Experience Dvořák Wind Serenade for this week’s noon concert

Thursday, Jan. 16, 12:05 p.m., Shinkoskey Noon Concert, Recital Hall at Ann E. Pitzer Center, free

Program

Antonín Dvořák: Serenade in D Minor, op. 44, B. 77

Robert Schumann: Selections from Six Studies in Canon Form, op. 56 
with Cindy Behmer, oboe, Susan Lamb Cook, cello, and I-Hui Chen, piano

Domenico Dragonetti: Selections from Duet for Violoncello and Contrabass
with Susan Lamb Cook, cello, and Michael Schwagerus, bass

Aaron Diehl Trio blurs the lines between jazz and classical music at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts

Thursday, Jan. 16 to Saturday, Jan. 18, showtimes at 7:30 p.m., Vanderhoef Studio Theatre at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, tickets are almost sold out so get your tickets here.

Pianist Aaron Diehl has quietly re-defined the lines between jazz and classical, building a global career around his nuanced, understated approach to music-making. See him perform at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts next week!

Praised for his “melodic precision, harmonic erudition, and elegant restraint” (The New York Times), Diehl has performed with musical giants such as Wynton Marsalis and Cécile McLorin Salvant, headlined the Monterey, Detroit, and Newport Jazz Festivals and now brings his exceptional artistry and “organic, sophisticated approach” (DownBeat) to the Mondavi Center for a chance to experience this one-of-a-kind talent.

Get tickets here: Aaron Diehl Trio | Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts 

UC Davis professors join on panel discussion ‘Art of Resistance’

Tuesday, Jan. 21, 4-7 p.m., 701 Mission Street, San Francisco

Acclaimed Iranian artists Shiva Ahmadi, Ala Ebtekar, and Taraneh Hemami, renowned art historian Talinn Grigor, and curator Amy Kisch will come together to discuss how art can serve as a powerful tool for resistance, transformation, and dialogue in a panel discussion. 

Shiva Ahmadi is a Professor of Art and Graduate Advisor at UC Davis. Ahmadi’s artistic practice embraces drawing and painting, particularly a rare expertise in watercolor, across 2D and 3D media and moving images. Her work explores contemporary conundrums between the historically refined aesthetics and cultural conceits of the Middle East with the violence, corruption, and uncertainties wrought not only upon local societies but the whole world by malicious, global potentates.

Talinn Grigor’s research focuses on 18th- to 20th-century architectural and art histories through postcolonial, race, feminist, and critical theories grounded in Iran, Armeno-Iran, Armenia, and Parsi India. Her books include the winner of the Saidi-Sirjani Book Award, The Persian Revival(2021), Contemporary Iranian Art (2014), Building Iran (2009), and Persian Kingship and Architecture (2015) coedited with Sussan Babaie. 

Read more here: Art of Resistance: A Panel Discussion-Workshops & Lectures - Farhang.org 

Get tickets here: Art of Resistance: Panel Discussion 

This year’s annual Valente Lecture features Emily Zazuila on Medieval Music

Thursday, Jan. 23, 4-5:30 p.m., Everson Hall Room 266

Valente Lecture: Emily Zazulia“The Friend Who Got Around: Medieval Theater, Church Music, and a Rather Inappropriate Song”

Within the gold-tinged choirbooks of 15th-century Europe, a bawdy song about genitalia is perhaps the last thing one might expect to find. Yet L’ami Baudichon (“the friend Baudichon”), whose text leaves little to the imagination, shows up as the basis for an early mass by Josquin des Prez. The song’s presence in sacred polyphony has long puzzled musicologists. Whatever the song is doing in Josquin’s mass, it also appears in other contexts: combinative songs, theater pieces, poetry, and literature. This lecture examines the song’s varied uses in early French theater, focusing on its appearances in a morality play about blasphemy and a ribald farce.

Read more here: Valente Lecture: Emily Zazulia - UC Davis Arts 

Laugh along with 'Bored Teachers' in 'The Struggle is Real!' comedy performance

Friday, Jan. 24, 7:30 p.m., Jackson Hall at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts

Bored Teachers “The Struggle is Real!” Comedy Tour features the funniest teacher-comedians in the world. Amassing over a billion views on their viral videos on social media, over 10 million followers, and the #1 ranked teacher-comedy podcast, these comic forces come together on stage for a night of laughter that anyone who has ever been in a classroom can relate to. 

This performance uses some adult language and recommends that viewers are over the age of 13. Tickets are almost sold out so make sure to check their availability. 

Get tickets for their performance: Bored Teachers | Mondavi Center 

New exhibitions coming Jan. 26 to the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art

The Manetti Shrem Museum of Art will be closed through Jan. 25 to install new exhibits; thereafter regular hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday-Monday

Two exhibits are moving into the Manetti Shrem Museum with an opening day of Jan. 26. Curated by Ginny Duncan, the exhibit Ruby Neri: Taking the Deep Dive is the first solo exhibition of the artist’s work and features personal motifs and the female body. 

The second new exhibit at the museum is Through Their Eyes: Selections from the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Collection which is not only a mixed media collection by 30 of the most prominent and influential female artists currently working, but also the first U.S. presentation of Italy’s renowned Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Collection. The Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Collection is one of the most important private collections of contemporary art in Europe. The collection focuses on international and intergenerational perspectives of women artists working in a variety of media. Some featured artists include Giulia Andreani, Vanessa Beecroft, Berlinde De Bruyckere, June Crespo, just to name a few. 

Ruby Neri: Taking the Deep Dive will be on display until May 5, and Through Their Eyes: Selections from the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Collection will be on display until June 22.

To learn more about these exhibits, read the full story. 

The Artery presents The Art of Stillness

Running through Monday, Jan. 27, 207 G Street, Davis

With a spiritual leaning that bridges Eastern and Western philosophy, each piece in this exhibition, Art of Stillness contains heart and soul. Art reflects life…a return to decades long practices of meditation, silence and contemplation are reflected in this collection. Between 3D sculptures and framed pieces, it is Louise’s desire that the viewer remember a bit of peace and stillness as they stop into the gallery in the new year.

UC Davis Betty Jean and Wayne Thiebaud Endowed Lecture features Enrique Chagoya 

Thursday, Jan. 30, 4:30 p.m., in the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis, free

The annual Thiebaud lecture this year features Mexican American painter, printer and educator Enrique Chagoya. Using his art to comment on social and environmental issues, Chagoya’s prints, drawings, collages and multiples offer critical commentary on the global reach of the United States and its cultural, political and historical tensions with Latin America.

​​Chagoya is a Mexican-born American painter, printmaker and educator. He received an honorary doctorate from the San Francisco Art Institute and has won awards and fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, National Academy of Arts and Letters, The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation. He received the Lifetime Achievement in Printmaking Award from Southern Graphics Council International and was inducted into the National Academy of Design in 2021. Chagoya is a Professor of Art at Stanford University. 

Read more about this lecture.