Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts opens Thursday with Talking Heads film and talk
The University of California, Davis, Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts this 2025-26 season includes a diverse array of artists, from classical, to jazz, to global and everything in between for music. Performers include rising stars and old favorites, and plenty of dance. There’s ample family entertainment too, as well as prominent speakers.
The season opens Friday, Oct. 3, with “Stop Making Sense,” a film by Jonathan Demme and Talking Heads. Talking Heads performed at UC Davis in 1983 as part of the University’s 75th anniversary celebration just days before making the film in Los Angeles.
Now, guitarist and band member Jerry Harrison returns to host a live screening of the band's iconic film, newly restored. He will also lead a question-and-answer session about the band and film.
On Sunday, Oct. 5, Grammy-winning vocalist Ledisi pays tribute to Dinah Washington, the legendary blues and jazz singer. In her newly released tribute album “For Dinah,” Ledisi said, “She gave me permission to move freely, create freely, be a woman in leadership, wear and say what I want.”
In November, Itzhak Perlman returns on the 30th Anniversary tour of “In the Fiddler’s House,” featuring klezmer music that leaves audiences dancing in the aisles. On Tuesday, Nov. 18, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and global advocate for girls’ education Malala Yousafzai will join UC Davis Chancellor May for the Chancellor’s Colloquium.
See the full story and more information about tickets and the rest of the season here.
And at mondaviarts.org
Ives Collective is Shinkoskey Noon Concert Thursday
Noon to 1 p.m., Pitzer Center, UC Davis
Hrabba Atladottir, violin and UC Davis lecturer in music
Susan Freier, viola and Artistic Director of the Ives Collective
Stephen Harrison, cello and Artistic Director of the Ives Collective
Keisuke Nakagoshi, piano
Jean Cras’s luminous String Trio (1926) offers an intimate and evocative sound world. Also included is Brahms’s towering opus 25 Piano Quartet in G Minor (1861), a cornerstone of the chamber music repertoire known for its sweeping passion and the irresistible “Gypsy Rondo” finale.
Program
Jean Cras: Selections from Trio for Violin, Viola, and Cello (1926)
Johannes Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, op. 25 (1861)
Library celebrates ‘Archives Month’ with special exhibits, tours, speakers
Throughout October, libraries and other organizations around the nation highlight the importance of historical records and the work of archivists.
Our own Archives and Special Collections Department has planned several events in recognition of Archives Month.
Oct. 4: Sacramento Archives Crawl
Archives and special collections libraries from throughout the Sacramento region open their doors to the public and showcase their rarely seen holdings during the annual Sacramento Archives Crawl.
Stop by the Archives and Special Collections table at the California State Library from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and meet archivists. On display will be items from UC Davis Library’s new exhibit, Bound in Time.
Crocker presents 'Black Artists in America' on view this Sunday
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, Opens Sunday, Oct. 5, (216 O Street)
The Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, announces its upcoming exhibition Black Artists in America: From the Bicentennial to September 11 on view this Sunday, Oct. 5 through Jan. 11, 2026. Black Artists in America explores works by Black artists made during the transitional moment from the late 1970s to the dawn of the 21st century and includes works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, and more. The exhibition considers the ways in which Black American artists challenged the cultural, environmental, political, racial, and social issues of the last decades of the 20th century.
UC Davis’ Mike Henderson: work on view at Haines Gallery, San Francisco
Mike Henderson, “Truth, Love, and Curiosity”; through Oct. 25, Haines Gallery, Fort Mason Center, 2 Marina Blvd., Building C, San Francisco, 415-397-8114, hainesgallery.com
Haines Gallery presents Mike Henderson: Truth, Love, and Curiosity. Henderson is apioneering Bay Area visual artist, musician and filmmaker. Henderson has been an important figure in the Northern California art scene since the 1960s. Now in his 80s, the artist continues to create works that surprise and challenge our expectations. Named after the impulses that fuel Henderson’s fearlessly inventive practice, Truth, Love, and Curiosity features his gestural, highly tactile oil paintings alongside a selection of his early experimental films.
“When I surrender to the creative process, it turns me into part of what really
matters. No matter how high the highs or how low the lows, these works
came to me through truth, love, and curiosity.” — Mike Henderson
The exhibition focuses on a series of large-scale paintings that Henderson began in 2023. Articulating his uninhibited approach to mark-making, color, and composition, these new works are varied and singular, from the compact, irregular grids in works such as Avalanche (2023-25) to the kinetic orange dashes that skip across Sparks (2024). In Beyond Time (2025), Henderson balances large fields of cream and brown with the occasional patchwork of rainbow-colored striations.
Henderson served on the UC Davis art faculty and was featured in the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem’s exhibition “Before the Fire,” in 2023. It was his first solo museum exhibition in 20 years.
New mural by alum greets Davis visitors
Read the Arts Blog story on the mural in Davis.
Art: All things UC Davis
Catch this Arts Blog from last week for all the details on exhibitions at the Manetti Shrem, The Gorman Museum of Native American Art and the Design Museum.
Media Resources
Arts Blog Editor: Karen Nikos-Rose, kmnikos@ucdavis.edu