18-19 Gateway Magazine by Mondavi Center

gateway ROBERT AND MARGRIT MONDAVI CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS UC DAVIS

Inaugural Issue 2018â&#x20AC;&#x201C;19 $5.00

Reflections on Classical Music 16 Years On p. 12

Callas in Concert The Rewards of Programming Risks p. 20

What is Jazz? Two Perspectives

p. 38

THE MASK OF SURVIVAL Black Performance in Dance p. 54

CO N V E R S AT I O N S

Bridging the gap between the performers who keep alive their classical cultural traditions and contemporary historians who have brought these traditions into the Western teaching curriculm is a magical symbiosis. Henry Spiller, UC Davis professor of music, and his graduate students get a hands-on lesson in Balinese gamelan from the members of Ă&#x2021;udamani during the groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s visit to the Mondavi Center, February 2018. Photo by Ruth Rosenberg.

In This Issue

IN EVERY ISSUE

F E AT U R E S

4 14 22 25 28 40 50 56 62

Remembering Barbara 16 Years On Reflections on Classical Music

Callas in Concert The Rewards of Programming Risks

What a Hologram of Maria Callas Can Teach Us About Opera

Letter from the Editor 6 Letter from the Chancellor 10 2018–19 Season Calender 13 Mondavi Center Supporters 36 Beyond the Stage 66 Mondavi Center Volunteer Ushers 67 Mondavi Center Staff 68 PROFILES PETR JANATA TONY STONE COLT McGRAW

Give Beethoven a Break

GENE NELSON JANYLNN FLEENER

What is Jazz? TWO PERSPECTIVES

The Delicate Art of Balance

DENISHA BLAND PING CHAN

LISTEN

The Mask of Survival Black Performance in Dance

Jazz: An International Language

21 26 46 49 52 60 65

Throughout the publication we have created links to Spotify playlists of many of the artists mentioned in the articles. You may go directly to the link, or visit the Mondavi Center playlist at https://open.spotify.com/user/12185377413.

School Matinees

Cover photo of Maria Callas (1958) © MARKA / Alamy Stock Photo. Puccini’s Turandot was the 16th complete opera recording Columbia/Angel made with Callas and the company of La Scala. Unlike almost every other famous soprano of her day, Callas never ventured a contemporary opera. Turandot, first performed in 1926 was the only work she sang in that was younger than she was. In the first two years of her career in Italy, Callas appeared as Turandot 21 times. Source: www.naxos.com. 2018–19 SEASON / GATEWAY

Remembering Barbara DON ROTH, PH.D. Executive Director Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, UC Davis

alk into Barbara Jackson’s living room almost any summer afternoon or evening and the TV screen was flickering in orange and black as she followed the ups and downs of her beloved San Francisco Giants. Baseball was a passion second only to one, her love of opera, especially of the Italian variety. That love translated into extraordinary generosity, as Barbara provided funds in support of young singers through the Adler Fellows and Merola programs at the San Francisco Opera and ensuring that the Barbara K. Jackson Rising Stars of Opera annual concert in Jackson Hall would be free, inviting in a public new to opera as well as established aficionados. If you work in the arts, you meet many generous patrons who voluntarily provide the means to put great work on stage. It diminishes no one to state that in the company of great arts supporters, Barbara held a very special place. In her younger days, she was generous with her time, sewing costumes for the Sacramento Opera and Sacramento Ballet, and making sure that the Mondavi Center had a gift shop, even if it meant many nights as a cashier on site! During the last several decades, she was able to provide transformational gifts in support of UC Davis academic programs (in honor of her late husband Turpie), UC Davis Music and, most of all, to the San Francisco Opera and the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. As long as she was physically able, Barbara was a regular presence in both those venues; her generosity followed her passion for music, vocal music and opera most of all. When I lived in Texas (my wife Jolán and I, along with Barbara all have degrees from the University of Texas), I associated that state with a sense of time somewhat looser than what I grew up with in New York. A social event at 7 p.m. was rarely fully attended until 7:30 or 8. Show up at on time and you were likely to be alone. So I was quite surprised to find in Barbara— native of Austin, fellow Longhorn—a stickler for promptness to the nth degree. Since we were fortunate to spend many Sundays at the Opera with Barbara, we never missed a curtain, could always attend the lecture, have lunch and, in general, spend the day more leisurely than usually happens in the Type A world in which we live. That penchant for promptness meant a longer day, but one where the focus and main event was going to be the opera that afternoon—clear the slate and enjoy. While Barbara had an extraordinary knowledge of opera (she had seen and heard most of the greats) she also had a generosity of spirit, and a Texas-bred politesse, such that she was rarely ever critical of performances, even when the performance might warrant it! She was ever patient and attentive, never flagging even during the 14-hour span of Wagner’s Ring. If nonagenarians can have an entourage, Barbara certainly did. She travelled in a pack, generously sharing her five Sunday opera subscriptions with friends (and when her sister Sue Drake was alive, with family). For Rising Stars of Opera, which we started because of Barbara’s love of young singers, Barbara rarely had fewer than 30 guests. Friends from San Francisco often would attend and unfurl “Happy Birthday, Barbara” banners to honor her, since this concert generally has been in proximity to October 4, Barbara’s big day. This year it will be on October 4th, on what would have been her 100th birthday. When you visited Barbara, her first words often would be: “What do you know that’s good?” That would invite an analysis of the Giants’ bullpen, a recent symphony concert at the Mondavi Center or a great new tenor just seen in HD. But, more consistently, what’s good was to be a friend of Barbara’s, a beneficiary of her philanthropy and a fellow music-lover. For me, a goodly portion of what is so wonderful about being in Davis, on this campus and at the Mondavi Center, has been to know this truly great, modest and generous human being.

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Photo of Barbara K. Jackson courtesy of UC Davis.

Barbara K. Jackson 1918-2018

Letter from the Editor When you pass through the doors of the Mondavi Center, you enter a space that offers you the opportunity for entertainment, enrichment and, on those very special nights, transformation. Our new publication, Gateway, helps to set the stage for those experiences. Our name, Gateway, was inspired by our location in the Gateway District on the UC Davis campus. Just as our neighborhood is a welcoming doorstep to our Top 10 public university, we hope this magazine opens doors to the work we do inside the Mondavi Center. While brochures and program materials describe what we do, Gateway starts the conversation about the why. Why do we value the arts? Why does it matter? Why do we choose the artists we do? Why is live performance important? These, and many more questions, are all ongoing topics in the Mondavi Center offices. Now we can engage in those conversations more directly with you, our audience of arts lovers. Thanks to the articles herein, written by local arts critics, media personalities, artists and Mondavi Center staff, there is much to ponder and carry forward through the season ahead. And you’ll meet a few of the friendly faces you encounter at the Mondavi Center in the profiles scattered throughout. A quick word of thanks for all those that worked so hard to make this publication a reality. Please scroll down the masthead and give a round of applause for their contributions. I would love to know what you think of Gateway. Please drop me a line at rtocalino@ucdavis.edu.

gateway Annual publication of the Margrit and Robert Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, UC Davis

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Rob Tocalino PRODUCTION MANAGER

Dana Werdmuller ART DIRECTOR DESIGN & ILLUSTRATION

Erin Kelley

CONTRIBUTORS

Don Roth, Mondavi Center Executive Director Jeremy Ganter, Mondavi Center Director of Programming Marcus Crowder, Kevin Doherty, Jeff Hudson, Gary Vercelli

PROFILE WRITERS

Joanna Corman, Alicia K. Gonzales PROOFREADERS

Alicia K. Gonzales, Rachel Kanonchoff

Rob Tocalino Director of Marketing

PRINTER

Fong & Fong Printers SPONSORSHIP INQUIRIES

Nancy Petrisko, Mondavi Center Director of Development npetrisko@ucdavis.edu Mondavi Center Administration Office University of California, Davis One Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616 mondaviarts.org Cécile McLorin Salvant with Bill Charlap Trio performing at the Mondavi Center on Feb. 9, 2018. Photo by Barry Schwartz.

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Supporting all that the arts bring to life Creativity is personal, and so is your well-being. And research shows that they’re linked in lots of positive ways. So go ahead and enjoy a classical performance, sing at the top of your lungs, or dance like nobody’s watching – because when you need a supportive partner, you’ll have an entire team of experts standing behind you. To learn more about our clinics throughout the region – including Davis – and what UC Davis Health can do for you, visit health.ucdavis.edu

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Downey Brand and its alumni attorneys proudly support the institutions that educate and inspire future generations. downeybrand.com

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Feature Contributors MARCUS CROWDER is an arts and culture critic and writer based in Northern California. For 17 years he was the theater critic at The Sacramento Bee. His work appears in the San Francisco Chronicle, American Theatre, 7x7, Sactown, SFGate, the Bay Guardian, and Diablo Magazine, among others. He has covered professional theater in Sacramento, the Bay Area, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and in New York. Interviews include Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, Yoko Ono, Tony Kushner, Chita Rivera, Chris Rock and Cornell West. He has hosted onstage conversations with Alice Waters, Frank Rich and Dave Douglas.

Weekdays on CapRadio (88.9 FM), KEVIN DOHERTY helps listeners wake up refreshed with his upbeat presentation as the station’s morning classical host. Doherty’s passion comes through from the radio booth and on the professional opera stage, where his baritone voice has been featured for two decades, most recently with Modesto’s Townsend Opera, where he performed the role of Figaro in Rossini’s Barber of Seville. The native New Yorker received his bachelor’s degree in music from Ithaca College. As CapRadio’s classical music coordinator, Doherty curates the station’s appealing blend of familiar masterworks coupled with works by living composers and contemporary performers.

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We see... every project as an opportunity to build a lasting relationship

JEFF HUDSON has been attending Mondavi Center events since the groundbreaking ceremony. He was also on hand for the “topping out” ceremony (recognizing Barbara Jackson for the gift that named Jackson Hall); and when Robert and Margrit Mondavi made their naming gift for the performing arts center, he interviewed Robert Mondavi at his Napa Valley winery. Hudson was also on hand for the opening gala with the San Francisco Symphony and has subsequently attended hundreds of performances at the Mondavi Center. He is a longtime arts correspondent for Capital Public Radio, the Davis Enterprise and the Sacramento News & Review.

For 38 vibrant years, CapRadio’s GARY VERCELLI has been the “voice of jazz” for the Sacramento region. In 1980, Vercelli launched his nightly Jazz International program on flagship KXPR 88.9 FM and has been the station’s jazz music director ever since. Over the years Vercelli garnered national awards, including Broadcaster of the Year, while also maintaining a strong focus on local artists. Before moving to Sacramento, Vercelli hosted jazz programs in Los Angeles and Hawaii and was the L.A. correspondent for DownBeat magazine, covering jazz festivals in Italy and Japan. He has also contributed album notes for major artists, including Lou Rawls.

430 F Street Ste. B phone | 530.750.2209 fax | 530.750.3151 Davis, CA 95616 www.makdesignbuild.com lic. | 840316

2018–19 SEASON / GATEWAY

Letter from the Chancellor

I The Mondavi Center is a bridge to the Sacramento region.

n October 2017, just two months after I arrived in Davis, I appeared for the first time on stage at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. It was easily one of the most gratifying experiences of my life. I looked into the packed audience and said, “Hi, mom! It’s me, your son, up here. Can you believe this?” My extended family, longtime friends, dear colleagues, former Ph.D. students and hundreds of others had gathered in Jackson Hall for my inauguration as the seventh chancellor of UC Davis.

race, gender, justice and nationality. Think, too, of the dancers who have conveyed joy and suffering, empathy and apathy through body movement. UC Davis could not have dreamed of a more inclusive, multifaceted institution. When the stage isn’t occupied with performers, Jackson Hall doubles as a lecture hall for some of our classes. Come finals week, we open the lobby as a study center for students and even supply coffee to keep them going. Faculty and staff bring their mats to the center’s Vanderhoef Studio Theatre to unwind in meditation, aerobics and yoga classes. I see the Mondavi Center and the neighboring Walter A. Buehler Alumni Center, the UC Davis Conference Center and the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art as a quartet of welcoming public spaces that greet visitors entering our Gateway District.

Chancellor May hosts a Q&A session on the Mondavi Center Jackson Hall stage with Distinguished Speaker Alan Alda during a Chancellor’s Colloquium event on Jan. 31, 2018. Photo courtesy of UC Davis.

I felt on top of the world, and yet humbled to be speaking from a stage where such legends as Herbie Hancock, Emmylou Harris and Yo-Yo Ma had all shared their artistry in a venue of acoustic perfection. The Mondavi Center, though, is much more than a platform for the performing arts. In an age of divisiveness, the center also stands as a bastion of community building and celebration. Think of all our graduation ceremonies. Think of the speakers and comedians who have challenged our notions of

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The Mondavi Center is a bridge to the Sacramento region. It’s one of the few places on campus where the UC Davis community and the general public come together regularly. No matter where someone sits, they get a great window into the creativity, passion, diversity and excellence that defines our university. It’s a space where GZA, a popular rapper from the Wu-Tang Clan, helped bring together an audience of both academics and hip-hop fans for a lively and lyrical discussion on science communication. It’s a home for our UC Davis Symphony Orchestra, a resident ensemble of Jackson Hall and key ambassador of our music department. It’s a forum that continually draws schoolchildren from around the region for shows that entertain and engage young minds.

“

The Mondavi Center, though, is much more than a platform for the performing arts. In an age of divisiveness, the center also stands as a bastion of community building and celebration.

“

I’ve learned that the Mondavi Center ranks among the best perks of living in Davis. My family and I moved here from Atlanta, where a night out often meant traffic jams. Nothing sullies a night of cultural appreciation like a sea of red brake lights. What a difference in Davis! Now, we can walk to the Mondavi Center from the Chancellor’s Residence on College Park. We can enjoy arts and music from around the world without bumper-to-bumper traffic and circling streets for a parking space.

I’ve learned that the Mondavi Center ranks among the best perks of living in Davis.

My wife, LeShelle, and I enjoyed several wonderful nights at the Mondavi Center this past year. We sat back in awe of Grammy-winning jazz singer Cécile McLorin Salvant. We were blown away by the jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard, who

mixes his incredible music with themes of social justice. We’re looking forward to even more great moments this season. Actor John Leguizamo will riff on cultural exploration drawing on his one-man show, Latin History for Morons. We’ll hear from Jodi Kantor, one of the journalists whose stories of alleged abuses by Harvey Weinstein helped give rise to the #MeToo movement. And we’ll be treated to thoughtful discussion on community building with the celebrated author Douglas Abrams. How lucky we are to have a space that values such a rich world of viewpoints, artistic genres and expressions. Let’s keep the conversations flowing and the good times rolling. See you at the Mondavi Center! —Gary May, Chancellor, UC Davis

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Mondavi Center 2018–19 Season Calendar August 21

February Punch Brothers

September 7 22 23 30

An Evening with Lyle Lovett and his Large Band Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis Callas in Concert Alexander String Quartet

October 4 7 8 10–13 13 14 17 23 24 28

Barbara K. Jackson Rising Stars of Opera I’m With Her Preet Bharara Marquis Hill Blacktet Julie Fowlis Sir James Galway and Lady Jeanne Galway SFJAZZ Collective Company Wang Ramirez Ballet Folklórico de México de Amalia Hernández Cirque Mechanics

November 1–3 Nobuntu 2 Igor Levit, piano 4 Akram Khan Company 9 Sammy Miller and The Congregation 10 Pinchas Zukerman, violin and Angela Cheng, piano 12 Czech Philharmonic 14 Joan Baez 30 Paula Poundstone

December 1 2 8 16

Camille A. Brown & Dancers Alexander String Quartet Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Boston Brass

January 25 26 30–31

Las Cafeteras and Villalobos Brothers Lara Downes, piano and Theo Bleckmann, voice André Mehmari

1–2 4 10 14 27–28

André Mehmari Douglas Abrams 7 Fingers Cirque Curtis on Tour Veronica Swift with Benny Green Trio

March 1 We Shall Overcome A Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. featuring Damien Sneed 1–2 Veronica Swift with Benny Green Trio 2 Russian National Orchestra 4 Jodi Kantor 8 Academy of St Martin in the Fields 10 Vijay Iyer, piano and Matt Haimovitz, cello 11 Lawrence Brownlee, tenor and Eric Owens, bass-baritone 17 Eileen Ivers and JigJam

April 2 Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain 3 John Leguizamo 6 Royal Scottish National Orchestra 10 Ballet Preljocaj 12 Havana Cuba All-Stars 14 Mayumana 17–20 Twisted Pine 26–27 Young Artists Competition

May 3 7 8 8–11 19

Storm Large & Le Bonheur Vijay Iyer Sextet Vladimir Feltsman, piano Abbey Theatre: Two Pints Alexander String Quartet

June 2

Alexander String Quartet with Joyce Yang, piano Just Added Event

STAY CURRENT and be a part of the conversation #MONDAVICENTER

Director’s Choice Events Callas in Concert See one of the 20th century’s great artists— with live orchestra and hologram technology.

Company Wang Ramirez Explore the boundaries of relationships in a breathtaking dancetheater work.

Igor Levit Russian-German pianist who has become one of the essential musicians of his generation.

Akram Khan Company Moving storytelling that captures the wonder of childhood through dance and mime.

Czech Philharmonic An all-Tchaikovsky program led by an exceptional conductor, with pianist Kirill Gerstein.

We Shall Overcome Celebrating the inspirations, struggles and triumphs of the civil rights movement.

Lawrence Brownlee and Eric Owens Vocalists of the highest caliber in a rare duo performance.

John Leguizamo The celebrated leading actor takes us on a oneman journey exploring his Latin heritage.

Vijay Iyer Sextet Iyer’s creative genius takes jazz into his own territory with this powerful line-up.

Abbey Theatre The studio theatre is transformed into a Dublin pub while two men chew the fat and set the world to rights.

Explore More! MONDAVIARTS.ORG

BY DON ROTH

16 Years On Reflections on Classical Music

In June 2002, as I began my tenure as president of the Aspen Music Festival and School, I was given the opportunity to keynote the opening convocation; the audience consisted of Aspen faculty and students, many of whom have subsequently appeared at the Mondavi Center—the likes of Leon Fleisher, James Conlon, the Emerson String Quartet and then-student Yuja Wang. I focused, perhaps to the chagrin of some, on several self-inflicted problematic attitudes prevalent in the world of classical music. Since classical music is such a big part of what we do here at the Mondavi Center, I thought it would make sense, in this inaugural edition of our annual publication, Gateway, to revisit those thoughts, with occasional parenthetical references to Mondavi Center experiences. Toward the end, I’ll take a few moments to see how we are doing, more than 16 years on. —Don Roth, Ph.D., Executive Director, Mondavi Center

y favorite New Yorker cartoon says it all: a simple image of a sparse and ugly landscape, perhaps one of those New York vacant lots I remember as a kid—an old tire, a discarded pencil, a rusting can. The caption is straightforward: “Life without Mozart.” But it really is “life without music” that this image is all about. I know that music won’t solve the troubles of this world or make bad people good (indeed some of the most beautiful and uplifting music was written by some fairly unpleasant characters—just another of life’s mysteries). But without music, we don’t have a chance at evolving into the kind of people, the kind of civilization with the richness of life that we need to counter the grim and macabre absurdities that are flooding

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our world. I believe that creating and making music is a pursuit of great nobility and importance, as necessary and integral to a great society as the work done by doctors, scientists, or business and political leaders.

And yet, while so many of us believe this truth to be self-evident, we would be naïve if we didn’t recognize that we live in a society that consistently marginalizes classical music. By marginalization, I mean the notion that something—in this case, classical music—is seen as not relevant, important or vital. Our society sees classical music as the province of the rich, the old, the intellectual and the social elite—not relevant to the lives of the so-called average person. This has important and negative results. Probably most serious is that when school budgets get tight, music goes first on the chopping block long before athletics or home economics. While great literature is seen as central to the curriculum—who hasn’t read

Julius Caesar in the 10th grade?—it is not likely that students will be taught to see Beethoven in the same light as Shakespeare—not only as important but familiar and central. Part of this marginalization is supported by our press, which seems to take special pleasure in writing about the imminent demise of classical music institutions, such as the orchestra. And yet, after at least 30 years of such warnings, we are all still here. Thankfully, we can say of classical music, as Mark Twain said about similarly inaccurate press notices: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” Keep in mind that this marginalization was not always the case. If we look backwards, we realize that an American society with a more central role for classical music is not impossible. Toscanini was a popular culture hero in the middle third of the 20th century. And, believe

Photo Illustration by Erin Kelley.

There is no real life without music and, just as important, there is no chance for enlightenment and growth. The rich mix once narrowly defined as Western classical music carries forward a tradition that is among the most magical in the world.

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it or not, new music was primetime fare back in radio days—Fritz Reiner conducted the premiere of the Copland Clarinet Concerto on a nationwide Sunday-evening radio broadcast. Today, although we are a rich and prosperous nation in material terms, we are much less so in matters of the spirit. We keep moving faster and faster—we are rarely away from a kind of quick, faceless, shorthand communication. We are told that attention spans are growing ever shorter, but perhaps there is just not enough, in most of what is put before us, to hold our attention. In much of classical music, however, comes the opportunity for stretching, for the concentration, centering and contemplation that we all need in order to realize our individual and collective potential on this beautiful but fragile planet.

‘Life without Mozart’ is really ‘life without music.’

Cartoon appeared in The New Yorker on Dec. 17, 1979. Drawing by Mick Stevens.

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

It is a tall order to shift the cultural paradigm of our country, so that classical music moves from the margins to the center of our collective experiences. What can each one of us involved in this great enterprise do? First of all, let’s stop apologizing and rationalizing. In particular, I think it is a big mistake to focus on nonmusical reasons for the importance of classical music. Maybe Mozart will make you smarter, just as spinach may make you stronger. That certainly doesn’t make anyone like spinach. These are pretty shallow rationalizations for what is in fact one of the most deeply powerful products of our human soul and imagination. Music is at the core of who we are—back to our New Yorker cartoon, without Mozart or Beethoven or Stravinsky or Adams or Copland or so many others, our lives are all greatly impoverished. Let us promote music for what it is and for its intrinsic value—an essential element in our human makeup. And the classical musical tradition provides the opportunity for some of the deepest and richest experiences of any available. We also need to realize that those of us who love classical music have actually helped to create some of the attitudes that have contributed to the current predicament. I will get personal for a second, in order to illustrate some of what works and what gets in the way of bringing more people to classical music. When I was just a poor, ignorant high school rock-androller in Brooklyn blessed with musical friends, our chariot, the

New York subway system, would drop us off next to Carnegie Hall every Sunday, where for 50 cents we found seats literally at the feet of the cello section of the New York Philharmonic. One year, every Sunday was devoted exclusively to works of 20th-century music. Sometimes, Leonard Bernstein would speak to us about why he had chosen this work of Berg or Chavez or Shostakovich. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to like music written so close to my own time, or that I had to be rich or educated in music to enjoy those works. What I did know was that no one concert was quite like the next, that Bernstein cared deeply about the pieces he picked—these programs were not marketing creations—and that what I needed most was open ears and an engaged mind. I also knew that Bernstein was interested in a wide and eclectic range of music, my beloved Beatles included, so I wasn’t made to feel embarrassed by my non-classical tastes as somehow diminishing my character. There is a lot to learn in that little tale of my misspent youth— understanding of course that Bernstein was a unique and powerful personality and musician [whose centennial we have been celebrating at the Mondavi Center in a number of concerts both this season and last]. But, beyond that, look at some of the differences between his approach and some of the attitudes and accretions we have baked into the cake of classical music today—and that I would like us all to question. Here are four attitudes that we need to ponder and fix:

1 I think it is a big mistake to focus on non-musical reasons for the importance of classical music. Maybe Mozart will make you smarter, just as spinach may make you stronger. That certainly doesn’t make anyone like spinach.

UNDERESTIMATING THE POWER OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC. We have enshrined a canon of works that too often stops, with few exceptions, at the beginning of the past century. And we have assumed that if we are to build more followers for classical music, that it is the chestnuts of the Classical and Romantic canon that are most likely to bring in fresh listeners. But paraphrasing what I once heard John Corigliano say, the musical palate of the 20th century (it was the 20th century when he said it) reflects the world in which we live, a very different world than Mozart’s or Beethoven’s. We cannot imagine, for example, Varese’s Amériques [which the UC Davis Symphony played in Jackson Hall a few seasons ago ] coming from that earlier world. In fact, contemporary music may be the best way for new listeners, especially young listeners, to be invited into classical music. The musical values of contemporary music are in fact closer to the sound world those young listeners live in. I am not arguing, of course, for us to listen exclusively to any one era or genre of music. I am only suggesting that we have underestimated the power of the new to be a mighty magnet to our art. [I commend you to read Kevin Doherty’s well-thought-out take on new music on pg. 28 in this publication.]

hordes of potential listeners who think our music is above and beyond them. No one can argue that the experience of listening to Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 or Beethoven’s Opus 131 or The Rite of Spring is not more intense, more complete, or more rewarding than listening to even the best and most intricate pop music. But snobbery about high and low is irrelevant and only turns people away. A great chef does not cook our every meal and a burger will do once in a while. It is quicker, cheaper and sufficiently filling for a time. Bernstein understood that there could be people of quality and interest working in other forms and that interest in their work did not exclude interest in his. [And it is indeed our programming philosophy at the Mondavi Center to bring the best emerging and established artists working in all the varied genres of music.]

REINFORCING THE ARTIFICIAL DIVISION BETWEEN “HIGH” AND “LOW” IN MUSIC: SNOBBERY IS NOT A VIRTUE. Ironically, in the most democratic society in the world, we have tended to draw the most rigid lines between high and low art. When we do that, it is our music, the “high and mighty” that suffers the most from this distinction. Rather than emphasizing the continuum of music, when we emphasize the chasm between classical and other “popular” music, we are driving away

CONFUSING THE FORM OF THE CONCERT EXPERIENCE WITH ITS CONTENT. At times, it seems like we have enshrined the way we present music instead of the music itself. The current form of presentation in the concert hall is neither very old nor at all necessary to the enjoyment of the music. For those of us who have grown up with these traditions and their quirks and customs, it is quite wonderful to go to an event where the music speaks for itself, and there is nothing that gets in the way of pure listening. But for those who are not familiar with our concert hall rituals, the atmosphere can be intimidating and distracting from the musical experience. If you have ever gone to a church, mosque or synagogue whose traditions you weren’t familiar with—when to stand or sit, where to stand or sit, when to speak out loud and when to be quiet—you are familiar with the 2018–19 SEASON / GATEWAY

kind of discomfort that many people feel in the concert hall. For those people, the way into the experience may need to be a different one. What we do, especially when it is not vocal, choral or operatic, is the most abstract of all the arts. It is written in a nonverbal language that communicates directly past the barriers of culture to the soul. (That is why world music can flourish even with listeners who are not from the cultures where these music styles originate.) That abstract quality, that directness, is the glory of music. But it is also an obstacle for those who have been brought up to believe that they don’t have the tools, skills or education to hear classical music. There already is a large potential audience out there—well-educated, literate and intelligent—for whom classical music is the most intimidating and distant of the arts, because it isn’t in their language and it doesn’t have a story. What that means is that at least some of the time, we are going to need to present our music differently—not dumb down the repertoire or patronize our audiences, but to intelligently provide a context for the music, to do everything we can to open ears and to create engaged listeners. This has worked in several great art forms: instead of killing opera, supertitles have opened it up to larger audiences who often listen more attentively. Audio tours of art exhibits have achieved much the same, with the result that many people look at artworks longer and with more concentration. We can do the same— mostly not during, but around the music.

THE ELEMENT OF SPONTANEITY IN PERFORMANCE. This is another element lost in so many places in the

classical music world. I don’t suppose we will have many concertos, like Beethoven’s second, where the ink was not dry on the parts for the first performance. But how wonderful when an enthusiastic reception in that time brought the repeat of a movement as an encore. How wonderful when audiences were comfortable enough with their response to a piece that they applauded between movements when it felt right (as with the third movement of the Tchaikovsky

2. Eliminating the snobbery about high and low music. 3. Openness to changing the form of the concert experience. 4. Leaving more room for spontaneity in performance. These are starting points to help us think about what we can do to ensure that the number of those whose lives are enriched by classical music grows, rather than shrinks.

We also need to realize that those of us who love classical music have actually helped to create some of the attitudes that have contributed to the current predicament. Pathetique) or remained silent for a time when that felt right, too (after the last movement of the same symphony). After all, the greatest way to listen to our music is live, in real time, in the room with the performers. It is far more difficult for people to find the time, quiet and concentration to engage with even the best-recorded versions of this repertoire. Live and spontaneous always will remain the best way of all—especially when we leave room in the concert hall for a spontaneous reaction on the part of the artist and the audience to what is happening on that particular day or evening.

THESE FOUR AREAS THEN ARE JUST STARTING POINTS FOR US TO THINK ABOUT: 1. Using the power of contemporary music to win new converts.

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Starting points in the enterprise of building diverse audiences sprinkled with people as young, poor and naïve as I was when I took those first subway rides to Carnegie Hall. —June 2002, Aspen, Colorado

That talk, given the same year that the Mondavi Center was to open, seems still relevant to me, but I’m pleased also that a number of these attitudes have started to soften and change in the decade and a half since then, both at the Mondavi Center and around the nation. There are groups and venues that very consciously are using new music to win classical music converts: (Le) Poisson Rouge and SubCulture clubs in New York, the Mercury Soul collective led by Mason Bates in San Francisco and our own Visions events. All of these not only bring new and young audiences to

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Illustration © storm / Adobe Stock.

listen to new classical music, but they often mix that music with good music from popular genres, and also focus on creating a more fluid, informal setting in which to present classical music. They even more often leave room for spontaneity and audience interaction in their events. This kind of approach to classical music is working to demystify the concert experience.

And we see more outstanding musicians who have broken the taboo on speaking to audiences during orchestral concerts, most recently the conductor and violinist Daniel Hope who was here this past year with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and who gave meaningful and insightful introductions before each piece.

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Those of you who were in Jackson Hall for the uplifting performance of Mahler’s 9th Symphony will revel in the memory of the long silence that followed as the last notes died away, with Gustavo Dudamel holding back the applause so that the music could sink in. We need more of that—we need to become comfortable with our own silence when that suits the music best. We are not there yet, but it is wonderful when we are allowed to respond to the music’s character spontaneously rather than ritualistically. Thank you, Gustavo! And, as Kevin Doherty’s piece [pg. 28] points out, there are conductors and orchestras willing to take a chance on putting contemporary music at the center of their programs, notably the Ellington-Glass program performed by Bruckner Orchester Linz refers to the 2017–18 season; while the audience wasn’t a sellout, we had hundreds of students there who were thrilled by music from this century and the last. It also is promising that the Pulitzer Prize jury is willing to see the quality of works beyond the boundaries of traditional “classical” music whether by jazz masters Ornette Coleman (and past frequent Mondavi Center visitor), Wynton Marsalis or, more recently, rapper Kendrick Lamar. In that decade and a half, technology has proven to be a two-edged sword for classical music. I complained in my talk about the Cassandras of the media, but I’d be happy today if newspapers had music writers to write such pieces. Once the major source of information about classical music events, almost all newspapers have diminished such coverage. On the other hand, there is a stream, albeit small, of credible online music journalism, and we are particularly fortunate in Northern California to have San

Perhaps most important to me and you, our Mondavi Center audience members, is that here in Davis, classical music IS popular music. Year after year, our Orchestra and Concert series have more subscribers than any other. And when we make sure the price is right, we attract hundreds of high school and university students to our classical music events. It is a joy for me to work in such an environment, where we can present great music, take risks and where you, our wonderful Mondavi Center audiences, always reward us. Don Roth, Ph.D., is executive director of the Mondavi Center.

LISTEN Gateway: Reflections on Classical Music https://spoti.fi/2QiiOtA

PROFILE

Francisco Classical Voice, one of the best such resources. (Note: I am a board chair of that organization.) And perhaps even more important is that through the major music streaming sites, someone who wants to take a journey through the whole history of classical music can do so cheaply and flexibly. In addition, technology is creating new tools, such as the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Live Note that can allow both the experienced and new classical music concert-goer a real-time resource during performances!

Dr. Petr Janata Why Does Music Move Us? It’s an undeniable fact that music is a lifelong player for people in cultures and countries around the world. Its power evokes the gamut of emotions, and just through sound waves has the ability to describe the indescribable to us. Which begs the question, “Why?” For Petr Janata, understanding our almost evolutionary engagement with music has become his life’s work. As a cognitive neuroscientist, he is especially interested in the basic psychological and neural mechanisms that underlie the strong experiences people have when listening to music. “Knowing that brains really like to extract and understand their environments, I recognized that music is a beautiful way of organizing sound and creating patterns and structure,” he says. “And it’s a really nice method to understand how brains understand information in general.” In addition to this research through the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain, Petr also teaches in the Department of Psychology. Each year he requires his Psychology of Music students to pretend they are a writer for a magazine, select a concert to attend and then write an essay on their experience that draws on the vocabulary and concepts they’ve covered in class.

have never been to a live concert before—never been to a concert hall—and are blown away by the experience,” he says. “I also try to get them to a performance in a genre they either don’t like or have never heard, usually jazz.” Some students affirm their dislike and write about how things are too dissonant; others claim it’s a huge, eye-opening experience for them and are totally blown away by Jackson Hall. Year after year, they write about the caliber of this concert venue. “Normally, I’m blown away each time I walk in there!” he says. “It’s the last thing you’d expect to see in Davis.” Then there’s Vanderhoef Studio. Petr has witnessed firsthand how the cabaret-style venue creates a special vibe for the audience that comes to the studio’s shows. “It’s an entirely different experience. The characteristics of the venue serve to set up expectations that end up interacting with the expectations of the performance itself.” Cue his next research topic. While the “why” question may likely linger for quite some time, one thing is certain: Mondavi Center patrons and students alike know good music when they hear it, and they aren’t afraid to write about it—and come back for more. —Alicia K. Gonzales

“The range of responses has been really broad. I have students who

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Callas “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” —T.S. Eliot

in Concert

The rewards of programming risks

hen we booked Callas in Concert for the Mondavi Center’s 2018–19 season, our decision was not without reservations. The production—of which we saw a rough and somewhat controversial draft in January 2018 [see the reprint of Anthony Tommasini’s article on pg. 25]—was still being finalized and finetuned for touring. Even in that early version, there were many magical moments; those moments encouraged us to take the risk of being among the first to present the show on its inaugural tour. Unsurprisingly, the impact of Callas in Concert has a lot to do with Maria Callas’ enduring talents as a singer and an actress. In parallel to the basic fact of Callas’ greatness, there is the surreal, novel, and for some, problematic experience of the “holographic” technology that brings her back to life. As well, there is the tricky integration of her spectral self with a live orchestra, and with a digitally remastered, decades-old recording of her voice. Which is to say that Callas in Concert is an homage to one of the great artists of the 20th century, delivered in a fascinatingly 21st-century way. Callas in Concert is also kind of creepy, but the complexity of its experience is what makes it so interesting to us. The questions it raises about authenticity are equally interesting, and what make it a bit of a risk. As a venue that curates and selects performances on behalf of its community and its university, we take seriously our role to not only entertain, but to challenge and to explore the boundaries of live performance. As T.S. Eliot famously said, “only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” How far we can and should go, when audiences are paying good money to go with us, is one of the many vexing questions we carefully consider when we construct a season of performances. At its best, the Mondavi Center and its audiences are not just about seeing shows. We strive to be a part of a global arts conversation that moves us, and the arts, forward. And whether you are in love with or appalled by the technological bravura that underpins Callas in Concert, we hope you will join the discussion and tell us what you think.

Don Roth, Ph.D. Executive Director

Jeremy Ganter Director of Programming 2018–19 SEASON / GATEWAY

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BY ANTHONY TOMMASINI Originally published Jan. 15, 2018.

What a Hologram of Maria Callas Can Teach Us About Opera

W When Maria Callas appeared onstage ... she looked a little pale, a little spectral. This was understandable, perhaps: She has been dead since 1977.

hen Maria Callas appeared onstage at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center on Sunday night, she looked a little pale, a little spectral.

This was understandable, perhaps: She has been dead since 1977. This Callas was a three-dimensional hologram, the latest in a series of musicalvisual resurrections that have included Tupac Shakur, Michael Jackson and Ronnie James Dio. She shared the program, in fact, with Roy Orbison, who died in 1988. Arguably the greatest singer of the 20th century, Callas—eerily, well, radiant in a white satiny gown and rich red stole—was recreated for the occasion, down to the minutest movements of her hands and the subtlest facial gestures. Her voice, in arias from Bizet’s Carmen and Verdi’s Macbeth, came from her own recordings, backed by a live orchestra at the Rose Theater. We in the audience saw only about 30 minutes of what will eventually be an evening-length concert. (The finished program, created by a division of the company Base Entertainment, begins an international tour this May in Tokyo.)

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PROFILE

She—it?—sang Carmen’s “Habanera” with smoky-dark sound, sultry phrasing and an alluringly understated seductiveness. At times she turned sideways, glancing over her shoulder to deliver a sexy line, grasping her stole in her arms.

Tony Stone Building Community Bridges As you may know, the Mondavi Center Advisory Board is tasked with supporting the Mondavi Center’s mission—along with UC Davis and its music, theater and dance departments—through fundraising, community outreach and education, and awarenessbuilding. With this in mind, here’s your introduction to the man currently at the helm of these efforts. Tony Stone is a retired urologist, professor emeritus of urology at UC Davis Medical Center and chair of the Mondavi Center Advisory Board. He and wife Joan have been attending Mondavi Center performances since the 2001 opening, and they even chipped in foundation money for the original building. “Over the years we got to know about all the things Mondavi does, and began donating,” he says. “It just became a logical next step to serve on the board.” And for the past 12 years, Tony has done just that. “We continually aim to build awareness in the community about Mondavi and all that the Center does—ancillary things as well as the performing arts.” For Tony, raising awareness has been a key ingredient of the board member experience. Well that, and meeting world-renowned artists. Like most couples, Tony and Joan look at the program at

the beginning of the year and book the performances that pique their interests. He likes jazz. She, not so much. But they both love the speakers, plus classical and world music. (Tony’s fingers know their way around a piano and clarinet.) So with the Choose-Your-Own subscription, it all works out. For Tony, one of the Mondavi Center’s best assets is not simply its performing arts program, but being an integral part of the university. “Mondavi carries out so many things associated with the performing arts: hosting school matinees, bringing underserved communities to the Center, providing internships, teaching workshops in high schools,” he says. These are just some of the community experiences that the Mondavi Center and UC Davis deliver to the region. “If you look at the breadth of the programming, there is nowhere else in the area that is so comprehensive and sophisticated. One of the things we’re trying to do through our subcommittees is get people in the Sacramento region interested in the Mondavi Center as well.” Going forward, Tony is keen on bridging this causeway “divide” and getting people to embrace the Mondavi Center as a regional resource. “It’s just that wonderful of a place,” he says. —Alicia K. Gonzales

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It was amazing, yet also absurd; strangely captivating, yet also campy and ridiculous. And in a way, it made the most sense of any of the musical holograms produced so far. More than rock or hip-hop fans— and even more, you could say, than fans of instrumental classical music—opera lovers dwell in the past. We are known for our obsessive devotion to dead divas and old recordings; it can sometimes seem like an element of necrophilia, even, drives the most fanatical buffs. Callas aficionados in particular, have long been insatiable in their hunger for every scrap of La Divina’s artistry and persona. Every studio recording she made has been issued, reissued, remastered and re-remastered, several times over. Callas would have been dismayed to know that even her most flawed live performances have been legitimized and released. Alas, her career mostly predated the era when film and TV routinely came to international opera houses. We have some wonderful films of Callas in concert. And there is an amazing video of her in Act II of Puccini’s Tosca in 1964. But no full operas by one of the greatest singing actresses in history; this hologram performance can seem to fill in a bit of that gap. The operatic voice, and the art form itself, can feel so fragile. What better way to represent that fragility—while also reviving it, in a kind of séance—than a hologram? The respected stage director Stephen Wadsworth, with a distinguished record in opera and theater (including a production of Terrence McNally’s Master Class, about Callas), is the creative director for

this Callas in Concert. In introductory comments, Mr. Wadsworth said that the project has tried to present Callas with “restraint, subtlety and delicacy.” The notion of a singing hologram might seem incompatible with such a goal. Yet moments during Sunday’s preview were surprisingly affecting.

segue seamlessly into the next aria, from Macbeth. Though a melodramatic touch, it worked. If you’re going to use hologram technology, then it makes sense to go all out and create something new, rather than just copy a standard concert.

There were several stretches It was amazing, yet also absurd; strangely during Lady Macbeth’s After the “Habanera” sleepwalking scene that got from Carmen, this captivating, yet also campy and ridiculous. to me, mostly because the Callas sang the Act And in a way, it made the most sense of any real Callas’ singing on the III scene in which of the musical holograms produced so far. recording was so honest and Carmen reads her revealing. At her best, Callas fortune in some cards redefined what it meant to sing beautifully. Her deeply and sees death foretold for herself and her lover. In the emotional, sometimes delicate, sometimes frayed recording that was used, Callas’ singing was chillingly singing of the Verdi aria was the essence of truth, subtle and sad. In the hall, however, the sound was a something that cut through all the holographic stage little spotty, at times tinny (the producers say they are tricks. still tweaking the technology). At the end of the excerpt, the holographic Callas tossed Carmen’s cards into the air above her, where they hovered in space for a moment before slowly drifting down, an effect that allowed the conductor time to

But what is the point of this spectacle? Who is the intended audience? Callas, a symbol of chic, remains an object of fascination extending even beyond opera fans. Perhaps the hologram will introduce some newcomers to her incredible artistry; I’d urge everyone to listen to Callas’ extensive discography. Like so many now, I loved her without ever seeing her live; this holographic specter was weirdly tantalizing, even if it hardly made up for that. The problem, as it always has been in opera fandom, will be if this specter from the past prevents a full appreciation of the vitality of opera and singing today. Lovers of opera, more than probably any other art form, have always been too quick to complain that the “golden age” has long since left us, and have preferred to sit at home with their records rather than seek out young performers and live, necessarily imperfect performances. Rather than recommend that fledgling operagoers hear Callas’ hologram, I’d tell them to get to the Metropolitan Opera, where Sonya Yoncheva and Anna Netrebko singing Tosca this season will tell them much more about what makes opera so endlessly exciting.

LISTEN Gateway: Maria Callas https://spoti.fi/2CGfhme

From The New York Times, January 15, 2018 © 2018 The New York Times. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited.

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Photo Illustration by Erin Kelley.

Classical music is in dire need of a reboot. BY KEVIN DOHERTY

Give Beethoven a Break C

lassical music is in dire need of a reboot. It’s time to breathe new life into an increasingly stale canon.

There, I said it. Now hold on, before you cry “blasphemy,” hear me out. Just as Atlas was condemned to bear the weight of the entire world on his shoulders, so too is Beethoven burdened with the brunt of expectation to keep classical music “alive” for generations to come. What Beethoven did for music is undeniable, but many classical music aficionados have a hard time seeing past his accomplishments and the era he helped to usher in. Music has changed dramatically since the end of the Romantic period, and yet an entire century has gone by, and we are still reluctant to add new names to our list of masters. We wouldn’t dare ask a theatre to produce only the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. We don’t stock the shelves of bookstores solely with the works of Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, et al. No matter how often we may turn to the classics for comfort, how many of you can honestly say that

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you’ve only read books written by authors born before 1900? However, in the classical music industry, with a few exceptions, we cling to the classics. Every year Bizet’s Carmen and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony see more than their fair share of performances. This means that every year, it is the charge of Beethoven, Bizet and their contemporaries to bring audiences to the concert hall. Don’t get me wrong, it is part of the charm of our art form that we still get to see and hear these timehonored compositions. They’re not just hanging on a wall in a museum somewhere collecting dust; they are actively recreated with each ensuing performance. Yet, as time marches on, the separation between creator and audience only grows. Orchestras rarely, if ever, play from Beethoven’s original manuscripts and often a score can undergo several editions before it reaches the musicians. No matter how close an editor can get to the intent of the composer, there is no way of truly knowing what was in the composer’s heart when he wrote the piece. Of course, a conversation with Beethoven is out of the question.

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Composer Philip Glass has had an extraordinary and unprecedented impact upon the musical and intellectual life of his times. Photo by Fernando Aceves.

Dennis Russell Davies is chief conductor of Bruckner Orchester Linz and the Basel Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Reinhard Winkler.

We wouldn’t dare ask a theatre to produce only the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

American conductor DENNIS RUSSELL DAVIES has long been an advocate of working with living composers. Davies acknowledges that while conversations with the great composers of the past are only the fodder of dreams, his experience with 20th- and 21stcentury composers has led to greater understanding of those who came before.

As time marches on, the separation between creator and audience only grows. “This relationship I’ve had with living composers,” Davies explains, “has enhanced my relationship with Beethoven, Brahms, [etc.] because of the fact that I’ve been able to work with these composers and ask them questions. It’s the same questions I’d ask the old guys.” Davies conducted the West Coast premiere of Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 11, performed by the Bruckner Orchester Linz, at the Mondavi Center in

February 2017, after which I had the opportunity to interview him. He told me that classical and modern compositions could and should work together. “You have to work really hard to develop a sound and a repertory that’s fundamentally based in the classics,” he said. “And then you bring the modern repertory into it … and it becomes a very dynamic and vivid music experience for the listener.” Pianist LARA DOWNES is a regular performer at the Mondavi Center as well as the founding artistic director for the annual Mondavi Center Young Artist Competition. This year’s competition focused on the music of Leonard Bernstein as well as other 20thand 21st-century American composers. Downes, too, is known for pairing new works alongside the classics on recordings and in performance. In a recent interview, she told me that it’s easy to forget that classical music is a living art. Downes says that there are those who feel classical music is a thing that “belongs to the past, a thing that was written by, you know, old men, many years ago who looked nothing like us and lived in such different times.”

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Downes brings up an excellent point. The world is so very different than it was 200 years ago. Yesterday’s musical giants like Beethoven were incredibly active and relevant in their time. They wrote music to survive. They received commissions from patrons, sponsors, producers and conductors to write for specific orchestras or opera companies to perform. When it came to subject matter, Beethoven was often inspired by his personal struggles, political leanings and the literature of the time. Throughout his life, Beethoven was a revolutionary composer. He inspired change. In fact, he almost single-handedly ushered in a new era of music, having learned from “Classical” greats like Mozart and Haydn while inspiring an entirely new generation of “Romantic” scribes.

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Classical music reached new heights in the 1800s thanks to Beethoven. So much so, that for many in the industry, the Romantic era that Beethoven started continues to be the peak of the art form. With nowhere left to turn, composers of the 20th century became increasingly experimental. Alex Ross explores the frenetic evolution of sound in the 1900s in his 2007 book, The Rest is Noise. In it he refers to Schoenberg’s revolution against tonality; Stravinsky’s earthshattering, rhythmically unstable, and apparently raucous-inducing ballet, The Rite of Spring; John Cage’s rebuking of the “European ‘vogue of profundity,’” singling out Beethoven’s need for organization and “goaloriented harmonies." Cage thought music should unfold naturally. While these ideas may seem extreme, for better or worse, they inspired a whole new way of looking at music. The world had never seen nor heard anything like it.

The world is so different. Yesterday’s musical giants like Beethoven were incredibly active and relevant in their time.

Pianist Lara Downes. Photo courtesy of Lara Downes.

Composers in the 20th century were more readily infusing the music of other cultures into their work. Puccini had a love of music from the East as evidenced by his opera Turandot. American composer Alan Hovhaness, too, had taken a keen interest in Eastern modalities. Philip Glass acknowledges in his autobiography Music that he only fully realized his true compositional voice after working with the iconic Indian composer, Ravi Shankar. The classical avant-garde were inspiring jazz musicians and at the same time, “le jazz” was imbuing itself into the soul of many classical compositions. Musicians and artists are continually reacting to their surroundings in an everexpanding world.

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A significant issue facing classical music today is a consistent shunning of music written by minorities. Women have an especially tough time cracking the credited composer ranks. According to information gathered by Dramma Musica, of the more than 1,400 concerts to be presented worldwide in 2018–19 by 15 of the globe’s leading orchestras, only 76 concerts will feature music written by women. Even more staggering, of the 3,524 works programmed for those concerts, only 82 are written by women—that’s 2 percent. Orchestras are taking some initiative toward greater diversity, albeit mostly conservative steps. Of the 45 composers featured by the Cleveland Orchestra on their upcoming season, only one is a

doors to hear something as monumental and as fresh as that performance. When I asked Davies if he felt slighted that the crowd was smaller for the premiere of Glass’ new symphony, he rejected the sentiment, stating, “I love that audience; they made enough noise for three audiences. They were so enthusiastic and loved it so much that that’s gratifying to me. I want people there who want to be there to hear that which we are doing.” My hope is that more and more will show unabated enthusiasm to hear the diverse, dynamic and relevant music of living composers. And who knows, maybe one day, historians will consider Philip Glass’ 11th symphony to be the modern-day Beethoven’s Fifth. If that does happen, I can say, “I was there when …!” Even so, not everything has to or will be a “masterpiece.” Still, don’t miss your chance to be a part of history or to simply enjoy great music that resonates with you in your time. And in the process, perhaps Beethoven can rest easy knowing classical music is in good hands.

The L.A. Philharmonic’s upcoming season will include music written by 22 women. woman: Pulitzer Prize–winner, Jennifer Higdon. I was delighted to see, however, that 20th- and 21stcentury composers make up more than half of the programming for their 101st season, eight of whom are living. That’s a step. Some orchestras are making less subtle strides toward a brighter future for classical music. One of this country’s leaders in diverse programming is the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Brian Lauritzen of classical radio station KUSC in Los Angeles writes, “We’ve gotten used to artistic innovation from the LA Phil, so it’s difficult to surprise us in that realm.” However, he goes on to say he was amazed when they announced their 2018–19 season. The season, which marks the orchestra’s 100th, will include more than 50 commissions from contemporary legends, such as Glass, John Adams, Steve Reich and many others. In addition, Lauritzen tweeted earlier this year that the LA Phil’s upcoming season will include music written by 22 women.

Kevin Doherty is morning classical host at Capital Public Radio.

LISTEN Gateway: Give Beethoven a Break https://spoti.fi/2CRt75x

I was in the room on that chilly February evening when Dennis Russell Davies conducted Philip Glass’ 11th symphony. “Dynamic and vivid,” to use Davies’ words, is precisely how I would describe that experience. I was thrilled to be a part of the audience that night. However, by my “eyeball” estimation, the seats in Jackson Hall were roughly half full. A night that featured two works by Glass and another by jazz/ classical icon Duke Ellington seemingly had very little allure. I would love to see people knocking down the

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School Matinees BY JEFF HUDSON

Zamora Elementary School, Woodland grade one student.

It’s easy to recognize the days when the Mondavi Center presents a School Matinee.

chool buses from as far afield as Stockton, Auburn and Suisun City start arriving in mid-morning for the 11 a.m. performance. In many cases, the students have attended a pre-performance event at their school—a presentation by a Friends of Mondavi docent, or a local artist who shares tips regarding what to watch for.

Photo by Jeremy Sykes.

The students are often impressed by the grand dimensions of Jackson Hall. “When I went in, my eyes were huge,” wrote a fifth-grader from Vacaville—who also realized she was seeing a live performance, rather than something recorded. “I figured the music was just coming from speakers … Soon, I found out that the actors were actually singing and playing instruments.” “Many of my students had never been to Mondavi … their faces were rapt and enchanted,” wrote a teacher from Esparto who brought her first-grade class to a performance by Circa this past January.

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“Thank you for playing loud music for us. It made us feel a little bumpy inside. We liked when the drummers played loud. We liked the part when we clapped. That part made us laugh. We loved the show so very much!” —Mrs. Robles' First Grade Class Esparto Elementary

And the students at a School Matinee are a very excited and attentive audience, who come away with long-lasting impressions. “Yesterday we saw the drummers from Japan [Yamato]. They were cool and great. It was beautiful … I kind of cried a little bit in the end,” wrote a first-grader from a Woodland school. “I still have a memory in my head, I liked the hippo that was pink, and those sharks that came out and patted our heads,” wrote a third-grader from a Sacramento school who attended a Carnival of the Animals circus show performed by Australia’s Circa. School Matinee performances feature the same artists, doing mostly the same material that an evening audience of Mondavi subscribers will see. But a School Matinee is more concise (about an hour), so that students can return to their school by 3 p.m. Many school groups stick around for some campus sightseeing. “Walking around the campus made me want to go there for college,” wrote a fifth-grader from Vacaville. And another fifth-grade classmate wrote, “I liked the library the most … it was much bigger than our library.” A third classmate wrote, “When I saw the computer lab at UC Davis, I almost exploded with excitement. And when I walked into the Mondavi Center, everything looked very up class, which made me feel special and welcomed.”

Each year, the Mondavi Center hosts around 10,000 students in the School Matinee program. Above and right: Esparto Elementary students show appreciation for the 2017–18 Yamato and Circa performances.

Mondavi Center Director of Arts Education Ruth Rosenberg organizes the School Matinee program, which features between six to nine performances annually. “What I love about School Matinees is that the students come as a class, or as a school, and they have this experience of seeing a live performance, which nothing can replace,” Rosenberg said. “Not only are they participating, but they are doing it with their classmates. And when they go back to the classroom, they talk about it, and decide what was their favorite part.” Rosenberg added that the Mondavi Center’s volunteer ushers—many are retired teachers—enjoy the special energy of School Matinees, too. “[Our ushers] run into former students who are now teachers, bringing their classes to the Mondavi Center,” Rosenberg said. Jeff Hudson contributes coverage of the performing arts to Capitol Public Radio, The Davis Enterprise and Sacramento News & Review.

SPOTLIGHT ON

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT 34

Beginning with the 2016–17 season, the Mondavi Center introduced sensory-friendly experiences for children and adults on the autism spectrum. Pictured right: TEAM Dixon participates in a sensory-friendly version of Paul Dresher’s Sound Maze.

GATEWAY / 2018–19 SEASON

“What I love about School Matinees is that the students come as a class, or as a school, and they have this experience of seeing a live performance, which nothing can replace.”

Photo by Jim Coulter.

—Ruth Rosenberg, Director of Arts Education, Mondavi Center

2018–19 SEASON / GATEWAY

The Art of Giving

Thank you to our 2018–19 sponsors SERIES SPONSORS

The Mondavi Center is deeply grateful for the generous contributions of our dedicated patrons, whose gifts are a testament to the value of the performing arts in our lives. Annual donations to the Mondavi Center directly support our operating budget and are an essential source of revenue. Please join us in thanking our loyal donors, whose philanthropic support ensures our ability to bring great artists and speakers to our region and to provide nationally recognized arts education programs for students and teachers. For more information on supporting the Mondavi Center, visit MondaviArts.org or call 530.754.5438.

This list reflects donors as of Aug. 28, 2018.

COLORATURA CIRCLE

$50,000 AND ABOVE James H. Bigelow† Patti Donlon Barbara K. Jackson*†° M.A. Morris*

IMPRESARIO CIRCLE $25,000–$49,999

John† and Lois Crowe* Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation Wanda Lee Graves and Steve Duscha Bill and Nancy Roe* The Lawrence Shepard Family Fund

VIRTUOSO CIRCLE

$16,500–$24,999 Mary B. Horton* Tony† and Joan Stone Clifford A. Popejoy† and Antonia K. J. Vorster PERFORMANCE SPONSORS

MAESTRO CIRCLE

$11,000–$16,499

GRANTORS AND ARTS EDUCATION SPONSORS

Wayne and Jacque Bartholomew* Ralph and Clairelee Leiser Bulkley* Chan Family Fund Thomas and Phyllis Farver*† Nancy McRae Fisher Benjamin and Lynette Hart* Clarence and Barbara Kado

Dean and Karen Karnopp*† Nancy Lawrence† and Gordon Klein Grace† and John Rosenquist Raymond Seamans and Ruth Elkins Rosalie Vanderhoef*† Shipley and Dick Walters*

BENEFACTOR CIRCLE $7,500–$10,999

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT Asante Boeger Winery El Macero County Club The Porch Restaurant

GATEWAY / 2018–19 SEASON

Dr. Jim P. Back Susie† and Jim Burton Michael and Kevin Conn Richard and Joy Dorf Catherine and Charles Farman Janlynn Fleener† Andrew and Judith Gabor

Hansen Kwok Garry Maisel† Diane M. Makley* Alice Oi Darell J. Schregardus, Ph.D. Scott Syphax Yin and Elizabeth Yeh

* Friends of Mondavi Center †Mondavi Center Advisory Board Member

° In Memoriam

PRODUCER CIRCLE $3,750–$7,499

Carla F. Andrews Lydia Baskin* Daniel Benson Cordelia S. Birrell Jo Anne Boorkman* Karen Broido* California Statewide Certified Development Corp. Mike and Betty Chapman Sandy† and Chris Chong* Michele Clark and Paul Simmons Tony and Ellie Cobarrubia* Bruce and Marilyn Dewey* Wayne and Shari Eckert* Allen and Sandy Enders Merrilee and Simon Engel In Memory of Flint and Ella Samia and Scott Foster Jolan Friedhoff and Don Roth† In Memory of Henry (Hank) Gietzen° In Memory of John C. Gist, Jr.° Frederic and Pamela Gorin Ed and Bonnie Green* Charles and Ann Halsted John and Regi Hamel Judy Hardardt* Dee Hartzog Karen Heald and K.C. McElheney Donine Hedrick and David Studer Charles and Eva Hess In Memory of Christopher Horsley* In Memory of Nicolai N. Kalugin Teresa Kaneko* Barry and Gail Klein Jane and Bill Koenig Brian and Dorothy Landsberg Edward and Sally Larkin Drs. Richard Latchaw and Sheri Albers Linda Lawrence Allan and Claudia Leavitt Robert and Barbara Leidigh Nelson Lewallyn and Marion Pace-Lewallyn David and Ruth Lindgren Yvonne L. Marsh Eldridge and Judith Moores Barbara Moriel Misako and John Pearson Linda and Lawrence Raber* Joanna Regulska and Michael Curry Warren Roberts and Jeanne Hanna Vogel* Roger and Ann Romani Carol J. Sconyers* Kathryn R. Smith Tom and Meg Stallard* Tom and Judy Stevenson* Brian K. Tarkington and Katrina Boratynski George and Rosemary Tchobanoglous Ed Telfeyan and Jeri Paik-Telfeyan In Memory of Trudy and Vera Betty° and Joe Tupin Ken Verosub and Irina Delusina Wilbur Vincent and Georgia Paulo Claudette Von Rusten John Walker Patrice White Judy Wydick And 6 donors who prefer to remain anonymous

DIRECTOR CIRCLE $1,750–$3,749

The Aboytes Family Ezra and Beulah Amsterdam Russell and Elizabeth Austin Drs. Noa and David Bell Robert and Susan Benedetti Don and Kathy Bers* Edwin Bradley Richard Breedon, Pat Chirapravati and Rosa Marquez Cantor & Company, A Law Corporation Margaret Chang and Andrew Holz Wendy R. Chason*

Susan Chen Allison P. Coudert Jim and Kathy Coulter* Terry Davison Joyce Donaldson* Matt Donaldson and Steve Kyriakis Karl Gerdes and Pamela Rohrich David and Erla Goller Patty and John Goss Dr. Virginia Hass Tim and Karen Hefler Sharna and Mike Hoffman Ronald and Lesley Hsu Martin and JoAnn Joye* Barbara Katz Nancy and John Keltner Robert and Cathryn Kerr Joseph Kiskis and Diana Vodrey Charlene R. Kunitz Thomas Lange and Spencer Lockson Mary Jane Large and Marc Levinson Francie and Artie Lawyer* Hyunok Lee and Daniel Sumner Lin and Peter Lindert Richard and Kyoko Luna Family Fund Natalie and Malcolm MacKenzie* Debbie Mah* and Brent Felker Dennis H. Mangers and Michael Sestak Susan Mann Rick and Ann Mansker In Memory of Allen G. Marr Betty Masuoka and Robert Ono Gary S. May† In Memory of William F. McCoy Mary McKinnon and Greg Krekelberg Katharine and Dan Morgan Augustus B. Morr Rebecca Newland John Pascoe and Susan Stover J. Persin, R. Mott and D. Verbck Prewoznik Foundation Linda and Lawrence Raber John and Judith Reitan Kay Resler* Marshall and Maureen Rice Liisa A. Russell Dwight E. and Donna L. Sanders Christian Sandrock Ed and Karen Schelegle Neil and Carrie Schore Arun K. Sen Janet Shibamoto-Smith and David Smith Bonnie and Jeff Smith Edward Speegle Les and Mary Stephens Dewall Maril R. and Patrick M. Stratton Dennis Verback and Rovida Mott Geoffrey and Gretel Wandesford-Smith Dan and Ellie Wendin Dale L. and Jane C. Wierman Susan and Thomas Willoughby Paul Wyman Karen Zito and Manuel Calderon de la Barca Sanchez And 2 donors who prefer to remain anonymous

ENCORE CIRCLE $700–$1,749

Shirley and Mike Auman* Laura and Murry Baria In Memory of Marie Benisek Muriel Brandt Davis and Jan Campbell Gayle Dax-Conroy In Memory of Jan Conroy Dotty Dixon* Anne Duffey John and Cathie Duniway Robert and Melanie Ferrando Doris Flint Dr. Jennifer D. Franz Paul N. and E.F. (Pat) Goldstene Florence Grosskettler* Mae and David Gundlach Robin Hansen and Gordon Ulrey Leonard and Marilyn Herrmann

B.J. Hoyt James and Nancy Joye Louise Kellogg and Douglas Neuhauser Paul Kramer Paula Kubo Ruth M. Lawrence Michael and Sheila Lewis* Robert and Betty Liu Shirley Maus Janet Mayhew Robert Medearis Roland and Marilyn Meyer Nancy Michel Robert and Susan Munn Don and Sue Murchison Robert and Kinzie Murphy John and Carol Oster Bonnie A. Plummer Celia Rabinowitz C. Rocke Ms. Tracy Rodgers and Dr. Richard Budenz Tom and Joan Sallee William and Jeannie Spangler* Elizabeth St. Goar Sherman and Hannah Stein Karen and Ed Street* Eric and Pat Stromberg* Dr. Lyn Taylor and Dr. Mont Hubbard Cap and Helen Thomson Roseanna Torretto* Henry and Lynda Trowbridge* Rita and Jack Weiss Steven and Andrea Weiss Kandi Williams and Frank Jahnke Gayle K. Yamada and David H. Hosley Wesley Yates Karl and Lynn Zender And 3 donors who prefer to remain anonymous

ORCHESTRA CIRCLE $350–$699

Susan Ahlquist Drs. Ralph and Teresa Aldredge Andrew and Ruth Baron Paul and Linda Baumann Carol L. Benedetti Jane D. Bennett Robert Biggs and Diane Carlson Biggs Patricia Bissell and Al J. Patrick Clyde and Ruth Bowman Brooke and Clay Brandow Meredith Burns Marguerite Callahan Gary and Anne Carlson* Bruce and Mary Alice Carswell* Simon and Cindy Cherry Dr. Jacqueline Clavo-Hall Mr. and Mrs. David Covin Larry Dashiell and Peggy Siddons Daniel and Moira Dykstra Nancy and Don Erman Kerstin and David Feldman Lisa Foster and Tom Graham Edwin and Sevgi Friedrich* Marvin and Joyce Goldman Dan Gusfield Darrow and Gwen Haagensen Sharon and Don Hallberg Marylee Hardie Dione and Roy Henrickson Zheyla and Rickert Henriksen Paula Higashi and Fred Taugher Roberta Hill Michael and Peggy Hoffman Rita and Ken Hoots Jan and Herb Hoover Robert and Marcia Jacobs Valerie Jones Weldon and Colleen Jordan Susan Kauzlarich and Peter Klavins Charles Kelso and Mary Reed Peter Kenner Ellen J. Lange Sevim Larsen Darnell Lawrence

Carol Ledbetter Donna and Stan Levin Ernest and Mary Ann Lewis Robert and Patricia Lufburrow Sue MacDonald Bunkie Mangum Joan and Roger Mann Maria Manea Manoliu David and Martha Marsh Katherine F. Mawdsley* Susan and David Miller William and Nancy Myers Margaret Neu* Sally Ozonoff and Tom Richey J. and K. Redenbaugh Eugene and Elizabeth Renkin David and Judy Reuben Ron and Morgan Rogers Sharon and Elliott Rose* Bob and Tamra Ruxin Mark and Ita Sanders Tony and Beth Tanke Virginia Thresh Robert and Helen Twiss Ardath Wood Iris Yang and G. Richard Brown Chelle Yetman Jane Yeun and Randall Lee Ronald M. Yoshiyama Heather M. Young and Pete B. Quinby Verena Leu Young* Melanie and Medardo Zavala Drs. Matthew and Meghan Zavod And 5 donors who prefer to remain anonymous

MAINSTAGE CIRCLE $125–$349

M. Aften Michelle Agnew Liz Allen* Jacqueline and James B. Ames Penny Anderson Nancy Andrew-Kyle* Elinor Anklin and Geo Harsch Alex and Janice Ardans Dee Jae Arnett Antonio and Alicia Balatbat* Charlotte Ballard and Robert Zeff Charlie and Diane Bamforth Michele Barefoot and Luis Perez-Grau Dawn Barlly Carole Barnes Jonathan and Mary Bayless Lynn Baysinger* Lorna Belden and Milton Blackman Merry Benard Robert Bense and Sonya Lyons Kellyanne D. Best Dr. Louise Bettner Bevowitz Family Dr. Robert and Sheila Beyer Elizabeth A. Bianco Roy and Joan Bibbens* John and Katy Bill Sharon Billings* and Terry Sandbek Caroline and Lewis Bledsoe Fredrick Bliss and Mary Campbell Bliss Brooke Bourland* Jill and Mary Bowers Melody Boyer and Mark Gidding Dan and Mildred Braunstein* Valerie Brown and Edward Shields Rose Burgis Dr. Margaret Burns and Dr. W. Roy Bellhorn William and Karolee Bush Kent and Susan Calfee Edward Callahan The Richard Campbells Nancy and Dennis Campos James and Patty Carey Ping Chan* Bonnie and LeRoy Chatfield Gail Clark Linda Clevenger and Seth Brunner James and Linda Cline Stuart and Denise Cohen Sheri and Ron Cole

Steve and Janet Collins Terry D. Cook Larry and Sandy Corman Nicholas and Khin Cornes Fred and Ann Costello James Cothern Cathy Coupal* Victor Cozzalio and Lisa Heilman-Cozzalio Crandallicious Clan Herb and Lois Cross Tatiana Cullen Kim Uyen Dao Joy and Doug Daugherty Nita A. Davidson Relly Davidson Judy and Mike Davis Fred Deneke and James Eastman Joan and Alex DePaoli Carol Dependahl-Ripperda Sabine Dickerson and Marietta Bernoco Linda and Joel Dobris Gwendolyn Doebbert and Richard Epstein Marjorie Dolcini* Gordon and Katherine Douglas Jerry and Chris Drane Leslie A. Dunsworth Noel Dybdal Karen Eagan Laura Eisen and Paul Glenn Sidney England and Randy Beaton Carol Erickson and David Phillips Wallace Etterbeek Andrew D. and Eleanor E. Farrand* Michael and Ophelia Farrell Janet Feil Cheryl and David Felsch Joshua Fenton and Lisa Baumeister John and Henni Fetzer Curt and Sue Ann Finley Dave and Donna Fletcher Glenn Fortini Daphna Fram Marion Franck and Robert Lew Anthony and Jorgina Freese Marlene J. Freid* Larry Friedman and Susan Orton Myra Gable Sean Galloway Anne Garbeff Nancy Gelbard and David Kalb P.E. Gerick Patrice and Chris Gibson* Barbara Gladfelter Ellie Glassburner Marnelle Gleason* and Louis J. Fox Mark Goldman and Jessica Tucker-Mohl Pat and Bob Gonzalez* Drs. Michael Goodman and Bonny Neyhart Karen Governor Sandra and Jeffrey Granett Jim Gray and Robin Affrime Stephen and Deirdre Greenholz Paul and Carol Grench Don and Eileen Gueffroy

Abbas Gultekin and Vicky Tibbs Wesley and Ida Hackett* Myrtis Hadden Ann and Charles Haffer Bob and Jen Hagedorn Jane and Jim Hagedorn Kitty Hammer William and Sherry Hamre M. and P. Handley Jim and Laurie Hanschu Bob and Sue Hansen Marie Harlan* Sally Harvey* Anne and Dave Hawke Mary A. Helmich Penny Herbert and Jeff Uppington Rand and Mary Herbert Dr. Calvin Hirsch Jack Holmes and Cathy Neuhauser Elizabeth Honeysett Pam Hullinger David Kenneth Huskey Lorraine J. Hwang L. K. Iwasa Stephen Jacobs and Diane Moore Dr. and Mrs. Ron Jensen Mun Johl Gary and Karen Johns* Don and Diane Johnston Michelle Johnston and Scott Arrants D.M. Jonsson Family Andrew and Merry Joslin Shari and Timothy Karpin Patricia Kelleher* Michael S. Kent Sharmon and Peter Kenyon Leonard Keyes Roger and Katharine Kingston Ruth Ann Kinsella* Camille Kirk Bob and Bobbie Kittredge Don and Beb Klingborg John and Mary Klisiewicz* Michael Koltnow Kerik and Carol Kouklis Sandra and Alan Kreeger Marcia and Kurt Kreith Sandra Kristensen C.R. and Elizabeth Kuehner Kupcho-Hawksworth Trust Leslie Kurtz Laura and Bill Lacy Kit and Bonnie Lam* Allan and Norma Lammers Marsha Lang Larkin Lapides Diane and Renzo Lardelli Nancy Lazarus and David Siegel Peggy Leander* Evelyn A. Lewis Jeff Lloyd Motoko Lobue Dr. Joyce A. Loeffler Mary Lowry

Melissa Lyans and Andreas Albrecht Ariane Lyons Jeffrey and Helen Ma David and Alita Mackill Karen Majewski Vartan Malian and Nova Ghermann Julin Maloof and Stacey Harmer T. Mann Pam Marrone and Mick Rogers J. A. Martin Leslie Maulhardt* Carole Mayer Keith and Jeanie McAfee Karen McCluskey* and Harry Roth* James and Jane McDevitt Nora McGuinness John and Andrea McKenna Tim and Linda McKenna Martin A. Medina and Laurie Perry Cynthia Meyers Beryl Michaels and John Bach Leslie Michaels and Susan Katt Jean and Eric Miller Lisa Miller Sue and Rex Miller Kei and Barbara Miyano Vicki and Paul Moering Hallie Morrow Marcie Mortensson Rita Mt. Joy* Robert and Janet Mukai Bill and Anna Rita Neuman Robert Nevraumont and Donna Curley Nevraumont Jay and Catherine Norvell Bob Odland and Charlotte Kelly Jeri and Clifford Ohmart Jim and Sharon Oltjen In Memory of Robert Orlins Mary Jo Ormiston* John and Nancy Owen Jessie Ann Owens Mike and Carlene Ozonoff Michael Pach and Mary Wind Thomas Pavlakovich and Kathryn Demakopoulos Dianne J. Pellissier Erin Peltzman Ann Peterson and Marc Hoeschele Jill and Warren Pickett Jane Plocher Mrs. Merrilee A. Posner Harriet Prato Otto and Lynn Raabe Olga Raveling Sandi Redenbach* and Ken Gelatt Fred and Martha Rehrman* Francis Resta Russ and Barbara Ristine Jeannette and David Robertson Mary and Ron Rogers Carol and John Rominger Richard and Evelyne Rominger Shery and John Roth

* Friends of Mondavi Center

We applaud our Artistic Ventures Fund members, whose major gift commitments support artist engagement fees, innovative artist commissions, artist residencies and programs made available free to the public.

Nancy McRae Fisher Wanda Lee Graves and Steve Duscha Anne Gray Barbara K. Jackson Rosalie Vanderhoef

Young Artists Competition and Program

Thank you to the following donors for their special program support.

Jeff and Karen Bertleson Karen Broido John and Lois Crowe Merrilee and Simon Engel

†Mondavi Center Advisory Board Member

° In Memoriam

Legacy Circle

Artistic Ventures Fund

James H. Bigelow Ralph and Clairelee Leiser Bulkley John and Lois Crowe Patti Donlon Richard and Joy Dorf

Cathy and David Rowen* Cynthia Jo Ruff* Paul and Ida Ruffin Dagnes/Vernon Ruiz Jacquelyn Sanders Elia and Glenn Sanjume Fred and Pauline Schack John and Joyce Schaeuble Patsy Schiff Leon Schimmel and Annette Cody Dan Shadoan and Ann Lincoln Jay and Jill Shepherd Jeanie Sherwood Jennifer L. Sierras Jo Anne S. Silber Robert Snider and Jak Jaras Jean Snyder Ronald and Rosie Soohoo Roger and Freda Sornsen Curtis and Judy Spencer Dolores and Joseph Spencer Marguerite Spencer Alan and Charlene Steen Tim and Julie Stephens Judith and Richard Stern Deb and Jeff Stromberg A Supporter George and June Suzuki Stewart and Ann Teal Julie A. Theriault, PA-C Virginia Thigpen Bud and Sally Tollette Victoria and Robert Tousignant Ute Turner* Peter Van Hoecke Ann-Catrin Van Marian and Paul Ver Wey Elizabeth Villery Richard Vorpe and Evelyn Matteucci Craig Vreeken and Lee Miller Maxine Wakefield and William Reichert Carol L. Walden Andrew and Vivian Walker Naomi J. Walker Andy and Judy Warburg Doug West Martha West Robert and Leslie Westergaard* Nancy and Richard White* Mrs. Jane Williams Janet G. Winterer Suey Wong* Jean Wu Timothy and Vicki Yearnshaw Jeffrey and Elaine Yee* Dorothy Yerxa and Michael Reinhart Phillip and Iva Yoshimura Phyllis and Darrel Zerger* Marlis and Jack Ziegler Timothy and Sonya Zindel Dr. Mark and Wendy Zlotlow And 28 donors who prefer to remain anonymous

Mary B. Horton Barbara K. Jackson Debbie Mah and Brent Felker Linda and Lawrence Raber

GATEWAY / 2018–19 SEASON

Thank you to our supporters who have remembered the Mondavi Center in their estate plans. These gifts make a difference for the future of performing arts and we are most grateful.

Wayne and Jacque Bartholomew Karen Broido Ralph and Clairelee Leiser Bulkley John† and Lois Crowe Dotty Dixon Nancy Dubois Anne Gray Benjamin and Lynette Hart

L. J. Herrig Estate Mary B. Horton Margaret Hoyt Barbara K. Jackson Roy and Edith Kanoff Robert and Barbara Leidigh Yvonne LeMaitre Jerry and Marguerite Lewis Robert and Betty Liu Don McNary

Ruth R. Mehlhaff Joy Mench and Clive Watson Trust Verne Mendel Kay Resler Hal and Carol Sconyers Joe and Betty Tupin Lynn Upchurch 1 Anonymous

If you have already named the Mondavi Center in your own estate plans, we thank you. We would love to hear of your giving plans so that we may express our appreciation. If you are interested in learning about planned giving opportunities, please contact Nancy Petrisko, director of development, 530.754.5420 or npetrisko@ucdavis.edu. Note: We apologize if we listed your name incorrectly. Please contact the Mondavi Center Development Office at 530.754.5438 to inform us of corrections.

The Mondavi Center Advisory Board

is a support group of University Relations whose primary purpose is to provide assistance through fundraising, public outreach and other support for the mission of UC Davis and the Mondavi Center.

2018–19 ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS Tony Stone, Chair  Janlynn Fleener, Vice-chair Jim Bigelow Susie Burton Camille Chan John Crowe Phyllis Farver Anne Gray

Karen Karnopp Hansen Kwok Nancy Lawrence Garry Maisel Cliff Popejoy Nancy Roe Grace Rosenquist Lawrence Shepard Scott Syphax

Honorary Members  Barbara K. Jackson • Rosalie Vanderhoef Ex Officio  Gary S. May, Chancellor, UC Davis Ralph J. Hexter, Provost, UC Davis Don Roth, Executive Director, Mondavi Center  Elizabeth Spiller, Dean, College of Letters and Sciences  Sandy Togashi Chong, President, Friends of Mondavi Center Yevgeniy Gnedash, Chair, Arts & Lectures Committee

The Arts & Lectures Adminstrative Advisory Committee is made up of interested students, faculty and staff who attend performances, review programming opportunities and meet monthly with the director of the Mondavi Center. They provide advice and feedback for the Mondavi Center staff throughout the performance season of Mondavi Center. Yevgeniy Gnedash, Chair Suzanne Bardasz Victoria Choi Jeremy Dang Marlene De La Garza Kristin Dees Ranjodh Dhaliwal Jenean Docter Hannah Holzer James Housefield Hyunok Lee Marcelo Lopez

Jason Mak Sally McKee Michael Montgomery Matthew Moore Greg Ortiz Alejandro Ponce De Leon Nancy Rashid Dan Romik Naoki Saito Isaac Smith Yolanda (Yuanxin) Zhang

The Friends of Mondavi Center

is an active, donor-based volunteer organization that supports activities of the Mondavi Center’s presenting program. Deeply committed to arts education, Friends volunteer their time and financial support for learning opportunities related to Mondavi Center performances. For information on becoming a Friend of Mondavi Center, email Jennifer Mast at jmmast@ucdavis.edu or call 530.754.5431. 2018–19 FRIENDS EXECUTIVE BOARD Sandra Togashi Chong, President Diane Makley, Vice President Karen Broido, Secretary Debbie Mah, Treasurer COMMITTEE CHAIRS Pat Stromberg, Friends Events Marge Dolcini, Gift Shop Nancy White, Membership Tom Farver, Mondavi Center Tours Verena Leu Young, School Matinee Support Carol Christensen, School Matinee Ushers Wendy Chason, School Outreach Marlene Freid, Audience Services and Volunteer Engagement Manager, Ex-Officio

We mourn the passing of our dear friend and supporter

Betty Ann Tupin 1933–2018

Southern Classics

Reimagined!

1815 K Street - 916-444-2423 2018–19 SEASON / GATEWAY

What is “

We need to reconsider our preconceptions and toss out a lot of baggage, which might even include the nearly meaningless term. —Marcus Crowder

”

“

The new jazz is out there. It’s alive and well and living alongside more traditional forms.

”

—Jeremy Ganter

Vijay Iyer performs at the SFJAZZ Center, 2018. Photo Courtesy of Music + Art Management, Inc. Photo by Lena Adasheva.

“jazz”?

And why is it important?

In an attempt to answer the seemingly unanswerable question swirling around this still-young and evolving art form, we invite you to take in two perspectives.

BY MARCUS CROWDER

BY JEREMY GANTER

Music for a New World

What We Listen For

usic played often in our house when I was growing up. It was jazz, but I didn’t know that early on. I learned it later. I knew it was black music, though. My mother listened to Ella Fitzgerald, The Cole Porter Songbook, and loved the Ramsey Lewis Trio. She talked about the unique artistry of Billie Holiday. She had seen Billie sing in a nightclub! She had also met Duke Ellington backstage at one of his concerts. He complimented her and her dress (my mom was quite lovely). When she lived in New York, she saw Horace Silver often at a club he played at and occasionally chatted with him at the bar (as I mentioned, she was quite lovely). My mother taught me jazz was part of my heritage. con’t on pg. 42

ands down, the question the Mondavi Center programming team gets asked the most is, “How do you pick the artists you present?” I have a standard if somewhat dryly practical answer. It goes like this: Our ideal season is a mix of artists we know our audience wants to see (e.g. Jazz at Lincoln Center), that we think they should see, whether they know it yet or not (e.g., Vijay Iyer Sextet), and with whom we have special relationships that can yield deeper experiences (e.g., SFJAZZ Collective). It’s amazing, my ability to be boring about such an emotional and passionately expressive subject as the arts, especially given what I do for a living. con’t on pg. 43 2018–19 SEASON / GATEWAY

CROWDER, con’t.

As a teenager I listened to popular and not-so-popular music of the time: Jimi Hendrix and Laura Nyro, the Rolling Stones and Isaac Hayes. But jazz was always available. I had a nerdy friend whose older brother played trombone and listened to Coleman Hawkins. They called him “The Bean,” and I heard “The Bean” whenever I visited. The Les McCann Swiss Movement album with Eddie Harris became a staple on my bedroom turntable. The undeniable funk of “Compared to What?” backed by the groove of “Cold Duck Time” are still narcotic to me. The first jazz concert I ever attended was McCann and Harris at Freeborn Hall with the Hungarian guitarist Gabor Szabo opening up. My mom drove me to the show, and I caught a ride home with my young, old-school jazz pals.

It’s time to think differently about jazz. Starting with the word itself, we need to reconsider our preconceptions and toss out a lot of baggage, which might even include the nearly meaningless term. There are so many different styles of “jazz” and have been from the beginning of the form because it’s always morphing, adapting here and there, a living art form of musical improvisation. As soon as one says “jazz” comes the question, “What kind of jazz are you talking about?” What “jazz” encompasses is vital and evolving. That may be the most important idea of all: It’s an always changing art form that by its very nature remains not just current but on a progressive edge. Well, some of it does.

There has been a wrong-headed critical discourse around jazz that separates listeners from the experience of simply listening to and feeling the music. The dark mysteries of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew seemed readily available to me after my mother dropped the record off in my room. I felt that music. Ralph J. Gleason’s highly recommended poetic liner notes to the 1970 album contained many truths including this: “So be it with the music we have called jazz and which I never knew what it was because it was so many different things to so many different people each apparently contradicting the other and one day I flashed that it was music.” Gleason’s words still resonate.

Some jazz consciously embraces historical traditions that birthed the music, such as stride piano, or internationalized the music, like gypsy swing, or popularized the music, like big band dance, or contemporized it, like electric fusion, or digitized it, like computer looping. Jazz is many concepts, numerous genres, a variety of ideas. You may be forgiven for not embracing them all. John Coltrane famously made a record with a singer in the midst of his career. The much-loved album was recorded with vocalist

Johnny Hartman in 1963. Though the album may have been the idea of the saxophonist’s producer Bob Thiele, Coltrane did not object. It’s a consistently beautiful record, which one might only complain that it is truncated at only six tunes and 30 minutes of music. Hartman hesitated making the album because he did not consider himself “a jazz singer.” Still there’s no more affecting version of the Billy Strayhorn masterpiece “Lush Life” than here. Is it jazz? Does it matter? Coltrane purists may sniff that the saxophonist was “coasting” or having reed and articulation problems at the time. They can go listen to Africa/Brass, Ascension or A Love Supreme if they want a denser, more exploratory Coltrane experience. One record does not fit all—no matter how great it may be. Jazz is expansive and adaptable. The musicians who play it naturally include their ethnic and cultural frames of reference. A new generation audience is finding the music through the popular forms of hip-hop and neo-soul. But it’s been 25 years since Guru released Jazzmatazz, then called “an experimental fusion of hiphop and jazz” where the legendary MC (co-leader of the progressive hip-hoppers Gang Starr) rapped alongside instrumentalists such as Roy Ayers, Donald Byrd and Branford Marsalis. The influence is palpable on more recent artists’ work: Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly and Untitled Unmastered, backed by new jazz star Kamasi Washington’s West Coast Get Down crew, are direct descendents of the “experiment.” Washington’s own albums The Epic, The Choice and

Jazz is expansive and adaptable. 42

GATEWAY / 2018–19 SEASON

con’t on pg. 44

GANTER, con’t.

I realize, though, having given this standardized tripartite answer for well over a decade now, that its banality underscores the challenges of being succinct about a subject so incredibly complex. Explaining how we do what we do is further complicated by the reality that the Mondavi Center does not have just one audience. It has many—often several within a single genre—and that means we have to ask and answer a lot of questions as we program each season. How can we be inclusive while engaging multiple audiences with interest and authenticity? How can we be viable in the marketplace without succumbing to “safe” programming? How do we select a mix of artists that reflects the history of an artistic tradition, but also reflects where the tradition is now and where it is going?

to expand what jazz is. This was the whole idea of Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie and all those people who gave us bebop in the first place. And in some ways, I find that the people who are out there doing jazz now are traitors to that idea.

”

My reaction to Delaria’s statement was intense, if two-sided: She’s clearly out of touch with what’s happening in jazz performance, but she also has something of a point. (Delaria is, of course, best known as Carrie “Big Boo” Black on the wildly popular Netflix series Orange Is the New Black.) Among her myriad talents, Delaria performs jazz and has family roots in the jazz world. She’s also a keen and calculating provocateur. Her comments got the Mondavi Center staff talking. We discussed who is, in fact, “saving” jazz, who has the right to claim that role, and whether jazz needs saving at all.

“In America, no one goes to jazz.” —Lea Delaria For me, nowhere do these questions play out more intensely than in our jazz programming. A recent San Francisco Classical Voice interview, “Lea Delaria Knows How to Save Jazz,” nicely illustrates my point. Delaria said this:

“

In America, no one goes to jazz. You look out at your audience, and it’s like Cocoon III. How many times can you hear the same 50 songs played over and over again? We need to get young people involved with jazz, and

(spoiler alert: it doesn’t). Exploring the conversation her interview sparked serves as a handy framework for unpacking the issues we face when we book jazz. Delaria is right about one thing: There is definitively and understandably a cohort within jazz audiences that do want to hear those “same 50 songs.” I know I do. Let’s call those songs the chestnuts at the core of the repertoire. (I assume that’s roughly what Delaria means.) The chestnuts do matter,

and they sustain long-term fame and interest for good reason. This is visceral and historically important music by important people, sought out for many of the same reasons that symphony audiences crave Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Brahms. Indeed, and to Delaria’s point, there are some venues and artists that primarily focus on the chestnuts. They do so in the name of a classic jazz experience. These venues offer, as jazz critic Nate Chinen puts it, “something enshrined in the popular imagination as a historical practice, a set of codes to be reenacted endlessly.” But these classic experiences are the exceptions that prove a rule that good jazz programmers follow: As curators and artists, we have a responsibility to reckon with our history without being problematically retrograde. It’s important, for example, that the Mondavi Center presents the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, not just because they are among the world’s most technically stunning ensembles, but because they situate the Ellington tradition in a contemporary context. It’s equally important that we present the SFJAZZ Collective; also technically stunning, but approaching jazz from a different and far more progressive angle. Together, the two ensembles paint an infinitely deeper picture of the jazz canon than either could alone. If we’re doing our job right, the individual value of seeing one con’t on pg. 45

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Pianist and composer Vijay Iyer finds little to recommend in the word “jazz.” Vijay Iyer. Photo by Jimmy Katz.

Heaven and Earth carry on traditions which include with equal reverence Pharaoh Sanders and Grover Washington Jr.

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Pianist and composer Vijay Iyer finds little to recommend in the word “jazz”—and don’t get him started on the hackneyed phrase “all that jazz.” “Like any genre term, it only serves to separate people,” Iyer says. “When we talk about styles of music, we’re actually talking about human beings.”   The 46-year-old Iyer can easily be considered a contemporary composer and bandleader of modern, improvised music. Beyond that it’s hard to say, but it is necessarily complicated. He has a number of different projects in continual rotation: a highly regarded, long-standing trio with bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore; a newish sextet (coming to Mondavi on May 7, 2019) that naturally has more heft, with a three-horn front line and more of a groove-based concept.

Iyer has recorded often with saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, who is known for his fusion of Indian and Western music. Iyer works with spoken word artist Mike Ladd but has recorded music that feels more like contemporary classical (the album Mutations). He’ll also appear at Mondavi with virtuoso cellist Matt Haimovitz (March 10, 2019) in a genre-busting performance that will likely include compositions by Bach, Billy Strayhorn, Ravi Shankar and Iyer. It’s not an unlikely pairing for Iyer, who just as easily plays with avant-garde trumpeter Leo Wadada Smith. There’s no name for all this music—either as individual pieces or collectively. Iyer and many others will tell you there doesn’t need to be.

Iyer says. There has been a wrongheaded critical discourse around jazz that separates listeners from the experience of simply listening to and feeling the music.

“There’re a lot of people doing very powerful stuff that has no name— doesn’t need one to communicate,” Iyer says.

“It’s that tag of not understanding, or incomprehensibility, or unintelligibility that’s put on jazz more than anything else,” Iyer says. Iyer works at a very high level, but you might not like everything he does. Yet this is how modern music happens. Artists channel who they are—the influences and interests— into their work. On his Accelerando album, Iyer’s trio recorded a

Iyer thinks trying to “understand” jazz puts an impossible onus on both the music and the listener. “The more you try to understand it, the more it gets away from you— understanding is the wrong word,”

“The music as practiced is very immediate, and it communicates to everybody in the room. It’s something visceral and emotionally intense,” Iyer says. “You don’t come away from something like a Mahler symphony saying ‘I wish I knew where it came from, what the master plan is.’ Or if you do, it’s because you think that’s what you were supposed to do.” It’s not how we generally experience music, whether it’s Beethoven or the Beatles.

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ensemble or the other is somewhat beside the point. It’s the combined effect of both that has a fuller impact. And anyway, as for those “same 50 songs,” look at the average jazz setlist and you’ll find that a love affair with the chestnuts will go largely unrequited. These days, unless a program is explicitly designed to deliver on a theme of famous music, it’s surprisingly rare to encounter even one or two chestnuts in a set by a serious jazz artist. Often, one won’t hear any at all. Jazz musicians tend to be deeply connected to their tradition, but by nature, they also tend to be aggressively forward-looking. Our programming has to reflect this reality. A good, if perhaps extreme, example is Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah. Adjuah released a trio of albums in 2017 about which Washington Post music critic Chris Richards said this:

“

It’s jazz, maybe, but it leans toward trap and techno, starting somewhere between Miles Davis éclat circa 1985 and Jon Hassell atmospherics circa 1986, and landing somewhere else. And sure, Adjuah could be warning us about the shape of jazz to come, but does every great jazz recording have to be a lighthouse? For right now, he’s right here, getting comfortable in a fog that feels gorgeously anti-lawful. .… Along the way, the word “jazz” gained an unwelcome amount of weight, so now Adjuah calls his stuff “stretch music.” He also claims to hate the sound of the trumpet, and refers to his stunningly customized horns as “B-flat instruments.” …It all seems a little pretentious—until you remember that any artist who ever did anything

meaningful was pretentious. (Can we write that in bright lights? Progress requires pretension.)

”

Adjuah is in the forward guard of young jazz musicians, seemingly unencumbered by musical or definitional boundaries; aware of their tradition but expanding what jazz is. We are trying to keep up. It’s an exciting moment.

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more demanding on the player and certainly more demanding for the listener. It countered the prevailing logic of what jazz should be. Adjuah, Hill and their peers are doing the same thing, but with an interesting inversion: They are expanding jazz by engaging and adopting the ethos and instruments of popular music; particularly hiphop, R&B and techno, but through other forms as well. What they’re doing raises definitional questions

Closer to home, Marquis Hill is first up in the Mondavi Center’s 2018–19 The forward guard of young jazz Studio Jazz series. Hill musicians are expanding what is a 2014 Thelonious Monk International Jazz jazz is. It’s an exciting moment. Competition winner. A Monk competition win about the relationship of confers on Hill an elite status as an the jazz tradition to pop up-and-coming jazz musician. It culture experience. Bebop, also means that he’s recognized as now considered “classic” understanding the tradition while jazz, whatever that term showing huge promise to move means, did the same jazz forward. We booked Hill at the thing. Mondavi Center not just because of his considerable chops, but because of his seamless embrace of hip-hop, Which is to say, despite Delaria’s statements to spoken word and R&B. Classic jazz the contrary, that young purists may struggle with Hill’s people are very involved. music, but given a chance, Hill is a They are having quite glimpse of the future. a moment. Nate Chinen recently published a book When we wrestle with the (Playing Changes: Jazz questions that artists like for the New Century) that Adjuah and Hill ask with their brilliantly unpacks what’s music, there are interesting up with jazz’s rising parallels to the development of generation. In a recent bebop—to the “whole idea of Rolling Stone interview Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie” with Evan Haga, Chinen that Delaria references. The says, “I feel like there are emergence of bebop represented more reasons to be excited an extraordinary and seminal about improvised music expansion of jazz. It was an intentional shift away from popular, today than at any time during my 41 years on the danceable music. Bebop moved jazz toward something more purely planet.” Haga responds: musical, more cerebral, arguably con’t on pg. 47 2018–19 SEASON / GATEWAY

muscular, assertive version of Rod Temperton’s 1977 pop ballad “The Star of the Story” by the pop soul band Heatwave. It’s not a place a mainstream classicist like pianist Bill Charlap would go. A pop ballad for Charlap is the 1955 Landesman/Wolf classic “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most.” But you could easily put Iyer and Charlap’s trios on a program titled “The State of the Piano Trio,” and while they are very different, they certainly aren’t at extreme edges. Iyer and Charlap can coexist around the compositions of Duke Ellington and, as encyclopedic historians of the music, appreciate the lyricism of Bill Evans along with the sharpness of Andrew Hill. “There is no one jazz audience—there are lots of jazz audiences,” says Randall Kline, executive artistic director of SFJAZZ. Kline co-founded the organization 35 years ago (then called Jazz In the City) and spearheaded construction of its 36,000-square-foot, $64 million SFJAZZ Center, the only building in the country built expressly for jazz presentation. Now in its fifth season, the SFJAZZ Center presents over 400 concerts a year to over 175,000 attendees in the 700-seat Miner Auditorium and 100-seat Joe Henderson Lab. Kline has jazz on his mind a lot, particularly its contemporary viability and vitality. “There’s a huge audience for jazz, especially when you divide it into the hundreds of little niches that are out there,” Kline says. He says it’s hard not to fall into the “what is jazz?” trap, which is essentially an unanswerable question. “It’s an evolutionary art form, and how culture works is also evolutionary, constantly changing, because audiences are constantly changing. The idea is that it’s fluid and that’s the beauty of what this art form’s about,” Kline says. As a presenter, Kline constantly considers how to match music and audience. The idea of “entry points” is key. How do people con’t on pg. 48

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Colt McGraw The Care and Feeding of Artists Colt McGraw was 15 years old when he went to see Wynonna Judd perform at Caesars Tahoe. He snuck into the private sound check, watching the unadorned country music icon whom he deeply admired, rehearse. Then from out of the dark wings, her bodyguard approached him. “What are you doing here?” the bodyguard asked. “I couldn’t imagine not being here,” Colt said. “I don’t feel that I really have a choice.” Now Colt enjoys a career where he works with performers as the artist services coordinator at the Mondavi Center, a position he’s held since September 2017. Colt has always been fascinated with entertainment and the behind-the-scenes mechanics that bring shows to life. Colt takes care of the performers before, during and after the shows. He works along with the programming team and a group of student staff. He is often the first person to welcome the performers to the Mondavi Center. He shows them their dressing rooms, the green room, and directs them to the stage when they arrive. “I think of the Mondavi Center as a home because I am hosting company,” he says. “I want the artists to feel

secure and I want them to be comfortable.” He takes care of the artists’ personal needs, ordering food from Davis’ best restaurants, booking caterers, or driving them to their hotels or the airport if needed. He also supports the artists during meet-and-greet backstage events and in the lobby. Colt says he and his colleagues have immense pride in their jobs, often going beyond what is outlined in the artists’ contracts. He sees his job as building trust with the performers and anticipating their needs. “No matter where the artists have performed in the past, they’re always blown away with our hospitality,” he says. “We have such a passion for what we do and how we do it. The details are always recognized.” Almost every night before leaving, Colt returns to the Jackson Hall stage. It is often around midnight, and the artists and most of the employees have left. He walks onto the softly lit stage and relishes the quiet, surveying the 1,801 empty seats. The ritual “gives me the opportunity to take a moment for myself and remember the excitement that I felt when I first realized that I got to be a part of this,” he says. “I humbly give thanks.” —Joanna Corman

Esperanza Spalding (who performed at the Mondavi Center in 2014.) Photo by Sarah George.

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“

He has a point, and you don’t need to be a diehard fan of the genre to appreciate it. Crossover stars such as Kamasi Washington and Esperanza Spalding are receiving generous mainstream attention. Meanwhile…others are seamlessly fusing hip-hop, R&B and electronica with their jazz mastery, introducing elements of a century-old art form to new audiences. And five nights a week on national television, Late Show bandleader Jon Batiste showcases his ebullient New Orleans spirit alongside Stephen Colbert. In short, the contemporary jazz scene is bursting with promise …

”

On the audience’s side of the equation, attendance numbers at the Mondavi Center and around the jazz scene reinforce Chinen’s and Haga’s point, refuting the idea

Jackson Hall’s orchestra level. Spalding and Batiste appeared at the Mondavi Center in 2014.] Those attendance numbers are encouragingly healthy, if on an

The cross-pollination of jazz with popular forms is placing jazz performance at the heart of a youthful and vibrant music scene. that “no one goes to jazz.” Pollstar, the gold standard industry source for concert data, reports current attendance averages for Washington, Spalding and Batiste within a range of 700–900 per show. [At the upper end, that’s 80 percent of the capacity of

exponentially smaller scale than pure global pop stars like Taylor Swift or Ariana Grande. What’s more, the cross-pollination of jazz with popular forms is placing jazz performance at the heart of a youthful and vibrant popular music scene. con’t on pg. 49

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initially find their way in? His personal entry point for jazz was the first wave of electric fusion in the late 60s and early 70s. He then followed a trail that led to acoustic mainstream. Kline admires contemporary jazz artists such as Kamasi Washington and Robert Glasper, who are developing careers on their own terms, providing audiences with multiple entry points.

contemporary vision with originals and noteworthy covers from Sade, Nirvana and David Bowie, with guest vocalists proliferating. Brad Mehldau has been covering Nirvana and Radiohead for years and the underrated Wee Trio made a brilliant album of Bowie covers, Ashes to Ashes: A David Bowie Introspective.

the point. Every art has to decide: How much do you want to open the door?” Seiwert says. Her husband, Darren Johnston, is a jazz trumpeter and composer, so she understands the challenges of some jazz to audiences. She’s been to all kinds of jazz shows.

Nobody’s telling Glasper to make these records. This is what he wants to do. He’s found an audience, and even jazz critics have lightened up on ideas of purity when it comes to the music. These collaborations aren’t going away.

In 2015, Washington emerged fully formed with what can only be described as an audacious debut, the three-CD set confidently titled The Epic. Emerged is Sacramento a matter of context Ballet Artistic of course because Director Amy Washington had paid —Randall Kline, executive Seiwert believes his dues (but not in New artistic director of SFJAZZ that doors to York) in pop bands with abstract arts can Chaka Khan, Snoop be opened wider. Dogg and Kendrick She talks about offering audiences Lamar. He’s released records access points by giving them through smart, young independent specific context information. Seiwert hip-hop–associated labels such described seeing a dance company as the Flying Lotus imprint prepare an audience for a production Brainfeeder. He played rock and of Hamlet by having a theater hip-hop venues making connections company come and describe a with audiences previously thought scene from the play. The actors then out of reach to jazz artists. performed the scene. The dancers did the same thing and danced the Pianist Glasper is another scene. musician at the center of the new music. His first record saw him “The dancers came out and showed following a well-worn path of through movement how they were solid mainstream jazz making, conveying those words. That’s a very but on his next, In My Element, specific access point to something,” there were hints of transgression. Seiwert says. She also worked with A medley of Herbie Hancock’s an opera company in San Francisco “Maiden Voyage” segueing into that provided supertitles even though Radiohead’s “Everything in Its Right the work was in English. “You were Place,” suggested interests outside never going to feel like you were of the jazz house. Glasper’s next missing the conversation—that was record, Black Radio, furthered this

“There is no one jazz audience— there are lots of jazz audiences.”

“If audiences have an experience that doesn’t fit their aesthetic, they might be turned off by it—that’s a shame because the field is huge,” Seiwert said. She also believes in teaching people that they don’t have to “get it.” “They want to experience the ballet or music or any abstract art form ‘correctly.’ If we could break down that preconception I think people are going to start having a better time.” Kline says jazz will always have a place. “People want to discover meaningful things always. They want to have something that resonates with them. Jazz does that.” Iyer believes it’s time the music and its creation got its due. “This is mastery—human mastery. Music is for everybody and everybody has musicality,” Iyer says. “How can I do something in unison with you? Clap my hands in synch, sing a melody in unison with you. We’re capable of doing something together—so that’s the beginning of community—what we call civilization.” Marcus Crowder is is an arts and culture critic and writer based in Northern California.

LISTEN Gateway: Jazz Classics to Contemporary

https://spoti.fi/2CRspVV

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Gene Nelson Fine-Tuning Our Piano Reputation When pianist Stewart Goodyear took to the Jackson Hall stage back in 2013 to play all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas in a one-day marathon, piano technician Gene Nelson was at the ready. During the 10-hour performance, he patiently stood by in the wings, making multiple touch-ups throughout the day to ensure the tuning didn’t drift, even during the most rigorous playing. “Just the lure of working on really nice pianos and being involved with some of the finest artists on the planet is enough to keep me going,” he says. While Gene has been working with pianos since 1971, when it comes to professional piano maintenance he says there’s nothing that’s predictable or constant. You have to be ready for anything: last-minute scheduling changes, hourslong piano prep, technical tuning. “Some European artists will request a pitch change from A440hz to A442hz,” he says. “That’s a big alteration for a piano and takes extensive tuning to not only reach the pitch but stay in tune throughout the performance.” Then there are artists who only play prepared pianos, which come with all kinds

of devices inside of them to create different sounds and tone characteristics. “This type of maintenance is a fairly extensive process, and some artists are really particular,” he says. “Sometimes I stay through rehearsal, even through intermission, and sound check because artists are a little nervous and want to make sure I’m there to consult with them. My goal is to reduce that anxiety by upholding our reputation as providing world-class instruments.” For Gene, the most enjoyable aspect of working as the Mondavi Center’s professional piano technician is making sure the artists are always playing world-class pianos. Considering that the center has two Steinway concert grand pianos, one classic grand, and one upright, that’s no easy feat—and hasn’t gone unnoticed. “We have gotten lots of compliments from the artists,” he says. “It’s so important to keep a piano in perfect condition, and that takes a lot of work. Maintenance keeps you ahead of the curve— things happen, parts break, strings break, you have to be ready to make quick repairs. But that’s what makes all the difference.” —Alicia K. Gonzales

Consider further the example of Kamasi Washington, equally famous in jazz circles as for his collaborations with hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar. As of this writing, Washington’s late summer and fall 2018 touring included 30-plus concert dates. Some at traditional jazz venues, but among his more mainstream appearances are five dates as an opener on the Florence + The Machine Tour [Florence appeared at the Mondavi Center in April 2012, and draws audiences of more than 10,000 attendees regularly]. Here we have one of most iconic pop artists of the millennial generation, selecting as an opener an icon of the millennial jazz generation. Check out the lineup for any major jazz festival, and you will find a similar integration of jazz and popular music. If you attend, you’ll also find an audience that is as young as it is old. Let’s not kid ourselves, some of this programmatic cross-pollination is meant to drive ticket sales, but it also reflects, exactly, the artistic climate in which jazz artists increasingly operate.

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In America, a lot of people do go to jazz, but to understand the jazz scene one has to be open to the idea that definitions are always changing. As Rolling Stone’s Haga says, artists like Washington, Adjuah and Hill are, “with their jazz mastery, introducing elements of a century-old art form to new audiences.” The new jazz is out there. It’s alive and well and living alongside more traditional forms. It benefits from the immediacy of discourse in the digital age. It circles the globe via streaming services like Spotify, where, it seems, almost everything musical is at hand and up for grabs. As ever, it speaks loudest through live performance. Jeremy Ganter is director of programming at the Mondavi Center.

LISTEN Gateway: Jazz Into the Future https://spoti.fi/2CB886C 2018–19 SEASON / GATEWAY

BY JEFF HUDSON

The Delicate Art of

Balance Balance (noun): “a condition in which different elements are equal, or in the correct proportions.”

For a fine arts presenter at a major university like the Mondavi Center, balance is likewise an ever-present goal … finding the right blend of popular mainstays who’ve played here many times (Itzhak Perlman comes to mind), as well as some distinguished “elder statesmen” who may be touring for the last time. At the same time, it is equally important to introduce the audience to young, up-and-coming artists who are still in the early phases of their careers, and may mature into top-tier stars. And you want to feature some well-established mid-career performers with a solid track record (who may not be seeking high-profile media status, but are highly respected for their artistry and interpretive style).

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Photo of Yuja Wang by Felix Broede.

alance is considered an asset in presidential politics (e.g., a balanced ticket of nominees for president and vice president), in baseball (e.g., a strong mix of seasoned veterans and surging rookies, to say nothing of left-handed and right-handed pitchers), as well as in other fields.

And maybe a group or two that has a sterling international reputation but has generally focused their performance schedule on coastal cities. Since the Mondavi Center opened in 2002, it has hosted quite a few high-profile “distinguished elder statesmen” in different fields, including several who’ve since passed on. Examples include jazz pioneer ORNETTE COLEMAN, who began recording in the late 1950s. Coleman performed in Jackson Hall in November 2010 when he was 80 years old, three years after being honored with a late-career Pulitzer Prize for music. Coleman died in 2015.

Arts presenters like the Mondavi Center play an important role in helping such artists develop a broader audience and establish a name for themselves at a critical point in their emerging careers.

Likewise blues institution B.B. KING, who began releasing records in the mid-1950s. King played at the Mondavi in November 2012 at age 86 (six years after he did a “farewell” world tour)—health issues prompted King to cut back on performances from 2013 on, and he passed in 2015.

The Mondavi Center has also hosted rock-and-roll pioneer BO DIDDLEY (and his trademark square guitar) in September 2006, when Diddley was in his mid-70s. He suffered a stroke the following year, and died in 2008. And country music legend MERLE HAGGARD made his one-and-only Mondavi Center appearance in September 2009, the year after a portion of one of his lungs was removed due to

Photo of Willie Nelson by David McClister.

Another example would include North Carolina– born folk/bluegrass guitar picker DOC WATSON, who was “discovered” by the Smithsonian’s Ralph Rinzler in 1960. In 2007, Watson (then age 85) proved that there’s an audience in Davis for traditional Southern Appalachian music when he drew a packed audience to Jackson Hall, playing with remarkable alacrity. Watson gradually cut back on touring after that, and died in 2012.

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cancer. Haggard continued to perform until shortly before his death in April 2016.

Janlynn Fleener Advisor, Sponsor, Attorney, Oh My! Local love of the performing arts runs deep. Each year, the Mondavi Center presents nearly 100 diverse music, dance, theater, film and speaker performances and attracts 100,000 attendees (including 20,000 school children who come to the school matinees).  To help strengthen and expand this programming, corporate supporters provide invaluable resources and expertise, from sponsorship to fundraising to advising. One such anchor of support: board member Janlynn Fleener, a partner at Downey Brand LLP. “When I first joined the board in 2015, I had never worked in an advisory role like this before,” she says. “So there was a little bit of a learning curve for me when it came to the genres the Mondavi Center provides. But I was an art history major in college, so it is a good fit for me that way. That’s what we do with all of our board placements in the community: We try to align our attorneys with their passions.” As for Downey Brand, the partnership between the Mondavi Center and the firm is longstanding—going back to when the center was originally being constructed—and with many predecessors before Fleener serving on the board. Since 2001, the firm has supported their attorneys on the board almost continuously. While Fleener collaborates on multiple subcommittees of the

advisory board, the majority of her work supports the Sacramento Regional Initiative Committee, which aims to bring Sacramento people to Davis. “We try to make a connection between Davis and Sacramento,” she says. “In the past this has been an impediment for some, with people thinking of the causeway as an impenetrable divide.” With Sacramentan attendance on the rise, however, the committee’s efforts are paying off. “A lot of our attorneys are patrons, both people living in Davis and Sacramento,” she says. “There’s also a growing number of Sacramento people on the board. It’s such a committed, passionate mix of people. And Mondavi is a cultural institution well known to our clients as well.” As for enjoying the performances, Fleener and husband Cliff, a longtime subscriber, opt for the ChooseYour-Own subscription and are big fans of classical music, world music and dance. “There’s a pretty diverse array of offerings no matter what you like or what you’re interested in, especially for the size of the region,” she says. “And I love the Speaker Series! Mondavi does a great job of covering the spectrum of what’s really going on in our times.” —Alicia K. Gonzales

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The Mondavi Center has also brought in quite a few distinguished elders who are still alive and kicking. This season’s lineup includes folk music legend JOAN BAEZ on her Fare Thee Well Tour (though at the youthful age of 77, she could easily decide to come out of retirement someday). Country “outlaw” WILLIE NELSON visited in 2009 and 2014, and as of 2018, he’s still touring at age 85. Veteran conductor HERBERT BLOMSTEDT came here in 2013, leading the San Francisco Symphony as conductor laureate. Blomstedt turned 90 in 2017, and he’s still in constant demand; among other upcoming gigs, he’s scheduled to conduct the Boston Symphony Orchestra in January 2019. And the Mondavi Center typically sells out Jackson Hall any time ITZHAK PERLMAN (who turned 73 in August) or YO-YO MA (a youthful 62) make themselves available for another appearance here.

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Of course, it is easy to list the late-in-life appearances by famous performers who’ve had glorious careers. But the Mondavi Center programming staff is equally proud of bringing in young artists who first appeared in this region when they were little known, and have since become major names. Arts presenters like the Mondavi Center play an important role in helping such artists develop a broader audience and establish a name for themselves at a critical point in their emerging careers. An example would be pianist YUJA WANG. She graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music in 2008, and Mondavi Center audiences got to see her twice the following year, when she was barely in her 20s. In May 2009, she appeared at the Mondavi Center with the San Francisco Symphony, under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas, giving a spectacular performance of the Prokofiev Second Piano Concerto. And then in November 2009, she appeared here with the Shanghai Symphony under conductor Long Yu, performing the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto. Wang’s career really took off in the years that followed. She began releasing recordings on the

Deutsche Grammophon label, she won an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2010, and was recognized by Musical America as Artist of the Year in 2017. Along the way, she came to the Mondavi Center for the third time in March 2015 with the London Symphony Orchestra (under Tilson Thomas, playing the Shostakovich Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and Strings), and she visited for a fourth time in February 2016 with the Russian National Orchestra (Mikhail Pletnev, conductor) performing the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 9, demonstrating to the Jackson Hall audience that she could play Mozart with genuine sensitivity and tenderness, in addition to powering her way through razzle-dazzle showpieces by the likes of Russian composers Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev. Wang is now operating in high gear. In late 2018, she is appearing with the Berlin Philharmonic twice (performing the Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto at the Lucerne Festival and at the BBC Proms), followed by another appearance with the San Francisco Symphony under Tilson Thomas. Wang is also giving multiple recitals at Carnegie Hall this season, touring Asia with the Munich Philharmonic in November, and touring in a duo with violinist Leonidas Kavakos in January 2019. And come March 2019, Wang will premiere a new piano concerto written for her by John Adams (with the intriguing title “Must the Devil Have All The Good Tunes?”) with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conductor Gustavo Dudamel.

Incidentally, Wang’s duo partner, LEONIDAS KAVAKOS, has been an orchestra soloist at the Mondavi Center three times (in 2005 with the Kirov Orchestra of the Mariinski Theatre; in 2007 with the Cincinnati Symphony; and in 2015 with the San Francisco Symphony). Another violinist who Mondavi Center audiences have seen maturing is AUGUSTIN HADELICH. He first appeared in Jackson Hall with the San Francisco Symphony in 2013 (as a late replacement for another violinist who cancelled), playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto. Then Hadelich visited in 2015 with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra,

Photo of Yo-Yo Ma by Jason Bell.

We’ll doubtless see Wang again at the Mondavi Center someday—she’s only 31, and has many years of performing ahead of her. But for now, we can enjoy the memory that we got to see her several times when she was in her 20s and bound for glory.

For a fine arts presenter at a major university like the Mondavi Center, balance is an everpresent goal.

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performing a piece by Stravinsky. Most recently, Hadelich was here with the St. Louis Symphony in January 2018, giving a remarkable account of the Britten Violin Concerto. Along the way, Hadelich won a Grammy Award in 2016, and was selected by Musical America as 2018 Instrumentalist of the Year. Hadelich is now 34, and you can expect to hear from him in years to come. An example of a jazz musician who evolved from band member to headliner at the Mondavi Center would be guitarist JULIAN LAGE. Lage first performed on the Jackson Hall stage in 2011, as part of a group supporting American violinist/ fiddler MARK O’CONNOR. Lage returned in 2015, performing several concerts in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre in a duo with guitarist CHRIS ELDRIDGE. And in April 2017, the Mondavi Center brought the Lage/Eldridge duo back again, this time on the larger Jackson Hall stage.

LISTEN Gateway: The Delicate Art of Balance https://spoti.fi/2CH43y1

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Photo of Cécile McLorin Salvant by Ronald Davis.

Young jazz vocalist CÉCILE McLORIN SALVANT has established herself as a Mondavi Center favorite in just three years. She was introduced to Jackson Hall audiences in April 2016 (the year she won a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album at age 26). She returned to Davis less than a year later, performing a program of music by Jelly Roll Morton with Aaron Diehl and Adam Birnbaum in March 2017. And less than a year after that, she appeared with the Bill Charlap Trio in February 2018. And she’s still on the sunny side of 30. Scottish vocalist JULIE FOWLIS, known to movie fans for singing “Touch the Sky” in the animated Disney/Pixar film Brave, has likewise transitioned from a sold-out, three-night gig in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre during October 2015 to an October 2018 appearance in (much larger) Jackson Hall. In the category of established, mature artists (who by and large eschew pop culture status), figures like pianists GARRICK OHLSSON (age 70) and VLADIMIR FELTSMAN (age 66) come to mind. Ohlsson won the International Chopin Competition in 1970, and went on to record all of Chopin’s music, in addition to winning an Avery Fisher Prize in 1994 and a Grammy in 2008—Ohlsson lives in San Francisco, and has performed at Mondavi several times, and I always try to go when he plays here. Feltsman, born in the Soviet Union, won the Marguerite Long International Piano Competition in 1971, and has subsequently enjoyed a productive career in the concert hall and the recording studio;

he appeared at the Mondavi Center in 2018 and will visit again in 2019 and 2020. Another artist in this category is the singular German violinist CHRISTIAN TEZTLAFF, who played at Mondavi with the San Francisco Symphony in 2012. Tetzlaff (who’s in his 50s) has been described by The New Yorker as “something different … a character actor in a field of matinee idols, he prefers to disappear into the sound world he creates onstage.” He’s never likely to court celebrity status, but Tetzlaff is a remarkable musician.

The UC Davis Office of Campus Community Relations is a proud supporter of the Mondavi Center The Campus Community Book Project was initiated to promote dialogue and build community by encouraging diverse members of the campus and surrounding communities to read the same book and attend related events. The book project advances the Office of Campus Community Relations’ mission to improve both campus climate and community relations, to foster diversity and to promote equity and inclusiveness.

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Last (but not least) the Mondavi Center periodically brings in unique international performers like SANKAI JUKU, a highly-regarded avant-garde butoh dance group that originated in Japan in the 1970s and was introduced to California audiences at the Olympic Arts Festival in Los Angeles in 1984. Sankai Juku’s spooky, photogenic performances (the dancers wear white powder makeup) have gained international acclaim over the past 30 years, including a large following in Europe. But they are not the kind of group that gets a lot of publicity in broadcast media; and in this country, you generally have to visit a coastal metropolis (with a fairly sophisticated audience) in order to see them. Sankai Juku’s 2015 tour included stops in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle—and a handful of performances in university towns, including Davis. If the Mondavi Center hadn’t decided to host them, Sankai Juku would most likely never have appeared in this region, nor provided the necessary cultural counterpoint in the delicate “balance” of performing arts presentation. Jeff Hudson contributes coverage of the performing arts to Capital Public Radio, The Davis Enterprise and Sacramento News & Review.

Douglas Abrams, 2018-2019 CCBP author, with Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama

http://occr.ucdavis.edu

Open Mic Nights @

Hosted by MC CoCo Blossom with DJ Lady Char Vanderhoef Studio Theatre Mondavi Center, UC Davis

FREE!

All are welcome! Students, Faculty, Community & Staff Come ready to perform, support friends or just enjoy the show. Presented by Mondavi Center in partnership with campus group Sacramento Area Youth Speaks (SAYS)

TUESDAYS:

OCTOBER 30 2018 JANUARY 29 2019 APRIL 16 2019 5:30-6:00pm Sign-ups 6:00-9:00pm Open Mic

2018–19 SEASON / GATEWAY

BY CAMILLE A. BROWN

The Mask of Survival

Black Performance in Dance Originally published July 27, 2017, by The Offing (theoffingmag.com).

Choreographer Camille A. Brown and her namesake company, Camille A. Brown & Dancers, use dance theatre to explore culture, race and identity in today’s urban America. Brown’s ongoing performance, “Trilogy,” grapples with internal and external perceptions that Americans have based on identity, and the right and need we all have to claim space in society. What does it mean for a person of color to be manipulated by another power, what does it mean for a person to claim their own power, and how do communities and individuals claim power accessing both ancestral and contemporary vocabulary? By melding these questions and concepts together, the trilogy highlights the resilience and creative genius of African Americans.

he first piece in the series, Mr. TOL. E RAncE (2012), examines Black stereotypes in the media, both past and present, harkening back to the the vaudevillian era of minstrelsy (a form of theater before vaudeville, where white performers would paint their faces up in Blackface and mimic Black people on the plantation) and the birth of such stereotypes of Black people as dimwitted, lazy, slow and happy, and slaves depicted as being “happy,” comfortable, and at ease on the plantation. Since stereotypes came from a place of humor, I wanted to highlight the fact that regardless of the circumstances that Black actors had to go through, they were still able to be brilliant and magnificent, and flip the script against the oppression or the stereotypes that were being placed on them. Black actors were literally and figuratively wearing a mask, both while performing in Blackface, and in society to survive. Photo of Camille A. Brown by Whitney Browne.

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Research is a critical part of my process. I came across a book by Mel Watkins called On the Real Side, which uses the lens of humor to talk about “inside” and “outside” perception of Black entertainers through time. That is what Mr. TOL E. RAncE was about. As an artist, I was starting to see the fabric of this social game and just how much racism and sexism were (and still are) very much alive in the arts and in the world around us. This work was very much birthed from a personal feeling of restriction. I wanted to look to the past to inform my future. I was also reminded of a quote from W. E. B. Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk, “One ever feels his twoness— an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two un-reconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” Spike Lee’s Bamboozled was also an influence. “Filmed in 2000, it follows a frustrated Black film executive who tries to expose the persistent racism of the industry through creating a controversial Blackface minstrel show in order to get fired. Instead, he inadvertently creates a hit. The film was criticized at the time for bringing up stereotypes that some claimed had long since been overcome, but it now seems frighteningly relevant. It draws connections between contemporary instances of racial bias and the tropes of the past and underscores the continuing legacy of minstrelsy, speaking to, for instance, the persistent characterization of unarmed Black men killed by police as ‘thugs’ or burdens on society.” —Ashley Clark, The Guardian Another reference that influenced me was the experience of comedian Dave Chappelle and his struggle navigating the 21st-century

“minstrel” quandary. Though early in his career Chappelle felt like people were laughing with him, as his popularity grew, he began to feel as though the (increasingly white) audience was laughing at the wrong elements of the jokes. Even worse, in doing so they were manipulating the meaning of what he was trying to portray, creating the effect of solidifying, not undermining the stereotypes. He made the decision to walk away from it at that time—the money, the fame, everything. These examples led me to ask the question: As an artist, what are the choices I’m making? When do I feel like I’m “shuffling” instead of dancing? To get to the bottom of this question, I started looking at the rise of reality shows and the depictions of Black people. For me, these shows constituted a kind of modern day minstrelsy Spike Lee was referencing in Bamboozled.

see? What happens when you want to take off the “mask”? There are two solos in Mr. TOL E. RAncE I created that deal with the complexities of W.E.B. DuBois’ “double consciousness” and the struggle of the mask. The dancers physicalize the internal struggle of having to put on a demoralizing facade, in a confrontation with themselves. We witness the dancers in solos physically contemplating the question: Is it possible to live without the mask of stereotypes, will I ever be able to be my authentic self at all times without judgment or repercussion? I see pain in our struggle, but I also see joy. It’s a personal story. It’s a Black story. It’s a human story. It’s a celebration of the perseverance of the Black performer.

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My second work in the trilogy, BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play (2015), was birthed from Mr. TOL E. RAncE. While touring the work, I got a lot

Is it possible to live without the mask of stereotypes, will I ever be able to be my authentic self at all times without judgment or repercussion? I see pain in our struggle, but I also see joy. It’s a personal story. It’s a Black story. It’s a human story. In Mr. TOL E. RAncE, the use of clips from television shows through various eras illustrate the examples of how the stereotypical image of Black people is created, molded and perpetuated through time, solidifying it as a cultural norm. Whether through catchphrases or gestures actors like Gary Coleman (Diff’rent Strokes, “What you talkin’ about Willis?”), Jimmy Walker (Good Times, “Dynomite”), and even Chapelle’s Show—though their work was celebrated and penetrated the lexicon, becoming iconic—what happens when the stereotypes rule over your life and that’s all people

of questions from Black women and girls asking if I was going to create a work that focused mainly on Black female stereotypes. At the time I was working on a musical The Fortress of Solitude, in which the protagonist is transported back to his childhood—the innocence and discovery of growing up. There were two characters that were Black girls whom I created an entrance for. It was a short Double Dutch routine, but sparked a fire inside of me. That’s when it clicked! I wanted to talk about childhood play and what that means to Black girls. 2018–19 SEASON / GATEWAY

I wanted to create a work that showed all sides of “us,” the beauty, the brilliance, the intelligence and, yes, the sass. I wanted to literally SHOW what “Black Girl Magic” is because it’s more than a hashtag. I was feeling frustrated and exhausted by Black female stereotypes because I deal with it every day, such as the trope of the angry Black female or the trope of the strong Black female. Where are the dimensions? BLACK GIRL is about us remembering who we were before being told you had a big nose, big eyes and big lips, and whether you should wear a weave or natural hair. What is interesting is that for the process, I had to learn how to play again. It took me awhile to get back to that childhood place, after all, I have been an adult now longer than I was a child! For the opening of the work I embody a child, so it was crucial that I reconnect to my inner little girl because I wanted the work to show the evolution from childhood innocence to adolescence to maturity. Again, I love research, and I spoke to cultural anthropologist Aimee Cox about my thoughts and she pointed me to an essay from Kyra Gaunt’s book, The Games Black Girls Play. This book presents the act of “play” as being a catalyst for creative identity and expression that,

1. Mr. TOL E. RAncE (2012). Photo by Christopher Duggan; 2. Dancers Timothy Edwards, Shamar Watt and Yusha-Marie Sorzano. Photo by Chris Cameron/Meagan Helman; 3. Fana Fraser and Beatrice Capote perform BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play (2015). Photo by Christopher Duggan; 4. Dancers Shamar Watt and Yusha-Marie Sorzano, ink (work in progress). Photo by Chris Cameron/Meagan Helman; 5. Dancers Beatrice Capote and Juel D. Lane in ink. Photo by Christopher Duggan.

“Through the practical activities of musical play, girls actually inhabit ‘in-body formulas’ (Drewal 1992) and construct their consciousness of themselves as Black and female members of a subculture, in contradistinction to the traditions and privileges of the dominant culture, relative to race and gender (among other factors).” Play, and how we play, was the key. Indeed, games like Double Dutch, Red Light-Green Light, Marco Polo, and hand-clapping games were all buried in my DNA and BLACK GIRL unearthed them. Working on this work from this vantage point was difficult because there aren’t enough common media narratives that showcased Black girls being just that: girls. I needed to find them. Questions began racing through my mind: Who was I before the world defined me? What are the unspoken languages within Black girl culture that are multidimensional and have been appropriated and compartmentalized by others? What are the dimensions of Black girl joy that cannot be boxed into a smile or a grimace, but demonstrated in a head tilt, lip smack, hand gesture and more?

I wanted Black girls to dance with each other, so I made it a point to have three duets in the piece. It was important because most of the pop culture and media narrative is that Black girls fight and that Black girls don’t know how to resolve things. With BLACK GIRL, I wanted to make it clear that the work is for Black girls everywhere, yet overall I wanted to show that Black girls are girls, we are human, and though the production might be culturally specific, everyone can relate to it, every child plays … the commonality is humanity. I was very specific about the production’s aesthetic content. From the music, sets, lights and costumes everything was important in BLACK GIRL in terms of how I wanted Black girls to be seen. From my hoop earrings to the chalk on the wall—that was all intentional in my work. I wanted to depict the spectrum of diversity that exists within Black culture—just as it does in white culture … we are not monolithic. So I wanted the music to be an amalgamation of all musical genres, to represent the real multidimensional tastes of Black girls. Yes, I do love Nina Simone, but

“Black Girl Magic” is more than just a hashtag. In American society, the bodies of Black children are accelerated to maturity. Increasing Black children are treated as “adults” in the judicial system and in the media. Black boys are afforded no leniency in courts, and the female body is hypersexualized. Girls are looked at as women, and boys as men. This practice has been normalized. I wanted to show who Black girls were, which are simply, just GIRLS.

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I also love Radiohead and so many other artists from diverse musical genres. I didn’t want to hit anybody over the head with it, but I told my stylist Mayte Natalio that I wanted the costumes to be natural and real, as if we could simply walk off stage and into the street. BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play showcases and elevates the rhythms and gestures of childhood play, highlights the musical complexity

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PROFILE

and composition and claims them as art. It shows the power of sisterhood and the fact that, as we mature, Black girls still play. It is remembering, conjuring, honoring and healing. It’s a Black girl’s story through her gaze. This work is a gift to myself and Black girls everywhere. It is a sense of place, a sense of identity, a sense of community.

CoCo Blossom’s Open Mic Life Ask anyone who knows Denisha “CoCo Blossom” Bland and you’ll hear she’s a community-based poet, educator and Open Mic Nights @MC host. But even without these titles, the calling sticks. “What speaks most to me is being able to uplift someone with my voice and story,” she says. “When I’m on stage performing and I touch someone in the crowd—I see them get energy and inspiration—that is the most powerful part for me.” As a nontraditional transfer student at UC Davis, Bland studied African American studies and education. She also worked on campus for Sacramento Area Youth Speaks (SAYS), a community outreach and literacy program founded at UC Davis in 2009, which aims to break the chains of underachievement through hip-hop, spoken word and poetry. In 2017, the organization joined up with the Mondavi Center to present an open mic show every quarter in Vanderhoef Studio Theatre— and just like that, Open Mic Nights @MC was born. “I would go out two weeks before each open mic and post all over campus to get students’ attention,” she says. “Come show night, we had undergrads, professors, counselors, everyone.”

Denisha Bland

But for CoCo Blossom, it’s the on-stage diversity that really sets these open mic nights apart from other Mondavi Center performances. “There are singers, poets, comedians, people playing instruments. The audience gets to see a diverse array of cultures, races, passions. It’s amazing.” In addition to helping undergraduates become change agents, the open mic nights also create a place for students to “chill, relax, and speak their truth,” she says. “Students don’t always have the opportunity to express their talents because they’re so wrapped up in being a student. At open mic nights they can let their hair down!” For the past 10 years CoCo Blossom has been crafting poetry—as well as a name for herself—and the diligence is paying off. In addition to her work for SAYS, Bland has performed for Chancellor Gary S. May, opened for Hillary Clinton, and served as president of the African Diaspora Cultivating Education (ACE) at UC Davis. Through it all, she says, she was still able to be a mom, be herself, bring her poetry, and change the university as much as it changed her own trajectory. “When I get famous, I will absolutely be coming back and performing at Mondavi!” —Alicia K. Gonzales

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Gathering my thoughts down for the last installment of the trilogy, ink, is a bit more difficult because I am still in the process of creating it. I am working from a place of reclamation—taking back narratives that have been placed on Black people (stereotypes, tropes, etc.), and taking those stories back. Writing and rewriting our stories the way we know them to be—not what is dictated by others. The title, ink, speaks to this. Reclaiming African American narratives by showcasing their authenticity, writing our stories with our bodies. Since it is the last proclamation on identity, this is how I see my work as a choreographer—writing and rewriting those stories of life, love, resistance, faith, pain, strength, beauty, ugliness, oppression, freedom, and authenticity of Black people and Black communities. ink celebrates the rituals, gestural vocabulary, and traditions that remain ingrained within the lineage of the African Diaspora and reclaims African American narratives by showcasing their authenticity. The work examines the culture of Black life that is often appropriated, rewritten, or silenced. Using the rhythms and sounds of traditional African and handmade instruments as its center, the work travels through time with elements of blues, hip-hop, jazz and swing. The movement is an amalgamation of African American social dance, African, tap, jazz, modern and hip-hop. As I began to develop ink, I had this idea of the dancers representing superheroes. I could not figure out why I had the urge to play with this idea until I read Question Bridge: Black Males in America. One of the men interviewed said, “I see Black people as comic book heroes because they always keep rising.” That was it! It is about showing that in our basic survival, and natural attributes we have superhuman powers. Powers to shift, overcome, transform and persevere within an often hostile environment.

The seven sections of ink represent super powers of spirituality, history and heritage, the celebration of the Black body, Black love, brotherhood, exhaustion and community. It’s about using the power of the past and present to propel us into the future. I lift up real life superheroes of the past—Harriet Tubman, James Baldwin, Kathrine Dunham and so many others. They held as much as they gave. They paved the way for us to fly and “be fly.” In flight we see the legacy of Black people in America. Let’s carry on.

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Finally, humanity is at the center of all three works, and this is what I strive to show—Black people are not stereotypes or tropes. We cannot and will not stand to be boxed into one category. We have multiple layers and dimensions that express our shared humanity. It is my hope that the trilogy contributes to the ongoing discussions about race and gender and also opens the minds of those who are interested in learning more about African and African American cultures.

Award-winning Broadway and concert dance choreographer Camille A. Brown is a Guggenheim Fellowship recipient (2016), fourtime Princess Grace Award–winner (20062016), Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award recipient (2016), USA Jay Franke & David Herro Fellow (2015), TED Fellow (2015), Doris Duke Artist Award recipient (2015) and Lucille Lortel “Outstanding Choreographer” Award nominee (Fortress of Solitude, 2015). Her company, Camille A. Brown & Dancers (CABD), received a Bessie Award (2014) for Outstanding Production for Mr. TOL E. RAncE and a Bessie Award nomination (2016) for Outstanding Production for BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play. Brown’s choreography has been

commissioned by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Philadanco!, Complexions, and Urban Bush Women, among others. Her theater credits include Broadway’s A Streetcar Named Desire, The Winter’s Tale, Fortress of Solitude, Stagger Lee, Cabin in the Sky, tick, tick... BOOM!, and BELLA: An American Tall Tale, among others. Brown’s TED-Ed talk, A Visual History of Social Dance in 25 Moves, was chosen as one of the most notable talks of 2016 by TED Curator, Chris Anderson, and has over 11 million views on Facebook. She choreographed the current Tony-Award winning Broadway revival of Once on This Island and CABD’s final trilogy work ink is touring nationally and internationally.

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BY GARY VERCELLI

[Dave] Brubeck blended jazz and world elements long before the term “world music” came into fashion.

Jazz: An International I

f jazz is considered America’s great gift to the world, then you could say it’s the gift that keeps on giving. Although born in this country, jazz has become an international language. Musicians from around the world are giving back to jazz by infusing their own cultures and experiences into the music. Such was not always the case. Overseas exposure to jazz came during the 1950s and 60s, when Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie and other jazz giants served as cultural ambassadors, winning the hearts and minds of people in far-off lands with a style of music that drummer Max Roach and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis have stated best mirrors the American democratic process.

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It’s been 60 years since the Dave Brubeck Quartet set out on a State Department–sponsored 80-concert tour of Eurasia. Brubeck not only introduced a whole new audience to jazz with concerts in countries as far away as Poland, Turkey, Pakistan and Iran; he was also inspired to write some of his best-known compositions after absorbing the sounds and rhythms of the lands he visited. Brubeck blended jazz and world elements long before the term “world music” came into fashion. Brubeck used to say, “I prefer to think of music as an instrument of peace rather than a Cold War weapon.” Saxophonist Charles

Lloyd, who toured and recorded in the Soviet Union in 1967, also felt his music transcended political boundaries. When Lloyd resurfaced on the jazz scene in the late 80s with several recordings on the German ECM label, he used an all-Scandinavian rhythm section! Willis Conover’s nightly Voice of America broadcasts during the Cold War helped introduce jazz (and the English language) to a whole generation of Eastern Europeans. The seeds were planted, and today there are highly regarded improvising artists from across the globe, including Polish pianist Marcin Wasilewski, Russian saxophonist Igor Butman, Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava, Brazilian vocalist and pianist Eliane Elias, French

Language

Top: Dave Brubeck, 1954. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten Collection, reproduction number LC-USZ62-103725. Right: Etienne Charles. Photo by Laura Ferreira.

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Brubeck not only introduced a whole new audience to jazz with concerts in countries as far away as Poland, Turkey, Pakistan and Iran; he was also inspired to write some of his best-known compositions after absorbing the sounds and rhythms of the lands he visited. percussionist Manu Katche, West African guitarist Lionel Loueke and Canadian pianist Renee Rosnes, to name just a few. The popularity of jazz in Japan is also well documented. Ever since Art Blakey and other prominent jazz musicians began appearing in Tokyo in 1961, the Japanese have rolled out the red carpet for our leading improvisors. Before his death in 1992, Blakey and his Jazz Messengers had toured Japan over 50 times. Japan has also produced its share of notable jazz musicians, including trumpeter Terumasa Hino, pianist/composer and big band leader Toshiko Akiyoshi and saxophonist Sadao Watanabe. Yes, a lot has changed since some American expatriates experienced difficulties finding a competent rhythm section in Europe many years ago. Today, the international jazz scene is burgeoning with talented players and high profile festivals. Italy’s Umbria Jazz Festival

offers an outstanding educational component led by the Berklee College of Music. Since 1976, the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands has showcased all genres of jazz. The Montreal Jazz Festival features 3,000 artists from 30 countries, making it the world’s largest jazz festival. There are now hundreds of jazz festivals worldwide, many of which help balance the budget of American improvisors while simultaneously providing exposure for the rising stars in the countries that host the festivals. While covering the Umbria Jazz Festival for Coda Magazine in 1986, I met veteran jazz critic Ira Gitler (the journalist who coined the term “sheets of sound” in describing the music of John Coltrane). He told me that writing about this music had taken him all over the world. Inspired, I was off to Verona, Italy, and Mt. Fuji, Japan, the very next year. While in Verona, I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming on a blissful summer night

LISTEN Gateway: International Jazz https://spoti.fi/2CFvwjr

while listening to Keith Jarret’s trio in an outdoor amphitheater built during Roman times on the banks of the Adige River. (Whether they knew it or not, the Roman architects had good jazz ears!) Although I’ve traveled widely as a music journalist, I’ve seldom heard a better acoustic environment for jazz than the Mondavi Center’s Jackson Hall. Many world-class musicians who’ve performed here have told me the same thing. One has only to look at this year’s Mondavi jazz schedule to affirm that jazz is now a global art form. The SFJAZZ Collective features members from Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Venezuela alongside Americanborn artists of Haitian decent. Andre Mehmari is from Brazil and then there’s the Havana Cuba All-Stars! Jazz, born in America, is now practiced and appreciated worldwide! Gary Vercelli is jazz music director at Capital Public Radio.

Some of 2018–19 cultural ambassadors of jazz at the Mondavi Center

Edward Simon, piano. Member of SFJAZZ Collective. Born in Venezuela.

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Miguel Zenón, alto saxophone. Member of SFJAZZ Collective. Born in Puerto Rico.

Etienne Charles, trumpet. Member of SFJAZZ Collective. Born in Trindad.

André Mehmari, piano. Born in Brazil.

PROFILE

Ping Chan Ushering in Our Patrons Ushers are the face of the Mondavi Center. They greet students, teachers and patrons alike. They take tickets, guide guests to their seats and provide assistance should the need arise. The Mondavi Center looks for volunteer ushers who possess a genuine willingness to serve, express care and respect and display impeccable courtesy and graciousness. Ping Chan has been providing these services for over 15 years. “My love for the theatre and the arts and the music drew me to Mondavi, and I’ve been volunteering since 2002!” she says. “I love the campus environment so much, which is another reason I volunteer: I’m still able to connect to the community and see colleagues that I used to work with at the performances.” And having worked at UC Davis Student Affairs for over 30 years, she sees a lot of familiar faces. In addition to Chan, there are about 30 volunteers who have been ushering since the beginning. There is even one couple who ushered back in the days of UC Davis Presents before transferring over. Long into their own retirement, they’ve finally retired from being ushers. What most patrons don’t realize, though, is that an usher’s responsibilities extend well beyond guiding patrons to their seats—and change on a revolving basis.

“There are ticket takers at the doors scanning tickets, traffic controllers assigned to direct to Will Call, parking structure attendants, onporch attendants, volunteers inside the building on each level. Each performance we try to rotate around. It’s a long evening but we love it!”

it’s a group or speaker or musician. Their excitement excites me! We’re really there for the patrons, not the performances. We get to know them, especially the donors, and they’ll ask whether we’ll be there again. I tell them, ‘You gotta come find me!’” —Alicia K. Gonzales

For Chan , seeing all the people coming to the performances is what she finds most exhilarating. “They’re excited to see who they’re coming for, whether 2018–19 SEASON / GATEWAY

Beyond the Stage Arts Education Mondavi Center Arts Education is committed to providing the best opportunities for students of all ages to experience and appreciate the performing arts. To open the classroom to the creative and imaginative process, we have designed culturally intensive educational programs for grades K-12. For adults, our goal is to inspire the sensibilities and intellectual curiosity that sustain a fully engaged life. Through exposure to live performance and lively participation, we seek to ensure that the arts remain an integral part of our community’s rich inheritance. For details on the education and outreach programs offered below, visit www.mondaviarts.org/education.

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School Matinee Artist Q&A with members of Dorrance Dance. Photo by Ruth Rosenberg.

Pre-Performance Talks and Q&A Sessions with artists UC Davis Curriculum Connections Classroom Visits, Master Classes & Residencies School Matinees & Pre-Matinee Classroom Talks Dance for Parkinson’s Sensory-Friendly Performances

Giving Donating helps you become more than just an audience member. When you make a gift to the Mondavi Center, you enhance your experience both in and out of the theatre. You are suddenly a member of a large and caring family. You meet people. You notice more things and you feel like you belong in a new and wonderful way. We encourage you to help keep the arts alive by making sure there is a welcoming home and a promising future for the artists—but we also encourage you to donate for yourself. For details on the support opportunities available below, visit www.mondaviarts.org/giving.

• Membership • Licensed Seats • Artistic Ventures Fund • Legacy of Giving • Friends of Mondavi Center

Donor Reception Dinner with members of Compañía Nacional de Danza. Photo by by Jim Coulter.

Friends of Mondavi Center Friends of Mondavi Center is a dedicated donor-based organization of artsloving volunteers whose purpose is to assist the Mondavi Center’s presenting program with education, outreach, fundraising and audience development. Friends engage in a variety of activities that support these programs and annually contribute thousands of hours and raise thousands of dollars to benefit Mondavi Center Arts Education. When you join Friends of Mondavi Center, you choose the activities you prefer and the commitment level that best suits you. For details on joining Friends of Mondavi Center and the programs listed below, visit www.mondaviarts.org/friends.

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Friends Kathy Coulter, Natalie MacKenzie and Jeanne Vogel. Photo by Jim Coulter.

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Gift Shop Friends Events Pre-Matinee Classroom Talks Docent Guides Artist Support Area School Visitation

2018-19 Volunteer Ushers HEAD USHERS Eric Davis John Dixon George Edwards Maria Giannuli Donna Horgan Paul Kastner Cecilia Aguero Lakshmi Aradhya Mary Armstrong Joan Asakawa Faye Ashley John Baird Pamela Baird Dave Bakay Antonio Barbosa Diane Barrett Beverly Beckman Wally Beckman Charmion Benz Robert Beyer Sheila Beyer Dominique Blanchard Judith Blum Joy Bonds-Baird Jamie Boston Brooke Bourland Cheri Bradley Dan Bradley Janet Brendia Randy Brendia Kim Brennan Marvin Brienes Susan Brienes Sonja Brodt Sheila Brown Amy Brugger Dan Brugger Seana Burke

Peter Butterworth Jim Cain Victoria Cameron Celestine Capart Jonathan Carpenter Melanie Carr Leon Carson David Chan Ping Chan Lora Christoffel Regina Chu Kristin Conner Barbara Cook Richard Crescitelli Dianne Davey Judy Davis Jill Dawdy Jennifer Deacon Jane Derry Christopher Dimuro Julie Dimuro Amran Din Mary Dobosz Eva Dopico Dulce Drysdale Laura Dubcovsky Valerie Durbin Rick Durland Kay Dzinic Mirza Dzinic Devi Eden Katherine Epstein Lynn Evert Joy Fabiano Jack Farrell Judy Feldman Ken Firestein Laura Fisher Beth Flory Laurie Flowers

Serena Fong Bruce Forman Frank Fox Elaine Franco Barbara J Franklin Laurie Friedman Catherine Fujimori Terri Gaines Lois Gardner Lemoy Gibson Ben Gillman Ernie Gillogley Bob Gonzalez Pat Gonzalez Jason Goodfriend Gina Guarneri Steve Guhin Ruth Gustafson Patricia Handley Helen Hanes Jack Hanes Karen Hannum Enrique Herrero Kathleen Hickey Janet Hill Barbara Hills John Hills Kent Hirose Linda Hirsch Loran Hoffmann JoAnne Hokanson Chaviva Hollman Rita Hoots Vance Howard Cheryl Huizar Shirley Humphrey Sylvia Jackson Chris Jacobsen Jack Jonas Chris Jones

David Jones Paula Joyce Diana Kado Alice Karolewski Jack Karolewski Judy Keaton Robin Keister Megan Kendzior Liz King Nancy Kirk Karen Klein Donna Komure-Toyama Diann Kramer Jan Lant Connie Law-Marcom Sally Lee Sandee Lee Claire LeFlore Rick LeFlore Eric Leung Cathy Lewis Moreen Libet Mary Lou Linvill Therese Llanes Hilda Llorens Erica Lobb Kalli Louis Rita Lundin Lana Manglallan Patricia Martens Joan Martinez Doug McDougall Sheila McGrath Marta McNaughton Greg Meeks Karen Mercante Beryl Michaels Martha Mills Marsha Mohtes-Chan Lynn Moore

Hallie Morrow Tracy Moss Christopher Naldoza Judy Ng Beth Noland Dan Ortiz Johanna Payne Al Pederson Peggy Phister Tom Phister Yoli Plazola Ellen Pontac Dave Powell Frank Preuss Ann Privateer Nancy Quan Martha Quenon Patricia Quinn Steve Radosevich Patricia Reeves Debbie Roberts Carrie Rocke Evelyn Rojas Mike Savino Renee Schoch Rita Schupp Joe Schwartz Linda Schwartz Ursula Scriba Lynne Secrist Karen Seminoff Arun Sen Barbara Sherry Robert Sherry Floyd Shimomura Ruth Shimomura Joannie Siegler Fran Spitale Jennifer Stanley Candyce Stephens

Jerome Stockton Dana Stokes Georjean Stoodt Pieter Stroeve Lane Suarez Sandra Suitor Elaine Swiedler Carol Teague Ann ter Haar Wiete ter Haar Dianne Tobias Angelito Tolentino Titus Toyama Maggie Tuttle Alicera Vaewsorn Diane Vandepeute Suzann Wadsworth Bonnie Walther Melinda Waring Zipora Weinbaum Christine Weinstein Cheryl Welsh Dorothy West Lyle Wilen Tom Winder Rodney Wong Rodney S. Wong Rob Woodman Kristin Yee Shelton Yip Mary Jane Yuki Lillian Zhang Xena Zhang Niefia Zupancic

Thank you to our volunteers!

NOW accepting credit cards!

GIFT SHOP

The gift shop is open before the show and during intermission.

@Mondavi Center 2018â&#x20AC;&#x201C;19 SEASON / GATEWAY

Mondavi Center Staff DON ROTH, PH.D. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS

JEREMY GANTER ASSOCIATE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Rob Tocalino DIRECTOR OF MARKETING

ARTS EDUCATION

Erin Kelley ART DIRECTOR/SENIOR DESIGNER

Ruth Rosenberg DIRECTOR OF ARTS EDUCATION & ARTIST ENGAGEMENT Jennifer Mast ARTS EDUCATION COORDINATOR Rachel Kanonchoff OUTREACH & ENGAGEMENT STUDENT ASSISTANT

Dana Werdmuller MARKETING MANAGER

Mike Tentis DIGITAL MARKETING SPECIALIST Rachel Kanonchoff OUTREACH & ENGAGEMENT STUDENT ASSISTANT Kannon Salvucci DIGITAL MEDIA STUDENT ASSISTANT

DEVELOPMENT

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Nancy Petrisko DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT

Sarah Herrera ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Michael D. Weagraff DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Liz King EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

FINANCE & BUSINESS SERVICES Yulia Kiefer DIRECTOR OF FINANCE & ADMINISTRATION Mandy Jarvis FINANCE & BUSINESS SYSTEMS ANALYST Russ Postlethwaite BILLING SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR & RENTAL COORDINATOR Kathy Di Blasio ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT

TICKETING Kelly Kim TICKET AGENT LEAD STUDENT TICKET AGENTS Alexandria Butler, Lead Arthur Shaffer, Lead Viviana Valle, Lead Hanna Baublitz Olivia Blair Megan Brotherton Zoe Ehlers Pablo Garcia Austin Jones Camille Kafesjian Anisa Luong Audrey Nelson Yanise Nevarez Nicole Oliveira Camille Riggs Annika Sarzi

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Nathaniel Curtis DESKTOP SUPPORT ADMINISTRATOR

GATEWAY / 2018â&#x20AC;&#x201C;19 SEASON

OPERATIONS Herb Garman DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS Ryan Thomas BUILDING ENGINEER AUDIENCE SERVICES Marlene Freid AUDIENCE SERVICES & VOLUNTEER ENGAGEMENT MANAGER Yuri Rodriguez PUBLIC EVENTS MANAGER ASSISTANT PUBLIC EVENTS MANAGERS Camille Adams Natalia Deardorff Jill Pennington Mo Stoycoff Nancy Temple PRODUCTION Donna J. Flor PRODUCTION MANAGER Adrian Galindo ASSISTANT PRODUCTION MANAGER Christopher C. Oca HEAD STAGE MANAGER & CREW CHIEF Phil van Hest MASTER CARPENTER/RIGGER Rodney Boon HEAD AUDIO ENGINEER Christi-Anne Sokolewicz SENIOR STAGE MANAGER, JACKSON HALL David M. Moon SENIOR EVENTS COORDINATOR/ LIAISON TO UC DAVIS DEPARTMENTS

Eric Richardson MASTER ELECTRICIAN Wai Kit Tam LEAD VIDEO TECHNICIAN Daniel Villegas LEAD AUDIO ENGINEER, VANDERHOEF STUDIO THEATRE Tristan D. Wetter LEAD ELECTRICIAN, VANDERHOEF STUDIO THEATRE Holly McNeill STAGE MANAGER Maya Severson STAGE MANAGER SENIOR STAGE TECHS John F. Bologni Karl Metts Ian Strother Christine Richers

PROGRAMMING Jeremy Ganter DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMMING Jenna Bell ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, ARTIST SERVICES Laurie Espinoza ARTIST SERVICES MANAGER Colt McGraw ARTIST SERVICES COORDINATOR Lara Downes CURATOR, YOUNG ARTISTS PROGRAM

FILM FESTIVAL @ UC DAVIS

May 2 and 3 @ 9:30 PM Varsity Theatre 616 Second St. Davis

Single Night: $9 Two-Night Pass: $12 Advance sale online: filmfreeway.com/FilmFestUCDavis