Maestro, please! The new music season

by Dave Jones
September 18, 2009

The UC Davis Symphony Orchestra and its new conductor, Christian Baldini, launch the Department of Music’s 2009-10 season on Sept. 23 when the orchestra performs at Fall Convocation.

The convocation, in Jackson Hall at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, begins at 10 a.m., but the orchestra starts playing about 10 to 15 minutes before that.

Then, on Oct. 4, the orchestra is due to accompany American soprano Christine Brewer during her concert at the Mondavi Center.

The music department’s new season, announced Sept. 1, also features the University Concert Band and University Chorus, Jazz Bands, Gospel Choir, Baroque Ensemble and Empyrean Ensemble.

Special events include a Violin Festival (and two concerts), The American Piano project (in collaboration with the Mondavi Center) and an Indonesian shadow-puppet play featuring UC Berkeley’s Gamelan Sari Raras.

Baldini, a composer as well as a conductor, comes to UC Davis from the Symphony Orchestra of the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he served as conductor and music director. At UC Davis, Baldini succeeds D. Kern Holoman as symphony director and conductor; Holoman stepped down after 30 years, and continues as a professor in the music department.

Free noon concerts

The music department announced that it will continue its free noonhour concerts in 2009-10—with 12 of them during the fall quarter, 10 on Thursdays and two on Tuesdays. Most of the noon concerts will be in 115 Music Building, but the fall quarter also includes several programs in the Rumsey Rancheria Grand Lobby of the Mondavi Center.

In fact, the season’s first first free noon concert—by the Davis Summer Symphony—is scheduled to take place in the Grand Lobby.

The Summer Symphony comprises UC Davis students and community members, including several high school students, led by David Moeschler, a Master of Arts candidate in conducting.

The Summer Symphony’s program: Tim Follin’s Akrillic (arranged by Paul Watkins) from the Super Nintendo game Plok; Robert Schumann’s Allegro affettuoso from the Piano Concerto in A Minor, with ChiaWei Lin, piano; and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 in Bb Major.