Clarinet concerts

The UC Davis Clarinet Festival culminates with concerts Friuday night (Jan. 21) and Saturday afternoon, Jan. 22, in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

• Friday, Jan. 21 — With faculty affiliate Ann Lavin, festival director, and guests: 12 clarinetists present a program that begins with Alban Berg’s elegant and haunting Four Pieces for clarinet and piano, and finishes with the pulsating and popular New York Counterpoint by Steve Reich. Also: works by Carter, Lutoslawski, and UC Davis composers Jerome Rosen and Laurie San Martin. 8 p.m.

• Saturday, Jan. 22 — Charles Neidich, clarinet, and John Cozza, piano. Program: Weinberg’s Clarinet Sonata, op. 28; Neidich’s In Memoriam and Threnos; Brahms’ Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, op. 120, No. 1; Prokofiev’s Sonata in D Major; and Saint-Saëns’ Introduction et Rondo Capriccioso. 2 p.m.

More information. Tickets are available online, or by visiting or calling the Mondavi Center box office, (530) 754-2787 or (866) 754-2787.

Empyrean Ensemble: Americans in Rome

Americans in Rome is the theme for the newest musical sensations from UC Davis' Empyrean Ensemble.

The Americans in Rome concert is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 23, in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre. Here is the program:

• Don Byron — Selections from 7 Etudes for Solo Piano (2008–09)

• Claude Baker — Three Phantasy Pieces for Viola and Percussion (2005)

• Martin Bresnick — Bird as Prophet for Violin and Piano (1999)

• Martin Brody — Dusk from The Book of Hours for Piano Trio (2000)

• Keeril Makan — Mu for Solo Violin (2007)

• Laura Schwendinger — Song for Andrew for Piano Quartet (2008)

Tickets are available online, or by visiting or calling the Mondavi Center box office, (530) 754-2787 or (866) 754-2787.

Symphony Orchestra concert Feb. 6

The Department of Music announced a special Super Bowl Sunday starting time for the Symphony Orchestra's Feb. 6 concert: 8 p.m. (kickoff for the Super Bowl is scheduled for 3:25 p.m. PST, which should give people plenty of time to see the game and then get to the concert in Jackson Hall at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts).

The two-work program starts with Brahms' Double Concerto, featuring Andrea Segar on violin and David Russell on cello, and led by D. Kern Holoman, conductor emeritus.

The program will conclude with Sibelius' Symphony No. 7 in C Major, led by Christian Baldini, the orchestra's music director and conductor.

Tickets are available online, or by visiting or calling the Mondavi Center box office, (530) 754-2787 or (866) 754-2787.

Focus on Film: 25th Hour

The Mondavi Center's Focus on Film continues Thursday, Jan. 27, with Spike Lee's 25th Hour (2002), in which Edward Norton plays a drug dealer in his last hours of freedom before a seven-year jail term.

This year's Focus on Film presents intimate stories about men at the most crucial times in their lives, with music that transcends the "soundtrack" tag — instead taking a central role in the aesthetic experience. Terence Blanchard composed an original scoire for 25th Hour.

Starting time is 7 p.m. in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, and 25th Hour runs for 135 minutes. The film is rated R. Admission is $10.

Twelfth Night continues

The Davis Shakespeare Ensemble's production of Twelfth Night, continues through Sunday, Jan. 23, in the arboretum gazebo. And, no matter what the weather, the Bard's comedy will go on, organizers said, pointing out that the gazebo is covered and that heaters will be in place.

The ensemble is not affiliated with UC Davis, but eight of the nine founders have connections with the university.

Eleven actors and a three-member band perform in Twelfth Night — 14 people in all, including five alumni, seven undergraduates and one graduate student.

Performance times are 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, Jan. 20-22, and 2 and 8 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 23.

Ticket reservations and more information: (760) 310-0323 or davis.shakespeare@gmail.com.

Read more about the production.

Come Hell & High Water

Granada Artist-in-Residence Dominique Serrand has chosen Come Hell & High Water as the title of his new work, to be presented on the UC Davis stage March 3 to 13. The working title had been The Flood.

Come Hell & High Water is scheduled to be presented Thursday through Sunday, March 3-6, and Friday through Sunday, March 11-13, in Main Theatre.

Serrand devised Come Hell & High Water, and he is directing. In exploring the epic forces of a flood, the work takes the structure of an oratorio built from song, dance, story and character, according to a news release from the Department of Theatre and Dance.

"Just as Faulkner’s novella Old Man used the Mississippi flood of 1927 as the backdrop for his story, here the key elements of Faulkner’s story form the point of departure: two convicts set free by the rising of the river, a young pregnant woman marooned in a tree, a riverboat full of refugees, a deer swimming for its life, the birth of a child, the bursting of the levees, and the reconciliation of the river meeting the sea," the news release states.