Meghan Bennett, on flute, in noon concert and featured talk Thursday

Meghan Bennett, flute, with Shinae Kim, piano, Thursday Nov. 2

12:05–1 p.m., Ann E. Pitzer Center, a Shinkoskey Noon Concert

Program for noon concert:

• Antonio Vivaldi: Flute Concerto in D Major (“Il Gardellino / The Goldfinch”)
• with UC Davis flute students
• William Grant Still: Songs for Flute and Piano
• Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber: Passacaglia in G Minor from the “Rosary Sonatas”
• Alfredo Casella: Barcarola et Scherzo
• Francis Poulenc: Sonate pour flûte et piano

Talk: “Fused: Pop Ideas + Classical Sounds” with flutist

Thursday, Nov. 2, 4 to 5:30 p.m., Ann E. Pitzer Center, UC Davis

Artistry is elusive and defies definition. Still, the presence of artistry is unmistakable. Artists fuse high-level craftsmanship with humanity and honesty. This process of connecting one’s craft with one’s inner self differs greatly depending on the artist; however, honesty and vulnerability remain a constant in the process. By viewing documentaries and interviews featuring Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Céline Dion, Quincy Jones and Audra McDonald, we take a relevant and creative look into the connections between music, thought, feeling and society, and examine the meaning of the word “artist.” Delving into the personal perspective of varied popular artists will serve as the impetus for self-reflection regarding our individual, deliberate participation in both the world of arts and the world at large.

 

Miho Hazama & m_unit all weekend, St Martin in the Fields Thursday at Mondavi

Thursday, Nov. 2 – Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023, Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, 7:30 p.m., Mondavi Center

A few tickets still available.

Named among Downbeat’s “25 for the Future,” Tokyo-born Miho Hazama is one of the most promising and talented composers/arrangers of her generation.

Hazama is the chief conductor of the Danish Radio Big Band and a permanent guest conductor of the Metropole Orkest and has composed and arranged work for jazz luminaries like Joshua Redman, Stefon Harris and Gil Goldstein. m_unit, her 13-piece New York-based jazz chamber orchestra, plays a unique brand of music that is bold, swinging, beguilingly melodic and, most importantly of all, accessible to jazz lovers and newcomers alike.

This event runs an hour and 15 minutes with no intermission.

Following multiple sold-out Jackson Hall performances of the full orchestra, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields returns with its renowned Chamber Ensemble.

Founded in 1967, the Ensemble is drawn from the principal players of the orchestra and plays in multiple configurations under Academy Director/Leader Tomo Keller. The rich program includes Britten’s lustrous arrangement of a 17th century Purcell piece, the beguiling Nielsen quintet Serenata in vano, a rare, haunting piece by Irish composer Ferguson capped off by Beethoven’s Septet. Learn more on the Mondavi website.

View Digital Program Book (PDF)

Run Time: 1 hour and 25 minutes plus a 20 minute intermission.

Program List

Chacony in G Minor, Z. 730

Free Film Screening at Veterans Memorial Theatre

Thursday, Nov. 2, 6:30 to 9 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Theatre, Davis, 213 E. 14th Street

The City of Davis Arts & Cultural Affairs and UC Davis Global Affairs is holding a free screening of the award-winning film FROM HERE, a documentary illustrating the struggles of immigration and belonging.

(Courtesy photo)

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for a pre-film reception. The film is 90 minutes, followed by a question-and-answer session with Director Christina Antonakos-Wallace and two of the film’s protagonists. Refreshments will be served. 

Organizers request an RSVP. 

Filmed over a decade in two of the world’s largest immigration cities — New York and Berlin — the sensitive and nuanced documentary captures the journeys of four young people caught in the crosshairs of immigration debates. The film is a coming-of-age portrait of people working through migration, citizenship and growing nationalism on both sides of the Atlantic. The documentary seeks to define what it means to “belong” as immigrants.  

As the United States and Europe grapple with rising nationalism and movements against increasing diversity, “FROM HERE” offers a fresh perspective on the issues of immigration and belonging, organizers said.

See the trailer below.

Creating art with artificial intelligence explored in talk Friday

Nettrice Gaskins (Courtesy photo)

Digital artist and educator Nettrice Gaskins, a pioneer in the use of artificial intelligence in artmaking, will give a talk “Theory, Content and Style for the AI Revolution” for the Alberini Family Speaker Series in Design in the UC Davis Department of Design. Her free talk takes place Nov. 3 at 4:30 p.m. at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art.

AI AM I? at Crocker Museum, Sacramento

In 2022, generative artificial intelligence, a broad category of AI capable of producing content like text and imagery, became the subject of intense public discourse, but these developments were many years in the making. Over time, a handful of artists identified the incredible potential of AI in the arts, and developed fluency creating with it. In the process, they became critical translators for otherwise inscrutable technologies, embodying Marshall McLuhan’s assertion that art operates as a “Distant Early Warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.”

Across his work with robots, software, and algorithms, artist Alexander Reben has established himself as a leading translator, developing a practice based on investigations in what he calls “human-machine symbiosis” since 2012. Read more and get tickets on the Crocker's website.

• A livestream is available by registering in advance via
  arts.ucdavis.edu/alberinilivestream

In her presentation Gaskins will explain her methods, motivations and cultural critiques through her art. Her work centers on African Americans, Afrofuturism, and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) education for historically marginalized communities.

“Where traditional artists would wield a paint brush, or camera, the 21st century affords artists tools from artificial intelligence to 2D imaging and 3D modeling to virtual reality, enabling them to create in innovative and novel ways,” said Gaskins. “Advancing technologies have dared artists to take new risks and art has responded in kind. My work explores human imagination and software algorithms to produce visuals that open new possibilities for creative expression.”

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Manetti Shrem celebrates art champions

The Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art celebrated artists, gifts of art and champions of the UC Davis arts legacy at its annual fall gala on Oct. 21. Artist Deborah Butterfield and arts philanthropist and founding board member Clint Reilly received the Margrit Mondavi Arts Medallion honoring their contributions to creativity and leadership in the arts. Founding Director Rachel Teagle praised Butterfield as she cited the late Margrit Mondavi’s special relationship with artists.

“Margrit recognized that artists possess a special alchemy, and tonight we honor that magic. Deborah Butterfield is a singular voice, and her impact straddles many worlds,” Teagle said of the UC Davis alumna and sculptor, who studied with first-generation faculty artists Robert Arneson and William T. Wiley in the 1970s.

In awarding the second medallion, Teagle cited Reilly’s impact as a founding member of the museum’s Advisory Board. “Clint Reilly is a true believer who paved the way for the Manetti Shrem Museum to preserve and perpetuate a distinctly Californian legacy, and he was instrumental in assuring that our purpose would be expansive and future oriented,” she said. 

Gifts of art added to the generosity of the evening, with two new additions to the Fine Arts Collection on view. Teagle announced that Buffalo, a painting by Oakland artist Robert Colescott, had been purchased for the museum by Advisory Board member and alumnus John Wasson and Gina Wasson. And Gloria Marchant, whose family lent their Butterfield sculpture for the artist’s current exhibition, has gifted it to the museum. Butterfield had given the family this special driftwood and seaweed “gift horse” as a symbol of her friendship with Marchant and Marchant’s late husband, Roy De Forest.

In a nod to UC Davis’ agricultural roots and the current exhibition Deborah Butterfield: P.S. These are not horses, the honorees and Manetti Shrem arrived in horse-drawn carriages driven by the campus’ Draft Horse Driving Club members, and Olive of the UC Davis Horse Barn.

Mondavi selects new director

Jeremy Ganter has been selected as the new executive director of the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, University of California, Davis, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Mary Croughan announced today. His first day in the role is Wednesday, Nov. 1.

 

Ganter, the associate executive director and the director of programming at the Mondavi Center, has served as interim executive director since Sept. 1 following the retirement of Don Roth.

“Over Jeremy’s tenure at the Mondavi Center, he has played a significant role in its transformation from an ambitious startup to a renowned leader in the performing arts,” Croughan said. “He firmly believes the center serves a vital role in bringing together members of our campus and surrounding community through diverse and innovative programming, and he is committed to its continuing development as a cultural hub. We are beyond fortunate to have Jeremy at the helm of the Mondavi Center and I look forward to seeing his very creative and collaborative vision unfold.”

Ganter joined the Mondavi Center as its artistic administrator in 2001 and was promoted to his current role in 2006. He has been integral to the development and implementation of the center’s now nationally acclaimed presenting program and has demonstrated a commitment to interdisciplinarity, jazz, modern dance, cultural expression, and developing young talent. Read the full story.

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