Trio Magnoliana at Noon Concert

Thursday, May 22, 2025 - 12:05 p.m. - 1 p.m.

Recital Hall, Ann E. Pitzer Center

Mann-Wen Lo, violin
Eunghee Cho, cello
Andrew Staupe, piano

Trio Magnoliana is composed of concert soloists and faculty members at the University of Houston, and each member contributes to the riveting partnership with their vast professional chamber music experience.

Program Includes

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio in A Minor, op. 50

Free

UC Davis Shields Library hosts Black Family Day author event

One of several related events this weekend on campus

Saturday, May 24, 1:30-3:34 p.m., Shields Library

Visit UC Davis Shields Library for a special exhibit on the history of Black Family Day at UC Davis, a talk by Professor Psyche Williams-Forson, author of Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America, and wine and dessert pairing (must be 21+ to participate) hosted by CoCo Noir Wine Shop of Oakland and Midtown Bakery of Sacramento.

Psyche A. Williams-Forson is one of the leading thinkers about food in America. In Eating While Black, she offers her knowledge and experience to illuminate how anti-Black racism operates in the practice and culture of eating. She shows how mass media, nutrition science, economics, and public policy drive entrenched opinions among both Black and non-Black Americans about what is healthful and right to eat. Starkly exposing the rampant shaming and policing around how Black people eat, Williams-Forson contemplates food's role in cultural transmission, belonging, homemaking, and survival. Other Black Family Day events, activities and entertainment can be found at the Cross Cultural Center website.

Register for Book Talk: Eating While Black

Athletes in the arts this quarter

During this past quarter the Manetti Shrem Museum hosted the 16th annual showcase of "Art of Athletes", an inspiring platform for student-athletes to display their creative talents off the fields, courts and pools of competition.
 
This year Jailen Burrell, a senior on the men's track and field team and art major, coordinated the showcase which focused on "Athletic Aesthetics". Read more about it and check out the photo gallery.

Mondavi welcomes San Francisco Symphony next Saturday

Next week

Saturday, May 31, 7:30 p.m., Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts

Famed Finnish conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen makes his long-awaited Mondavi Center debut with the San Francisco Symphony for a performance of soaring Beethoven works.

Appearing onstage alongside San Francisco Symphony is three-time Grammy Award-winning violinist Hilary Hahn, who first performed the Beethoven Violin Concerto at 16. Since then, her barrier-breaking attitude towards classical music and commitment to sharing her experiences with a global community has made her a fan favorite and 2023 Musical America “Artist of the Year” award winner. Tickets available.

DIGITAL PROGRAM (PDF)

This event includes Uncorked for Inner Circle Members. Learn More.

Program List

• Symphony No. 4 in Bb Major, Op. 60

Ludwig van Beethoven

‘Celebrating Harry Fonseca’ Reception at Gorman

Saturday, May 31, 1-3 p.m., Gorman Museum of Native American Art

Join in a reception to celebrate Harry Fonseca and the current solo exhibition Olé Ham Nees: We Call Him Coyote.

The reception will be an opportunity to share acknowledgements, remembrances and stories about the master artist.

The museum is located at 181 Old Davis Road, Davis, (530) 752-6567

The museum is open 11-5 Wednesday through Friday, and Saturday, Sunday noon to 5 p.m.

Hum a Gershwin tune with UC Davis Symphony; get tickets now

June 1, 7 - 8:30 p.m., Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts

The UC Davis Symphony Orchestra juxtaposes George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” a 20th Century classic, with other works that feature soloists in an evening titled “The Life of Concerto.”

Conducted by Christian Baldini, music director and professor of music, the concert is June 1 at 7 p.m. in the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

In “Rhapsody in Blue” (1924), Gershwin famously folded jazz—exploding in popularity at the time—into the orchestra with the piano at center. To quote the composer himself, “I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America—of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness…. I wanted to show that jazz is an idiom not to be limited to a mere song and chorus.”

The performance of Gershwin’s classic features guest pianist Erina Saito. A native of Tokyo, Saito is an international artist and collaborative pianist who has performed in Japan, the United States, Italy, Switzerland and on Capital Public Radio.

Eliza Brown’s “A Toy Boat on the Serpentine” was commissioned in 2019 by the Philadelphia Sinfonia Youth Orchestra. The title is a quotation from the novel “Orlando” by Virginia Woolf, which the composer and their mother discussed at length. Inspired by a moment when the title character realizes (as a toy boat bobbing on a river sends her into ecstatic reflection), Brown’s music reflected the waves of motion and emotion of the book’s scene.  

Daniel Brewbaker drew inspiration from a poem by the 12th-century poet Rumi when writing “Playing and Being Played,” which ponders the question: is the violinist playing the violin or the violin playing the violinist? The performance features guest artist Rachel Lee Priday who has appeared as a soloist with major international orchestras, among them the Chicago, Houston, National, St. Louis and Seattle Symphony Orchestras, Boston Pops Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Germany’s Staatskapelle Berlin.

Also on the program is a selection from the second violin concerto by Polish composer Henryk Wieniawski, featuring the with Concerto Competition Winner Roxana Niazi, violin. Niazi is an undergraduate student at UC Davis who is also a member of the orchestra’s first violin section.

Tickets are $24 for adults and $12 for students and youth. Tickets are available at the Mondavi Center Ticket Office in person or by calling 530-754-2787 between noon and 5 p.m., Tuesday through Friday. Tickets are also available online at Tickets.MondaviArts.org.

Program

Eliza Brown: A Toy Boat on the Serpentine

Henryk Wieniawski: Allegro moderato from Violin Concerto No. 2
with UCDSO Concerto Competition Winner Roxana Niazi, violin

Daniel Brewbaker: Playing and Being Played
with Rachel Lee Priday, violin

George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
with Erina Saito, piano

$12 Students and Children, $24 Adults (Reserved Seating)

See Department of Design’s senior showcase ‘Cruess Collective’

Running through June 13, open noon-4 p.m. Monday through Friday, at the Design Museum, 124 Cruess Hall

Cruess Collective is the 2025 undergraduate exhibition highlighting the versatility and creativity of the Department of Design, as shown through the outstanding course work produced over the past year by senior undergraduate students.

The Department of Design offers a challenging curriculum combining design history, theory, and studio courses. Faculty members assist students with the complex practice of translating ideas into realities and the important process of shaping culture, form, and content. Students are trained in combining design factors with technical skills to fluidly navigate the design discipline in the areas of Textiles and Fashion, Exhibition, Visual Communication, and Interior Lighting & Architecture.