SHAPE of Things
The to Come p. 8
TAPROOT
Music Festival p. 23
Compared to What? Jazz and Politics p. 34
IT TAKES TWO p. 44
gateway ROBERT AND MARGRIT MONDAVI CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS UC DAVIS FALL Issue 2019–20
Mind over Matter: The Psychology of the Stage p. 12
New Music Festival BY SAM NICHOLS
C
omposers are all around you, quietly writing, painstakingly piecing together new sounds in order to make something fresh and vivid. They may be hidden from view, cooped up in a studio or bedroom, but they don’t want their work to be a secret. They want you to hear their music (or even better, to listen to it).
Left: Spektral Quartet Photo by Dan Kullman
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FOOD & DRINK
THEATER
PLACEMAKING
HOME DESIGN ARCHITECTURE
NEW NOSH: SOLOMON’S DELI OPENS ON K A PALM SPRINGS-STYLE OASIS IN FAIR OAKS
TRAVEL
waterfall hikeS • ocean SafariS clear-bottom kayaking and more
MUSIC
THE FALL AND RISE OF HOBO JOHNSON
OUTDOORS
THE SIMPLE ART OF JAPANESE FLY FISHING
DRINKS
THE BOURBON VANILLA SHAKE
A NEW EAMES MUSEUM: WHY NOT HERE? A REIMAGINED WATERFRONT DISTRICT
DESIGN
MUSIC
JACK GALLAGHER CAPITAL PUBLIC RADIO’S Q&A WITH CAKE’S BRINGS THE FUNNY NEW DOWNTOWN HQ JOHN MC CREA
RUSTIC MODERN TO BEACH CHIC
MID-CENTURY MAKEOVER SOLAR ARCH BRIDGE
COOL E S CAP E S You. 2 hours from now.
THE EAMES MOLDED FIBERGLASS ARMCHAIR, CIRCA 1950
* *Founded and edited by a proud alum of UC Davis
Subscribe today at SactownMag.com
APRIL/MAY
2019
F
or this to happen they need a chance to connect with adventurous musicians. In 2010 my colleagues and I in the UC Davis Music Department, together with the Mondavi Center, started what would eventually become the TAPROOT NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL. Our goal was to bring together composers and performers, and to share something unique—something challenging, at times maybe even overwhelming—with our audience here in Northern California. Taproot matches participating composers with ensembles that specialize in performing new music. The composers and performers work together, and their rehearsals lead to a weekend of concerts at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts and at the Music Department’s new venue, the Ann E. Pitzer Center. Our matchmaking, which builds real relationships between people who wouldn’t have otherwise met, offers our community something special: a series of performances that feature premieres of new works written especially for the festival.
Our matchmaking, which builds real relationships between people who wouldn’t have otherwise met, offers our community something special ... Taproot’s name implies a connectedness to an earthy specificity, a local particularity that sends out shoots in various directions. The Mondavi Center attracts brilliant musicians from around the world, but Davis isn’t a cultural desert: Our community has its own artists, hard-working and hugely talented. In the spirit of making new connections, we ask visiting performers
Top: UC Davis Music Department lecturer and percussionist Chris Froh; Bottom: Empyrean Ensemble
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Global Education for All
UC Davis Campus Global Theme 2020-21
Food for Thought:
Our inaugural Campus Global Theme, Food for Thought: Feeding Ourselves, Feeding the Planet, brings together the UC Davis community in exploring the complexities surrounding the notion of “Food for Thought,” linking to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We invite you to join us as we engage in discussion, debate, and dynamic action related to how we feed our bodies, minds, souls, ecosystems, and economies, how we nourish our world, and more!
Find out about getting involved or attending upcoming events: globalaffairs.ucdavis.edu/ campus-global-theme
Southern Classics
Reimagined!
1815 K Street - 916-444-2423 26
MONDAVIA RTS.ORG/BLOG
PATRON PROFI LE : UC Davis Faculty
Feeding Ourselves, Feeding the Planet
Sally McKee A sprightly, charming dog named Billie Holliday; a career transition from medievalist to jazzer: UC Davis faculty member Sally McKee contains multitudes, and a conversation with her is a thrill ride of enthusiasms, from tips on New Orleans’ best guest houses to heirloom beans and what to do with them. It’s no surprise, then, that she’s a social fixture at the Mondavi Center or that the social element is one of her favorite aspects of the hall. “The lobby is the village square,” McKee says. “All I have to do is walk down length of the lobby, and I’ll see my friends. It’s far more social than simply just going with a friend to a concert. It brings everybody in Davis and a lot of people from Sacramento together.” When McKee first arrived in Davis, she mostly indulged her passion for the arts on her travels. But in her five years on campus, that’s changed. She served on the Mondavi Center’s Arts and Lecture Committee and now counts herself as a member and very regular attendee. “This is the first time that I’ve incorporated performance and going and hearing live music into my home life where I live as opposed to thinking of it as a special occasion when I’m away,” said McKee. “I’ve never lived anywhere where the quality of the performance and the music was so high that you would want to. This is the first place I’ve lived where it’s worth the effort and the money to come to events here.”
to work alongside local musicians. We bring together both local and visiting artists, and allow them to reach beyond themselves in truly collaborative work that challenges them to develop and to grow. At this year’s festival, we’ll welcome two stellar groups of visiting artists: the vocal ensemble QUINCE and the SPEKTRAL STRING QUARTET. Also joining the festival lineup are two fantastic ensembles in residence here on campus, the EMPYREAN ENSEMBLE (directed by Professor Mika Pelo) and the UC DAVIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (directed by Professor Christian Baldini). We have our students get involved, too: CHRIS FROH, who teaches percussion here at UC Davis, is putting together a performance of Steve Reich’s monumental Music for 18 Musicians as the culminating event of the festival. Members of Quince and Empyrean will perform alongside undergrads from Froh’s studio. We try to make Taproot as open and inclusive as possible. Our goal is to bring together a diverse group of composers from a wide range of different backgrounds and trainings, because we believe it’s important to nurture relationships between artists from radically different orientations. It takes slightly longer than a year to organize an event like this, and this upcoming festival will be the fifth we’ve put together. When we started, we were in such a rush to connect the dots and get everybody on stage that we didn’t really have a name for this project. For the past nine years, we’ve simply called it “the festival,” although technically its name was the UC Davis Composition Workshop (unlovable name, unmissed by all). This time around we made the effort to slow down and take time to think through what its “real” name should be.
Taproot’s name implies a connectedness to an earthy specificity, a local particularity that sends out shoots in various directions.
Top: UC Davis Symphony Orchestra music director and conductor Christian Baldini Left: UC Davis professor of music and director of Empyrean Ensemble Mika Pelo
The goal is to bring together a diverse group of composers from a wide range of different backgrounds.
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AN EXCLUSIVE WINE TASTING EXPERIENCE FOR INNER CIRCLE DONORS
19–20
Please join us in the Bartholomew Room during the specified time (and intermission if scheduled).
OCTOBER 4 FRI • 7–8PM
John Prine Robert Mondavi Winery
NOVEMBER 2 SAT • 7–8PM
Joshua Bell, violin and Alessio Bax, piano PlumpJack Winery
DECEMBER 17 Pink Martini TUE • 6–7PM Silverado Vineyards JANUARY 25 Royal Philharmonic Orchestra SAT • 7–8PM Pinchas Zukerman, conductor and violin Domaine Chandon FEBRUARY 29 Academy of St Martin in the Fields SAT • 7–8PM Joshua Bell, music director and violin J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines MARCH 21 SAT • 7–8PM
Alfredo Rodríguez & Pedrito Martinez Spottswoode Estate
APRIL 26 Arlo Guthrie 20/20 Tour with Folk Uke SUN • 6–7PM featuring “Alice’s Restaurant” UC Davis, Oakville Station MAY 13 WED • 6–7PM
An Evening with David Sedaris Bouchaine Vineyards
MONDAVIARTS.ORG/UNCORKED
Naming something forces you to recognize it and gives you the opportunity to think about what it is and what it means. In Ursula K. LeGuin’s 1968 novel A Wizard of Earthsea, she imagines young wizards who spend long winters memorizing the “true names” of all the living things in the world. Learning its name allows them to recognize and acknowledge the thing itself. Naming something, as a way of knowing that thing—no matter how scary or powerful it might be—lets you harness it and tame it. We are, all of us, surrounded by things we don’t have names for, but our struggle to understand our world and to change it is necessarily rooted in this kind of thoughtful action. The Taproot New Music Festival will be a time when new works can be planted and nurtured: where some things can be named for the first time, and others can grow into their names. I hope you can join us to witness this spectacular growth. I’ll see you there! Composer Sam Nichols teaches composition, electronic music, and music theory in the Department of Music, UC Davis.
LISTEN Taproot
spoti.fi/gatewaytaproot
Quince vocal ensemble. Photo by Karjaka Studio
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