ON STAGE: The Memorandum and Rent

FILM: Avatar in the arboretum, UC Davis Film Fest at the Varsity

Peter, the Wolf and the provost, Ralph J. Hexter, have a date with the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra this Sunday (May 20).

The program for the orchestra’s annual Family Concert includes a performance of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, with Hexter as the narrator. (FYI: The provost and executive vice chancellor is also a Distinguished Professor of classics and comparative literature.)

The orchestra has moved up the time of this year's Family Concert from evening to midafternoon, starting at 3 p.m., hopefully more convenient for parents and children.

"Family priced" tickets cost $12 general and $6 for students. A number of free tickets are to be distributed at the Department of Music's booth at Celebrate Davis! — to be held from 4:30 to 9:30 p.m. Thursday (May 17) at Community Park, Oak Avenue and West Covell Boulevard.

Two other concert selections will feature the winners of the orchestra’s Concerto Competition 2012:

• Shawyon Malek-Salehi, on violin, in the orchestra’s performance of Saint-Saëns’ Molto moderato e maestoso from Concerto No. 3 in B Minor.

• Chris Brown and Abby Green, flute, in a performance of Doppler’s Rigoletto Fantasie for Two Flutes and Orchestra.

The concert is set to take place in Jackson Hall at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

More from the Department of Music

Early Music Ensemble — 7 p.m. Saturday (May 19), St. Martin’s Church, 640 Hawthorne Lane, Davis. Free, with the following donations suggested at the door: $12 adults, and $6 students and children.

• Monteverdi — Motets and Psalms (Vespers, 1610), Mass for four Voices (1650)
• Monteverdi — Lamento della Ninfa and Zefiro Torna
• Sances — Stabat Mater
• Luzzaschi — Concerto Delle Donne of Ferrara

Gamelan Sekar Jaya — UC Davis students will sit in with this guest ensemble from the San Francisco Bay Area. 7 p.m. Sunday (May 20), Mondavi Center. I Dewa Putu Berata (music) and Emiko Saraswati Susilo (dance) are the ensemble's guest directors.

The program begins with kecak (dance and music drama) in the Corin Courtyard, and then moves into the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre for new and traditional works, including the premiere of Dewa Berata's Kelenguan (Swept Away by Beauty).

Concert Band and Campus Bands — 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 23, Jackson Hall.

• Tchaikovsky — 1812 Overture
• Gustav Holst — Second Suite in F Major
• Timothy Mahr — Fantasia in G Major
• John Mackey — Xerxes
• Delbert Bump — Sorrow in Sendai

Shinkoskey Noon Concert: Undergraduate Composers Concert — In honor of Grant Noda's 90th birthday. 12:05 p.m. Thursday, May 24, 115 Music Building. Free.

Noda retired in 1985 after a 27-year career with the Department of Botany (now the Department of Plant Biology). He and his family have been ardent and generous donors to the Department of Music.

Jazz Bands — 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 30, Vanderhoef Studio Theatre.

University Chorus and Symphony Orchestra — 7 p.m. Friday, June 1, Jackson Hall.

• Sibelius — Finlandia
• Beethoven — Overture to Fidelio (Christian Baldini, conductor)
• Duruflé — Requiem (Jeffrey Thomas, conductor)

Tickets for the Symphony Orchestra, Gamelan Sekar Jaya, Concert Band and Campus Bands, and Jazz Bands are available from the Mondavi Center box office, (530) 754-2787 or (866) 754-2787, or mondaviarts.org.

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