MORE DETAILS

Department of Theatre and Dance: The Fantasticks — 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Dec. 4-6 and 11-13, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 7 and 14. Tickets ($15) can be purchased via email or by calling the box office, (530) 752-1133, between noon and 2 p.m. Monday-Friday. Tickets will be sold at the door 1½ hours prior to performance.

Department of Music: University Chorus and Symphony Orchestra, Empyrean Ensemble and Jazz Ensembles. Tickets available through the Mondavi Center box office (see information below, under Mondavi Center's 2014-15 presenting season).

Mondavi Center’s 2014-15 presenting season: Cantus, Mariachi Sol de Mexico, Downes and Bailey, and American Bach Soloists. Tickets available online (click on performance date); by phone, (530) 754-2787; and in person (open noon-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday, and one hour before all ticketed events).

Department of Music: Baroque Ensemble and A Soldier’s Tale. Free admission.

More information on the arts at UC Davis is available online.

Finals, shopping and other obligations are bearing down, but try to make time for these on-campus theater and music performances before the winter break.

Get in the holiday mood with The Fantasticks, a timeless, bittersweet love story filled with wonderful tunes. The Department of Theatre and Dance has given the piece a magical aura by decking out the Wyatt Pavilion Theatre in lights and a steam-punk vibe. The Fantasticks ran continuously off-Broadway from 1960 until 2002 for 17,000 performances, making it the longest running musical in the world. Performances are scheduled Thursday through Sunday, Dec. 4-7 and 11-14. See box for details.

The Department of Music will present its Baroque, Jazz and Empyrean ensembles, plus Igor Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale (free noon concert), and the University Chorus and Symphony Orchestra (with a program featuring Beethoven’s Mass in C Major).

The Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts has Cantus (presenting All is Calm, about the Christmas truce that took place 100 years ago this year, during World War I), Mariachi Sol de Mexico (“A Christmas Spectacular”) and American Bach Soloists (Messiah). Also, renewing their successful partnership, artist-in-residence Lara Downes (piano) and Zuill Bailey (cellist) present a concert they call “Some Other Time.”

The Baroque Ensemble brings holiday flair to its concert with Giuseppe Torelli’s “Christmas Eve Concerto,” along with music by Georg Philipp Telemann and Johann Sebastian Bach. 12:05 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 4,
Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, Mondavi Center. Free, in the Shinkoskey Noon Concert Series.

The vocal group Cantus performs All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914, a musical reimagining of the remarkable moment during World War I when Allied and German soldiers put down their guns, came out of their trenches, exchanged gifts and sang carols. 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 5, Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center.

The University Chorus and the Symphony Orchestra join forces for Serenade to Music by Vaughan Williams and Sinfonia sacra by Daniel Pinkham, leading up to the magnificent Mass in C Major, op. 86. 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 6, Jackson Hall.

Mariachi Sol de Mexico offers “A Christmas Spectacular,” a family-friendly concert with familiar songs in Spanish and English. Nominated twice for a Latin Grammy, Sol de Mexico has broken down cultural barriers worldwide. 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 7.

Arnold

The Empyrean Ensemble, UC Davis’ contemporary music ensemble, presents “New Works for Voice and Ensemble.”  7 p.m. Monday, Dec. 8, Vanderhoef Studio Theatre.

The “new works” are by graduate student composers: She Is Blue by Phil Acimovic; Anónimo by Gabriel José Bolaños Chamorro, M.E.D.E.A. by Yu-Hsui Chang, Ailihphilia by Bruce Cannell, On Looking Askance by William David Cooper, From Coast to Coast by Fang-Wei Luo and Three Moons by Alex Van Gils.

The “voice” is Tony Arnold’s, artist in residence. She has premiered 200 new works and is one of the most recorded singers of contemporary music, with two dozen discs to her credit. “Anything sung by soprano Tony Arnold is worth hearing,” the Chicago Tribune wrote.

The Jazz Ensembles are set to perform at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 10, Vanderhoef Studio Theatre. Program information not available.

Stravinsky described A Soldier’s Tale as “a theatrical work to be read, played and danced” by actors, dancers and a septet of instruments. The 1918 work tells the story of a soldier who trades his violin to the devil for the secrets of financial success, but there is a catch, of course. This performance features student musicians and graduate student Garrett Rigsby, plus, as the narrator, D. Kern Holoman, distinguished professor and Symphony Orchestra conductor emeritus. 12:05 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 11,
 Jackson Hall. Free, in the Shinkoskey Noon Concert Series.

Downes and Bailey’s “Some Other Time” takes its name from their album, released earlier this year and which has been a classical music top seller, celebrating the music of and friendships among Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Barber and Lukas Foss. 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, Dec. 12-13, Vanderhoef Studio Theatre.

In a continuing tradition, the 26-year-old American Bach Soloists return to UC Davis with Handel’s Messiah. Jeffrey Thomas (UC Davis music professor and director of the University Chorus) leads the widely acclaimed American Bach Soloists, recognized by The Wall Street Journal as “the best American specialist in early music ... a flawless ensemble.” For Messiah, Thomas conducts the period instrument orchestra, the American Bach Choir and a quartet of soloists. 8 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 14, Jackson Hall.

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