UC Davis Concerts invites music enthusiasts on an extraordinary journey through a series of remarkable events featuring talented performers and unique compositions. From the Empyrean Ensemble's eclectic programs to the compelling storytelling of 'Considering Matthew Shepard,' these events promise a diverse range of musical experiences. Held at the Ann E. Pitzer Center and Mondavi Center, these concerts showcase the artistry of acclaimed musicians like Dagenais Smiley and Rachel Lee Priday. Join us as we explore the highlights of this vibrant celebration of music and culture.

A Melodious Journey Through UC Davis Concerts: Celebrating Musical Excellence

“Considering Matthew Shepard,” first performed in 2016, is a full-concert length modern-day oratorio, which honors and celebrates the life of Matthew Shepard.

The choral work is fused together with different styles. The texts are from poets, including Rumi and Hildegard von Bingen, along with words from Shepard’s own journal. The Chicago Tribune wrote: “Moving among styles ranging from Lutheran hymnody to blues to Broadway, this modern-day Passion will move many listeners to tears even as it reaches beyond tragedy to peace, understanding and forgiveness.”

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Choruses of UC Davis: “Sing With Pride”

Mondavi Center

As both musical and life partners, soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon and pianist Ryan McCullough bring an intimacy to their performances that speaks to their many years of collaboration. Praised as “breathtaking” by The Wall Street Journal, the husband-and-wife duo has performed throughout North America and Europe in such venues as New York’s Merkin Hall, Park Avenue Armory, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Di Menna Center; London’s Wigmore Hall; and Toronto’s Koerner Hall, in addition to a recent appearance on PBS’ Great Performances.

Fitz Gibbon-McCullough Duo

Ann E. Pitzer Center

Student Chamber Ensembles

Gershwin famously folded jazz—exploding in popularity at the time—into the orchestra with the piano at center. Brewbaker took inspiration from 12th-century poet Sufi, asking: Is the violinist playing the violin or the violin playing the violinist? Eliza Brown vividly connected, in one ten-minute soaring work, her mother’s favorite music with Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, with the essence of both her own (and her mother’s) musical spirit.


UC Davis Symphony Orchestra

Performing selections from the Great American Songbook the big bands perform charts by legends by the likes of Gershwin, Porter and Ellington. The evening concert is sure to be filled with lush harmonies, soaring solos, and irresistible rhythms in the comfortable and warm Ann E. Pitzer Center.

Big Bands

A native of Northern California, Dagenais Smiley earned her bachelor of music degree at the Oberlin Conservatory as a student of Milan Vitek and her master’s degree from USC under the instruction of Kathleen Winkler. She is proud to have worked under such notable conductors as Leon Fleisher, David Zinman, Robert Spano, Michael Tilson Thomas, and John Williams. She has participated in master classes given by Yuval Yaron, Kathleen Winkler, Alexander Barantschik, Fritz Gearhart, the Calder Quartet, and Glenn Dicterow.

Dagenais Smiley, violin

UC Davis Sinfonietta

Ensemble-in-residence at UC Davis, the Empyrean Ensemble presents engaging and eclectic programs, inviting audiences to experience new musical sensations delivered with high artistry by its extraordinary players—among the finest new music performers in California.

Empyrean Ensemble

Howard Levy, two-time Grammy Award Winner (Pop Music Performance and Instrumental Composition) is an acknowledged master of the diatonic harmonica, a superb pianist, innovative composer, educator and producer. At the age of 19, he discovered how to play the diatonic harmonica as a fully chromatic instrument by developing techniques on it that had never existed before. This enabled Howard to take the harmonica out of its usual role as a Folk and Blues instrument, and into the worlds of Jazz, Classical, Middle Eastern music, and more. His discovery unlocked infinite possibilities for the harmonica world.



Howard Levy, harmonica

Althea SullyCole studied her primary instrument, the kora — a 21-stringed West African harp — under korists Yacouba Sissoko and Edou Manga. She is a multi instrumentalist, vocalist, and ethnomusicologist from New York City. From 2024 to 26, Althea will be performing research on an Award for Faculty from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which, among other things, will fund fieldwork in Mali and Guinea in support of her scholarship on historical collections of musical instruments from the Mandé region of West Africa.

Althea SullyCole, kora

Jacqueline Cordova-Arrington is the assistant professor of flute at the University of Oregon School of Music and Dance and a member of the Oregon Wind Quintet. As educator she has performed in residencies across the country and facilitated masterclasses at institutions included but not limited to: University of Hawaii Manoa, University of Maryland, University of Texas Austin, Washington Lee University, Ohio State University among others.

Jacqueline Cordova-Arrington, solo flute

Student chamber ensembles, the Samba School directed by faculty member Brian Rice, and also the Bluegrass and Old Time String Band directed by faculty member Scott Linford will perform works in progress.

Picnic Day: Music Student Performances

An educator with 14 years of experience, Afro-Cuban female author Eva Silot Bravo is an interdisciplinary and independent scholar, former diplomat and international negotiator in the United Nations, representing Cuba and developing countries. The focus of her presentation is her recently published non-fiction academic book: Cuban Fusion: The Transnational Cuban Alternative Music Scene, on Cuban music and transnationalism.

Surveying the impact of Cuba’s economic crisis after the demise of the Eastern socialist bloc, Silot Bravo’s book documents a relatively unexplored transnational network of collaborations among Cuban musicians who migrated to many different countries from the 1990s forward. The book’s main argument is that in light of the 1990s crisis in Cuba, new transnational and alternative narratives emerged, resulting in creative “in-between” spaces that reflect a post-socialist aesthetic condition. The manuscript also documents important developments in the Cuban jazz and fusion scenes outside the island in the last 20 plus years.

Music Forum: Eva Silot Bravo

Everson Hall

“Voices of Distinction, Music of the former Soviet Union”

In Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun, a solo flute player in the orchestra evokes the imagery of the mythical Pan and his enchanting flute. Pan is the Greek fertility god, represented with horns, legs, and ears of a goat, and is associated with flocks and herds and music. When he wakes up from a nap he tries to remember his dream, only to fall asleep again, hoping to meet his nymph friends in his next dream.

In his Requiem for String Orchestra, Takemitsu used early 20th-century tonalities by Western composers such as Arnold Schoenberg and made his own experimental mark on 20th-century art music. Coincidentally, Igor Stravinsky heard this Requiem and sang its praises to American and European classical artists.

UC Davis Symphony Orchestra: “Delicate and Contemplative”

Tekla Babyak holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from Cornell University. Based in Davis, she is an independent scholar and disability activist with multiple sclerosis (MS). Her research focuses on analysis and aesthetics in European musical Romanticism. Recent publications have appeared in the journal19th-Century Music and in Joseph Joachim: Identities/Identitäten as part of the Georg Olms Verlag series in musicology.

Music Forum: Tekla Babyak

With guest conductor Dr. Jan Taylor, the choruses of UC Davis — the Concert Choir and the Chamber Singers — join to sing the music that Albert J. McNeil (1920–2022) loved and championed.

McNeil was a transformative force in the music department during his 21 years as a faculty member (1969–90). He greatly increased participation in the University Chorus from an occasional course to a full public performance group, and created the University Chamber Singers. He founded a music education program and was an original faculty member of the African American and African studies program. As founder and longtime director of the Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers in Los Angeles, he had a profound effect on the performance, preservation and presentation of African American spirituals.

Choruses of UC Davis: “Celebrating Albert J. McNeil”

After coming to the United States over two decades ago, Rita Sahai continued her extensive music studies under the world famous sarod maestro Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, who passed away in 2009. Impressed by her talent and passion toward music, “Khansahib,” as she affectionately called her guru, gave her the title Gayan Alankar (Jewel of Music).

Musics of the World

Heni Savitri began to study sindhènan (Javanese singing with gamelan) in 2002. In 2003 she won the competition for best singer in her native district of Wonogiri, Central Java. She entered the Performing Arts Conservatory in Surakarta in 2004 and began representing the institution in competitions the following year, as well as performing in shadow plays. Upon enrolling in the Indonesian Arts Academy in Surakarta she was selected as the singer for many recordings of new faculty compositions and traditional works, representing the academy in the 2008 international vocal competition in Jakarta. She has recently been performing with gamelan groups in the United States, including at the Indonesian Consulate in New York City, at Tufts University, Cornell University, the Indonesian Embassy in Washington D.C., Earlham College, Friends of the Gamelan Chicago, and with Sumunar Gamelan in Minnesota.

Gamelan and Afro-Cuban Ensembles

Director Steven Spielberg’s heartwarming masterpiece is one of the brightest stars in motion picture history. Filled with unparalleled magic and imagination, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial follows the moving story of a lost little alien who befriends a 10-year-old boy named Elliott. Experience all the mystery and fun of their unforgettable adventure in the beloved movie that captivated audiences around the world, complete with John Williams’ Academy Award®-winning score performed live by the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra in sync to the film projected on a huge high definition screen!

“E.T. The Extra Terrestrial” in Concert

University of California, Davis

Ualbany Performing Arts Center

Jazz "Big Bands" of UC Davis

Percussion Ensemble UC Davis

Concert Bands of UC Davis

Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts

Jazz Combos of UC Davis

Earplay

Empyrean Ensemble: "Works by Graduate Students"

Trois Bois

Michael Goldberg, Solo Guitar

UC Davis Symphony Orchestra: "Brazil & Jazz"

Lillian Gordis, Harpsichord Jérôme Hantaï, Viola da Gamba

Wendy Richman: "Works By Graduate Students"

Wendy Richman, Viola

PinkNoise: "Black as a Hack for Cyborgification"

PinkNoise: "Works By Graduate Students"

These new pieces for solo violin, or solo violin and electronics, were created as part of the graduate student workshop, in which graduate students meet with Icelandic violinist Hrabba Atladottir each week during Fall Quarter, refining their compositions.

Hrabba Atladottir, Solo Violin: "Works By Graduate Students"

Portia Njoku, Tuba

Jazz "Big Bands" Of UC Davis

Mike Marshall and Choro Famoso bring a bright energy and virtuosity to their concerts, maybe matched only by the Brazilians themselves. Choro is an important musical tradition of Brazil with characteristic Afro-Brazilian rhythms and European popular dance tunes. Mike—already known throughout the world for pushing on the boundaries of many music genres—became smitten with Choro on his first adventure in Brazil.

Mike Marshall and Choro Famoso

The UC Davis Concert Band presents thoughtful works written especially for concert band, and sometimes for film (“My Neighbor Totoro” and “The Polar Express” to name a couple). Constituting members of the UC Davis community from students to graduate students to faculty, the band is proud to represent more than thirty areas of study in its members.

Magela Herrera Quartet: "Works By Graduate Students"

Empyrean Ensemble: "Rzewski’s Coming Together"

The Bacchetto / Sabey Duo is a collaborative project of San Francisco-based composer-performers Nick Bacchetto and Ben Sabey. The duo creates new works for piano and live electronics using MIDI Polyphonic Expression instruments controlling analog modular synthesis, which is spatialized into any speaker configuration via the new Dolby Atmos renderer.

Bacchetto / Sabey Duo

Warp Trio is an Internationally touring cross-genre chamber music experience. Every chamber music program needs this kind of energy.

Warp Trio: "Works By Graduate Students"

Black Voices is an original concert program that integrates classical, jazz, hip-hop, and spoken word—sounds and poetry created by African-American artists—in an effort to lift up lesser-known contributions that define the multifaceted culture of the United States. Featuring the award-winning artist LiKWuiD, the program utilizes poetry of Langston Hughes, Ntozake Shange, and the Sacramento-based Maya Angelou. It also features original spoken word material, set against music by Duke Ellington, William Grant Still, Harry Burleigh, and original compositions by Warp Trio members.

Warp Trio: "Black Voices"

Kineko Barbini, violin, I-Hui Chen, piano

UC Davis Concert Band

UC Davis’s own Jazz Big Bands present songs from the Great American Songbook as well as a few contemporary works and sometimes feature student vocalists too. Tunes by Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and many others are often presented.

Jazz Big Bands of UC Davis

The UC Davis Jazz Combos—usually quartets or quintets—present a wide range of jazz standards, and feature several extended solos with improvisation.

Musics Of The World

Maryam Farshadfar, piano (Ph.D., ethnomusicology, University of Montreal) and Shawyon Malek-Salehi, violin (B.A., music, UC Davis, ‘14) present this lecture-recital, which discusses the history of piano and violin in Iran, and the influence of Persian culture on Western composers from the late 19th century to the present. The recital includes performances of a variety of lesser-known pieces by Western and Persian composers, including pieces by Samin Baghcheban, Gena Branscombe, Henry Cowell, and others.

Lecture-Recital: “Persian Serenades of the West”

Bay Area Indonesian-Folk-Rock fusion group, Purnamasari grew out of the idea of supporting a new generation of artists from both sides of the world through music and dance. The concert takes place on the eve of the LUCE Foundation’s conference “Rethinking the History of Indonesian Music.

Purnamasari

Ann Lavin, Clarinet Dagenais Smiley, Violin

Immerse yourself in the Halloween season with the eerie and spooky sounds of the harpsichord. Spine-chilling chords and cackling runs bring alive a concert of things that go bump in the night, with black cats, Jeckyl and Hyde, and even compositions written by spirits. Featuring works by J.S. Bach, Dominico Scarlatti, James Dorsa, and Rosemary Brown.

The Macabre: A Harpsichord Halloween

TriMusica

Joseph Donald Peterson, Solo Viola

Preconcert Discussion from 1:15–1:45 pm with composer Yu-Hui Chang and Empyrean’s director Sam Nichols.

Chris Froh: "Graduate Student Works For Percussion"

“Of California Ecology” features new works based on different facets of California’s natural world. The trio will perform compositions by ensemble members, Julie Herndon, and Sl(e)ight Ensemble’s 2020 call-for-scores winner Kian Ravaei. Drawing on the artists’ distinct backgrounds in jazz, band, and chamber music, the program is inspired by seismic activity, fungal biomes, waterways, and social ecology, among other natural phenomena. The result is a diverse set of works all created with the aim of bringing appreciation to California’s beautiful and delicate environment.

Sl(e)ight Ensemble: "Of California Ecology"

This recital features 20th-century American music, with transcriptions by famed Russian-Lithuanian-American violinist Jascha Heifetz, from George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, as well as Samuel Barber’s own transcription of the second movement of his Piano Concerto.

UC Davis Concerts

Jun 5, 2025

Choruses of UC Davis: “Sing With Pride”

Jun 5, 2025

Fitz Gibbon-McCullough Duo

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UC Davis Concerts