CONVOCATION ...

Archived webcast

Piano solo: Grace Zhao, piano award winner in the junior division of the Mondavi Center’s 2011 Young Artists Competition

Mondavi Center: A Home for the Arts (video)

... AND CELEBRATION

Close to 4,500 freshmen and transfers cheer and text their way through the New Student Celebration. See separate story.

Fall Convocation this week honored the arts as an integral part of UC Davis — for science and art majors alike, for people on campus and off — allowing everyone to experience the full emotions of life and build a better civilization.

“The arts not only help our students find human significance in their life and work, but they inspire the community to elevate the quality of life for us all,” Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi said in her fourth convocation — the traditional launch of the new academic year.

“The arts enable us to see life more clearly, inspiring us to think and reflect as few other pursuits can.”

An estimated 1,100 people — including faculty, staff, students and university friends — attended the "Celebrate the Arts!" convocation Sept. 24 in Jackson Hall at the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. Watch the archived webcast.

The chancellor and other speakers cited the Mondavi Center’s opening 10 years ago as a game-changing development in the arts at UC Davis and in the greater community, and spoke of two more arts construction projects in the wings:

The Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art —Groundbreaking is set for 2014, said Jessie Ann Owens, dean of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies. Much work will take place before then, to define the museum's mission, develop educational and exhibition programming, and build audiences.

Rachel Teagle, the newly hired museum director, is asking for the public's input in the development process, at a series of forums:

• Faculty and staff — 4-5 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 11, Nelson Gallery (in Nelson Hall)
• Students — 4-5 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 18, Nelson Gallery
• Community — 6:30-8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 17, U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame, 303 Third St. (at B Street), Davis

The museum will join the Mondavi Center at the campus's south entry; specifically, the museum will be on the south side of Vanderhoef Quad.

The Classroom and Music Recital Hall — Old buildings on the construction site, on the east side of the Music Building, are due to be torn down next month. The timeline calls for the design to be finished and the architect chosen by January.

Philanthropic support

Philanthropy is important to both projects, just as it was for the Mondavi Center, named after donors Robert and Margrit Mondavi. Robert’s name is on the Institute for Wine and Food Science, his and Margrit's names are on the performing arts center, and, since Robert’s death, Margrit has donated to the museum project.

Speaking at the convocation, Mondavi said she and her husband always believed that wine, food and the arts enhance the quality of life. Art is “an expression of emotions that you have, and something that you take with you all your life,” she said.

“And when I see the young people here, oh, please, give them a chance to have that feeling for art in so many forms.”

Those “young people” include students who are in the Mondavi Center frequently — during convocation (in the audience and on stage, performing), and during the school year (as performers and audience members). In addition, the center puts on matinees for schoolchildren (more than 100,000 in the last 10 years).

Total attendance, by people of all ages, surpassed 1 million people during the same period.

“From a quiet moment during a jazz solo or a string quartet to the spectacle of last spring’s Snow White, aerial feats and all, we’ve shared profound exciting and moving moments with our students, friends, neighbors and colleagues,” said Don Roth, the center’s executive director.

Less obviously, he said, the Mondavi Center is the catalyst for individual transformations almost daily:

• In the UC Davis student given the opportunity to perform on a world-class stage.
• In a child whose eyes open in wonder at a first school matinee or a classroom visit from a world-renowned artist.
• In the lifelong arts patron who finds a brand-new way into a favorite work.
• In the aspiring musician who receives tips from the likes of Yo-Yo Ma or Delfeayo Marsalis in a master class.

Shawyon Malek, a senior who serves as concertmaster of the Symphony Orchestra, said the building itself is an inspiration, nourishing his artistic and personal growth.

“Whenever I come inside the Mondavi Center, whenever I walk by the Mondavi Center … I’m simply inspired, not only musically (but) as a person, to really strive to be the best and to make the best of what I could possibly do,” the violinist said in a video presentation about the center.

“Because when you have such a great venue it really does kind of make you psychologically raise your bar, no matter what you do.”

Dance and music

The convocation program also included Professor Peter Lichtenfels’ tribute to his theatre and dance colleague, Professor Della Davidson, who died in March; and a music performance by the Gamelan Ensemble, led by Henry Spiller, associate professor and chair of the Department of Music.

The word "gamelan," Spiller told Dateline UC Davis, refers to a unified collection of musical instruments, mostly made of bronze, that are characteristic of the many musical traditions of Java and Bali in Indonesia.

"Gamelan music is characterized by rhythmic cycles articulated on the larger gong instruments and interlocking melodic parts on the smaller instruments," said Spiller, adding that the UC Davis Gamelan Ensemble focuses on the musical styles from West Java.

Dean Owen asked the audience: “Why do we have a gamelan at UC Davis? Indeed, why study the arts at all — in a university known for its outstanding vet school and path-breaking research in agriculture or health or energy and sustainability?”

She said students are drawn to the gamelan for many reasons: to learn about their own culture, or to experience an entirely different way of making music. Some are music majors, but many are not.

“But I can guarantee you that each student has discovered something about what it means to listen,” she said, “to be part of a greater whole, to focus intently, in the moment, on the creation of sound.”

“The magic of what we offer at UC Davis is that you can never predict what the experience of playing in the gamelan will mean for our students. In fact, Henry Spiller first encountered the gamelan as a freshman at UC Santa Cruz, and now he’s a world expert!”

“The study of the arts is part of the great mission of discovery that defines UC Davis — discovery and experimentation and service.”

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