There's still time to enjoy some holiday music, buy gifts, and see an exhibition or two. This will be our last Arts Blog of 2025. Thanks for reading.  Karen Nikos-Rose, Arts Blog Editor

At the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, UC Davis

American Bach Soloists & American Bach Choir present 'A Baroque Christmas'

Sunday, Dec. 14,  2 p.m., Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, get tickets here. 

For years, the American Bach Soloists have filled Jackson Hall with the splendor of Handel’s Messiah. This year, they return with a Baroque Christmas program packed with portions of Messiah, interwoven with festive works celebrating the spirit of the season.

Recognized worldwide as one of the foremost interpreters of Bach and the Baroque, conductor Jeffrey Thomas is sure to lead an afternoon of radiant melodies and holiday cheer. Jeffrey Thomas, artistic director & conductor

Program List

• Noël sur les instruments, H. 531 and 534
• Concerto Grosso in G Minor, op. 6, no. 8, Fatto per la notte di Natale
• Messiah (Christmas portion + “Hallelujah” chorus)

Marc-Antoine Charpentier

Arcangelo Corelli 

George Frideric Handel

See a video of a recent performance here. 

Also, on Saturday, as teased in last week's blog:

Anat Cohen Tentet

Saturday, Dec. 13. Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, 7:30 p.m.

Brooklyn-based clarinetist and saxophonist Anat Cohen has won hearts and minds all over.

Video below

With acclaimed albums and multiple Grammy nominations, Cohen has grown into a border-bounding musician’s musician in jazz, drawing on everything from Latin and Middle Eastern rhythms to klezmer influences and jazz harmonies.

For her Mondavi Center performance, she will be joined by her Tentet of talented players along with her co-producer/co-arranger Oded Lev-Ari, whose knack for “putting lightning in a bottle” is evident on the band’s latest release, Triple Helix (DownBeat Magazine). The Chicago Tribune raves that the album’s three-movement concerto is “a work of considerable expressive reach” with a “sensuous tonal palette.”

More information and tickets here.

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Give the gift of experience and more

Give the gift of experience with “Blade Runner,” dance and more at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

See their gift guide 

Add to that, The Gorman Museum of Native American art features Rick Bartow for free; and a gift shop. See details on Gorman hours. 

See the rest of the art-related gift guide in this Arts Blog.

A UC Davis prof talks about 'It’s a Wonderful Life'

If "It's a Wonderful Life" is part of your holiday tradition, listen to UC Davis's own film history expert Eric Smoodin in this look-back podcast from a few years ago. 

Eric Smoodin, emeritus professor of American Studies and Film Studies, talks on the podcast “The Road to Now." In this recording, the host and Smoodin talk about why the story is timeless in many ways — and not so much in other ways. Listen now. 

Smoodin is the author, among other works, of the book Regarding Frank Capra. 

Read more about Smoodin.

Exhibition

'Brewed Awakening: The Evolution of the Coffee Industry' on view at Shields

Shields Library (Lobby - Left Side of Main Staircase), Through March 20

Coffee is a stimulating beverage. So is its history. 

Historical evidence points to Ethiopia as coffee’s origin. The first mention of coffee in print appears in a Persian text from the 10th century. The method of roasting and pulverizing beans to infuse water with coffee likely first occurred in the 15th century. Until the 17th century, the majority of coffee was consumed throughout Persia and the Ottoman Empire. 

Coffee first arrived in different parts of Europe by the early 17th century. However, European coffee houses did not proliferate until the late 17th century, increasing steadily through the 19th century. They also served tea and chocolate. 

In the United States, soldiers’ coffee consumption during the Civil War continued postwar, which revitalized the domestic coffee industry. The New York Coffee Exchange was established in 1882 in response to increased importation of coffee. By the 1880s, the United States was importing one-third of the world’s coffee, leading to what is now considered the “first wave” of coffee. 

ASUCD Coffee House Cookbook
Associated Students, University of California, Davis (ASUCD) Records, AR-111

Coffee has found a home within UC Davis since 1968, when the Coffee House was founded as “an alternative to existing corporately owned and operated” services on campus. In 1986, the Coffee House Cookbook was published, offering a compilation of recipes that highlighted the quality of ingredients.

Coffee lives on today at UC Davis through the UC Davis Coffee Center. Founded in 2013, it is the only multidisciplinary research facility in the United States to directly focus on coffee research and education, including roasting coffee for sale at the UC Davis Stores.

Coming up

Celebrate the holidays with the Messiah in Spanish and English in January