Weekender: A Capella Showcase, Concerts, and Dance Performances

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dancers in orange
Experience the Dance Theatre of Harlem, a multi-cultural dance institution with an extraordinary legacy of providing opportunities for creative expression and artistic excellence (Courtesy, Mondavi Center).
 

Listen to the Kismarton String Trio

Thursday, April 11, 12:05 p.m., Recital Hall, Ann E. Pitzer Center, free

Kismarton Piano Trio

  • Ian Jessee, violin
  • István Polónyí, viola
  • Susan Lamb Cook, cello and UC Davis lecturer in music 

Featuring Roger Xia, piano, and Hrabba Atladottir, violin

Artist Talk with Sarah Sense

Friday, April 12, 3 p.m., The Gorman Museum of Native American Art, free

Chitimacha and Choctaw artist Sarah Sense will discuss her current projects and provide insight into her artistic practice. Sense began photo-weaving in 2004. Using traditional basket patterns from her Chitimacha and Choctaw heritage, she combines photographs, maps and texts from her archival research to present biographical, tribal, and international histories.

Collage picture
Sarah Sense, Hinushi 22 (detail), 2024

In recent projects, Sense combines contemporary photographs of her tribes’ ancestral home land with landscape scenes of her current California home location and colonial maps and manuscripts. In creating the weavings with these diverse elements, she says her “process of weaving together past, present, and future broadens the visual experience to something that is felt and not seen.”

Get tickets for Jorge Alabê and Friends

With the UC Davis Samba School

Friday, April 12, 7 p.m., Ann E. Pitzer Center, tickets starting at $24

photo of artist with drum
Courtesy, Mondavi Center

Experience the exciting Afro-Brazilian musical traditions, with master drummer and candomblé player Jorge Alabê. Friends of Alabê’s and the UC Davis Samba School will join together under his direction for this concert. For more than two decades, Alabê gave worldwide tours with Samba groups he directed, including Oba Oba. Alabê is a renowned teacher and innovator, and now directs Grupo Samba Rio in San Francisco.

Get tickets here: Jorge Alabê and Friends | Mondavi Center 

Ongoing Art Exhibits UC Davis

The 20th Annual Hella-Cappella

Friday, April 12, 7:30 p.m., Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center, UC Davis

  • Tickets starting at $38

Presented by UC Davis’ premier all-female-identifying, award-winning a cappella group, The Spokes, HellaCappella is an exciting collaboration between a cappella groups of all shapes, sizes, and sounds. 

For the past 20 years, HellaCappella’s audience has continued to grow, attracting music lovers across generations from the greater Davis and Sacramento communities. The Spokes are proud to present their show once again in the  Mondavi Center. This year’s show is especially exciting as they are celebrating the 20th anniversary of HellaCappella.

Get tickets here: HellaCappella 2024 | Mondavi Center

See Jordi Savall & Hespèrion XXI

Le Nuove Musiche: The Baroque Revolution in Europe

Saturday, April 13, 7:30 p.m., Jackson Hall at the Mondavi Center, tickets starting at $25

For more than 50 years, Jordi Savall, one of the most versatile musical personalities of his generation, has rescued musical gems from the obscurity of neglect and oblivion and given them back for all to enjoy.

photo of artist with violin
Courtesy, Mondavi Center

A tireless researcher into early music, he interprets and performs the repertory both as a gambist and a conductor. This program, featuring his acclaimed ensemble Hespèrion XXI, captures the inventiveness of the early Baroque era, including works by Frescobaldi, Kapsberger, de’ Cavalieri, Falconiero and more. As the critic Allan Kozinn wrote in The New York Times, Savall’s vast concert and recording career can be described as “not simply a matter of revival, but of imaginative reanimation.”

Read the Digital Program PDF 

Get tickets here: Jordi Savall & Hespèrion XXI | Mondavi Center 

Go on the Davis Art Studio Tour

April 13 and 14, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The Davis Art Studio Tour is back again April 13 and 14. This is a two-day, self-guided tour of Davis-based artists’ studios, happening 10 a.m.-5 p.m. both days. Be sure to check it out to support local art!

Check out some of the art displays on this map Art Studio Self Guided Tour.

The Wennberg Orchestra Festival comes to Mondavi

Sunday, April 14, 2:30 p.m., Jackson Hall at the Mondavi Center, tickets starting at $25

The Wennberg Orchestra Festival is one of the longest standing traditions of the Davis Joint Unified School District Music Program and has been a coveted community event since 1996.

The Wennberg Orchestra Festival is a showcase articulation concert that displays for the audience the vast diversity of our students and the full range of orchestral skill levels across the DJUSD Orchestra Program.

Featuring: Violinist Jenna Son, and pianist Caitlyn Ohler, the 2024 Davis High Concerto Competition winners

Get tickets here: Wennberg Orchestra Festival | Mondavi Center 

Alan Templeton’s observations on the art trade

Tuesday, April 16, 4:10-6 p.m., Community Education Room, the Manetti Shrem Museum

painting
James Gillray, A Peep at Christie’s, 1796 hand-colored engraving. (Image courtesy Crocker Art Museum, ID 2005.54.11a)

This public lecture will explore the evolution of the art trade from the 18th century onward. Intended especially for students who will become the museum professionals, art advisors and private collectors of tomorrow, Alan Templeton (B.A., art history and psychology, ’82), longtime investor, former professional artist and labor union administrator — and occasional guest curator — will cover how the fine arts interact with money, museums and the marketplace in a variety of ways. History, prestige, family crises, changing tastes and civic pride all intersect in an international industry that has annual revenues of more than $60 billion. Despite its overall size, the art trade has a limited number of participants in any given segment, making it much more uneven and personality-driven than most markets, leading to both opportunities and pitfalls.

Templeton has also been collecting art since 2000, principally to benefit the museums of Northern California.

Experience the Dance Theatre of Harlem

Wednesday, April 17, 7:30 p.m., Jackson Hall, tickets from $30

Now in its sixth decade, Dance Theatre of Harlem has grown into a multicultural dance institution with an extraordinary legacy of providing opportunities for creative expression and artistic excellence that continues to set standards in the performing arts.

dancers in orange
Courtesy, Mondavi Center

Dance Theatre of Harlem has achieved unprecedented success, bringing innovative and bold new forms of artistic expression to audiences around the world. The 18-member, multi-ethnic company performs a forward-thinking repertoire that includes treasured classics, neoclassical works by George Balanchine and new artistic director Robert Garland, as well as innovative contemporary works that use the language of ballet to celebrate Arthur Mitchell’s belief that ballet belongs to everyone.

Get tickets here: Dance Theatre of Harlem | Mondavi Center

Hiromi’s Sonicwonder

Thursday, April 18, 7:30 p.m. Jackson Hall, tickets from $25

artist in yellow with piano

Jazz pianist and composer Hiromi is a sparkplug of creative energy and melodic ingenuity.

From her debut album to her 2021 performance at the opening ceremonies of the Tokyo Olympics, Hiromi has electrified audiences and earned the deep respect of jazz icons like Ahmad Jamal, Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke. Her live performances are legendary for their energy and jaw-dropping improvisation. For this Mondavi Center debut she’ll be working her new quartet Sonicwonder, whose new album was recently released.

Get tickets here: Hiromi’s Sonicwonder | Mondavi Center 

Next week

Music for Piano Four Hands

Thursday, April 18, 12:05 p.m., Recital Hall, Ann E. Pitzer Center, free

Jacqueline Chew and Michael Seth Orland, pianos

Program

  • Johann Sebastian Bach / György Kurtág:
  • “Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit” (publ. 1991)
  • “Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr” (publ. 1991)
  • Paul Hindemith: Sonata for Piano (1938)
  • Igor Stravinsky: Three Pieces for String Quartet (1914) initial version by the composer for piano four hands
  • Maurice Ravel: Ma mère l’oye (Mother Goose) (1910)

Valente lecture and concert: Stephen Drury on the piano

Friday, April 19, 5-7 p.m., Recital Hall, Ann E. Pitzer Center

Drury has performed throughout the world with a repertoire that stretches from Bach to Liszt to the music of today. He has appeared at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Barbican Centre and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, and the Leipzig Gewandhaus. A champion of contemporary music, he has taken the sound of dissonance into remote corners of Pakistan, Greenland and Montana.

artist with piano
Peter Gannushkin/courtesy

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