When doctoral music composition students at UC Davis hear their music played for the first time, they hear it played by professionals who are champions of new music with years of performance experience.
“It’s an absolute luxury to have these professional musicians play our work,” said student Jonathan Favero. “In many programs you have to beg, borrow and steal to find players.”
Frances Dolan spent much of last year in the company of Hester Pulter, a little-known 17th-century British writer. Dolan, distinguished professor of English in the UC Davis College of Letters and Science, has done extensive research and writing for The Pulter Project: Poet in the Making, a “digital collaboration” launched in November.
“Recent Gifts from the Southwest” at the Gorman Museum showcases nearly 100 artworks by 60 artists. The exhibition, on display through Dec. 7, includes basketry, weavings, ceramics, prints, paintings and drawings made between 1920 and 2018. Most of the art was made during the past 50 years and donated or promised by collectors and artists over the past two years. The is the first Gorman exhibition focused on the art of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah.
David Salle, who became an art star in the 1980s and has also forged a career as an arts writer, will give the Betty Jean and Wayne Thiebaud Endowed Lecture on Thursday, Nov. 1, at UC Davis. “David Salle: How to See” is presented by the Department of Art and Art History in the College of Letters and Science.
One of Cuba’s most acclaimed writers, Leonardo Padura, will be giving talks and readings at UC Davis Oct. 24 and 25. Padura is known internationally for his series of Mario Conde detective novels, which have been translated into many languages and made into a Netflix series.
Padura has received the National Prize for Literature, Cuba's national literary award, and in 2015 the Premio Principe de Asturias de las Letras of Spain, one of the most important literary prizes in the Spanish-speaking world.
A celebrated African American artist, a 1980s art star and the curator of a new Paul Gauguin exhibition are among those speaking at UC Davis this fall, with more to come in winter and spring. The lectures offered by the College of Letters and Science's Department of Art and Art History take place at 4:30 p.m. at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Museum of Art. All the talks are free and open to the public.
French Professor Julia Simon had been teaching, singing and writing about the blues for a number of years when both a colleague and her adult daughter recently suggested she could do something more with her blues knowledge, her mixing board, and her vast collection of blues music stored on an iPod. So, earlier this summer, following this suggestion, the blues singer and bass player started a podcast, “Blues on My Mind.
The 2018–19 Creative Writing Reading Series at UC Davis will bring acclaimed, long-established writers along with emerging writers starting in October. The series is organized by the Department of English creative writing program in the College of Letters and Science. All readings are at 7 p.m. in the Peter J. Shields Library and are free and open to the public.
The creative writing program, part of the College of Letters and Science’s English department, will offer a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing starting in the 2019–2020 academic year.
Local philanthropist and lover of music Grace Noda (née Imamoto) died on Wednesday, March 14, 2018, surrounded by family and music. She was 98 years old. She leaves behind a legacy of kindness to others.
A dozen UC Davis English majors recently played a video game with area elementary, middle and high school students. While the students had fun, the goal was to see how “Play the Knave” might improve their reading and writing skills and make the works of William Shakespeare more accessible.
In recent years, Africa has developed a rich culture of science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative fiction with several internationally prominent writers, online journals, blogs, and even creation of the African Speculative Fiction Society. Moradewun Adejunmobi, a UC Davis professor in the College of Letters and Science’s Department of African and African American Studies, will speak on the topic at the International House.
Students from seven disciplines — art, design, art history, music, theatre, creative writing and French — will be part of the annual Arts and Humanities Graduate Exhibition at UC Davis.
Students in creative writing and music composition have collaborated on new works that build on other collaborations across disciplines in the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis.
