The Weekender is a regular feature of the UC Davis Arts Blog appearing each Thursday — when weekends really need to begin. The column features stuff to do on and around the UC Davis campus through Sunday this weekend. Note that the Shinkoskey Noon Concert Thursday is at 2 p.m. this week.

Jazz and more at Pitzer

The Shinkoskey Noon Concert this week on Thursday, May 31, is NOT at noon. It’s at 2 p.m. Jazz Combos of UC Davis, Jacám Manricks, director, offers selections including “Kit and Caboodle Blues” and “It All Begins with You” by Martine Tabilio, “Grown Folks” by Snarky Puppy, “New Afro Cuban” and “Shufflin” by Manricks and “Blindman” by Herbie Hancock. Free.

And at 7 p.m., also at the Ann E. Pitzer Center, catch more with “Softly as in a Morning Sunrise,” by Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II, as well as “This Here” by Bobby Timmons, arranged by Manricks, and more.

$10 Students and Children, $20 Adults (Open Seating)

Friday: Grad students and faculty who need writing space and time?

Yet another treasure brought to our campus by Imagining America: writing space on Fridays. The First Fridays Writing Fellowship: A Co-Working Group, hosts its last First Friday workshop THIS Friday, 10 a.m. to noon.

Where: Imagining America Community Room, UC Davis Campus, 207 3rd Street, Suite 120, Davis
Who: All UC Davis faculty, graduate students, and program staff
Here's their blurb:
Dear Colleague,
 
Are your daily writing plans constantly getting derailed by teaching, service, family, or other demands on your time and attention? Do you find yourself giving in to internal resistance, spending too much time on emails or social media, making endless pots of coffee, or re-cleaning your entire living space before you can finally sit down to work on your research and writing? Do you believe you could write if only you had the luxury of “long, uninterrupted blocks of time” (that never seem to materialize)? Well, you're not alone, friend!
 
If you’re ready to try a new approach to getting some work done, we invite you to join us. We are a fellowship of UC Davis faculty, graduate students and program staff —from all disciplines and levels—who have decided to band together in a co-working space for the express purpose of writing. Together. With a timer. Here is a link to a free online timer: http://e.ggtimer.com/ (you can also use your own timer, your phone, or stopwatch).
 
This is not meant to be a socializing space; the emphasis will be on working on our writing in an environment of mutual support as a community of scholars.

See you there!

UC Davis Concert Band and Symphony Orchestra Perform at Mondavi Center Friday and Saturday

The UC Davis Department of Music presents two consecutive nights of concerts at the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts on June 1 and 2.

Conducted by Director of Concert Band Pete Nowlen, the Concert Band of UC Davis performs “Rhapsody in Blue,” which includes George Gershwin’s 20^th century masterpiece.

This concert on Friday features pianist Richard Glazier, a renowned interpreter of the Gershwin repertoire and the American popular songbook, as soloist on “Rhapsody in Blue.” The program features Leo Eylar’s “Orpheus and the Maenads: The Last Dance,” a world premiere for Concert Band, and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Toward the Unknown Region” with the Camerata  California Chamber Choir.

On June 2, the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by music director and music faculty member Christian Baldini, performs Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade” with alumna Devon Bradshaw, a 2017 UC Davis graduate with degrees in music and statistics, as the violin soloist.

The concerts begin at 7 p.m. in the Mondavi Center’s Jackson Hall. Tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for students and youth and are available at the Mondavi Center box office in person or by calling 530-754-2787 during noon-6 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Tickets are also available online at mondaviarts.org.

For more information about the College of Letter and Science’s Department of Music and future performances, visit arts.ucdavis.edu/music .

MFA student projects debut Thursday and Friday

Thirty-three students from art, design, art history, music, theatre, creative writing and French are participating in the second annual Arts and Humanities Graduate Exhibition, featuring large, multimedia installations (including an outdoor sound installation); music listening posts; paintings; video; and performances and presentations. Opening reception: 6-8:30 p.m. Thursday, May 31, Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art.

Also, this just in: on Friday, June 1, MFA first-year students open their exhibition at Verge in Sacramento.

See all the details in this previous blog piece.

Transforming Traditions: Annual Art History Graduate Colloquium is Saturday

Master of Arts candidates present their research projects Saturday afternoon covering the diverse topics of Chinese calligraphy, contemporary Chicana art, Ottoman relics and early modern mapping.

• Writing Originality: Wang Duo’s Expression of Self in Poems for Yugu, by “Derek” Zheng Zhang — 1:10 p.m.
• Embracing In-Betweenness: The Making of a New Stage in Recent Chicana Art, by Lydia Rogers — 1:30 p.m.
• Transcribing Likeness: A Study of Emerging Visual Vocabularies From Ottoman Early Modernity, by Iman Seale — 2 p.m.
• The Known Unknown: Mapping Ignorance in the Age of Discovery, by Mariah Briel — 2:20 p.m.

Question-and-answer session, 2:40 p.m., Art History Undergraduate Award Ceremony, 3 p.m.; reception, 3:30 p.m.

• Writing Originality: Wang Duo’s Expression of Self in Poems for Yugu, by “Derek” Zheng Zhang — 1:10 p.m.
• Embracing In-Betweenness: The Making of a New Stage in Recent Chicana Art, by Lydia Rogers — 1:30 p.m.
• Transcribing Likeness: A Study of Emerging Visual Vocabularies From Ottoman Early Modernity, by Iman Seale — 2 p.m.
• The Known Unknown: Mapping Ignorance in the Age of Discovery, by Mariah Briel — 2:20 p.m.

Question-and-answer session, 2:40 p.m., Art History Undergraduate Award Ceremony, 3 p.m.; reception, 3:30 p.m. Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art.

Writers Read: an afternoon of readings and art activities

An afternoon of readings and art activities by graduate students in the Creative Writing and Art History programs will be presented Sunday afternoon at the Manetti Shrem Museum.

• The Firemonger, short story by Molly Montgomery, MA Creative Writing — 2 p.m.
• Memorize the List (essay), a performative reading by Natalie Savio, MA Creative Writing, and fellow graduate students — 2:30 p.m.
• Mapping the Imagined, by Mariah Briel, MA Art History, followed by a hands-on cartographic art experience led by museum staff member and artist Carmel Dor — 3 p.m.