis Alumnus

Wednesday, May 25, 7 p.m., Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center, Free, but tickets are required (General Admission)

Campus Band

Dr. Garrett Rigsby, conductor

Joe Hisaishi: Studio Ghibli's Anime March Medley, Vincent Persichetti: Adagio Sostenuto from Symphony No. 6, and Brian Balmages: Kyiv, 2022 (a Sequel to “Moscow, 1941”).\

UC Davis Concert Band

Pete Nowlen, conductor

William Grant Still: Africa, Land of Superstition from the Africa Suite, Julie Giroux: Evening Snow at Kambara from Symphony No. 4 (“Bookmarks from Japan”), The 53 Stations of the Tokaido Highway, Arturo Márquez: Conga del Fuego Nuevo, and David Maslanka: Give Us This Day (Short Symphony for Wind Ensemble). 

USAF Band of the Golden West

Major Joseph Hansen, commander and conductor

Armed Forces Medley, Leonard Bernstein: Overture to Candide, Alan Silvestri: Back to the Future, and Andy Narell: Kalinda.

... and more!

The United States Air Force Band of the Golden West is stationed in the San Francisco Bay area at Travis Air Force Base, California. The only active duty Air Force band west of the Rockies, the Band of the Golden West is comprised of about 60 talented and versatile Airmen-musicians under the command of Major Joseph S. Hansen. In addition to performing for civilian communities throughout the states of California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, and Nevada, the band supports 13 Air Force Bases, 8 Air Force Reserve Wings, and 6 recruiting squadrons in over 250 annual performances for 1.5 million listeners.

Find more information and reserve tickets here.

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