UC Davis is making for a very musical spring, with six concerts from this weekend through June 2 on campus and in the city of Davis, and a world premiere during the 66th Prague Spring International Music Festival.

The premiere is scheduled for this Sunday (May 22): Professor Pablo Ortiz’s Garden Songs, in a concert by American soprano Dawn Upshaw.

The Terezín Music Foundation commissioned the work: a song cycle based on the writing of 2003 U.S. Poet Laureate Louise Gluck. The concert is set to take place in Dvorák Hall at the Rudolfinum.

Ortiz, who joined the UC Davis music faculty in 1994, boasts an international resume that also includes festivals in Austria, Brazil, Cuba, Germany, Mexico and Switzerland.

The Buenos Aires Philharmonic, the Arditti String Quartet, the Ensemble Contrechamps of Geneva, Music Mobile, Continuum, Les Percussions de Strasbourg and the Theatre of Voices are among the orchestras that have performed his music.

Ortiz, who teaches composition, received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1993 and the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1996. The academy honored him again in 2008.

His recent premieres include Heat Wave, written for Joel Sachs and the New Juilliard Ensemble, Suomalainen tango for orchestra by the Orquestra Nacional de Catalunya and Trois tangos en marge by the Kovacik, Dann, Karttunen trio at the Museo Nacional Reina Sofia in Madrid.

Closer to home

Early Music Ensemble — Works by Italian Baroque composers Claudio Monteverdi and Giovanni Sances. Professor David Nutter directs the ensemble of approximately 30 singers, with guest musicians David Morris, cello; Cheryl Fulton, harp; and Steve Lehning, viola da gamba. 7 p.m. Saturday, May 21, Davis Community Church, 412 C St.

Baroque Ensemble, with the Davis High School Baroque Ensemble — Works by Vivaldi, Soler, Handel, Geminiani and Mozart. 3 p.m. Sunday, May 22, Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, Mondavi Center.

Empyrean Ensemble: New Music from Davis — Premiering the works of graduate student composers. 7 p.m. Monday, May 23, Vanderhoef Studio Theatre. Preconcert talk with the composers and Kurt Rohde, the ensemble's co-director. The program:

• Hendel Almetus — Combite for String Quartet
• Gabriel Bolaños — Two Daguerreotypes for String Quartet
• Ben Irwin — Projection
• Scott Perry — Three Spells
• Garrett Shatzer — Lament: Verse I for String Quartet
• Liam Wade — Food Twenty Eleven for Odd Quartet
• Ching-Yi Wang — String Quartet No. 3

Jazz Bands: Guest Artists — Featuring composer, arranger and saxophonist Gregory Yasinitsky, along with Carlos Medrano on congas and Tim Acosta on trumpet. 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 25, Vanderhoef Studio Theatre. The program includes:

• Jerome Kern — All the Things You Are
• Henry Mancini — Dreamsville
• Maurice White — September
• Plus three works by Yasinitsky and several pieces by Delbert Bump, who directs the UC Daviz Jazz Bands: the "big band" and the smaller combo

Yasinitsky, who has performed with such artists as Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Louis Bellson and Stan Getz, is a Regents Professor of Music at Washington State University, and in June will become director of WSU's School of Music.

Concert Band: Earth Songs — Celebrating the biological, ecological and agricultural sciences. Also: a tribute to the bicycle, featuring well-known bicycle tunes. 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 1, Jackson Hall.

Symphony Orchestra — Family Concert, featuring the winners of the orchestra's 2011 Concerto Competition and the Composition Award. 7 p.m. Thursday, June 2, Jackson Hall. The program:

• Beethoven — Leonore Overture No. 3
• Bolaños — Cerro Negro
• Beethoven — Allegro moderato from Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, with Han-ah Sumner, piano
• Strauss — Emperor Waltz

Tickets for all concerts except the Early Music Ensemble are available online, or by visiting or calling the Mondavi Center box office, (530) 754-2787 or (866) 754-2787. Box office hours: noon-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Admission to the Early Music Ensemble concert is by suggested donations at the door.