Photo by Ivan Otis
"This just in" — The Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts at UC Davis is receiving a $400,000 award from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support innovative performances in classical music, residencies by major American orchestras, and festivals connected to academic programs.
This is the second time the center is receiving a Mellon Foundation performing arts grant. In 2011 the center was awarded $580,000 for similar initiatives. Earlier this year UC Davis was awarded $1.725 million from the Mellon Foundation to support research in the humanities during the next seven years.
Don Roth, executive director of the Mondavi Center, says:
This generous grant supports our belief in the power and beauty of classical music to enrich lives. It will give us the opportunity to deepen our work to engage audience members with classical music by supporting nontraditional and less formal concert formats, by collaborating with UC Davis artists and faculty to create exciting multifaceted music festivals, and by creating major artist residencies that bring community members and artists in closer contact.
Photo by Janette Beckman
With the award, the center this fall will expand its Visions series of cross-disciplinary and affordably priced programs spanning classical, contemporary, and world music with multimedia elements. Building on the informal setting of the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, the Mondavi Center will construct digital sets displaying content unique to these performances and created in collaboration with the artists.
The four groups, each giving two performances, will be the So Percussion ensemble, Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq; Phillipe Sly and John-Charles Britton performing Schubert lieder arranged for bass-baritone and guitar; and an exploration of 20th-century American music from cellist Zuill Bailey and pianist Lara Downes.
Support from the grant will also help fund several festivals with UC Davis academic units, including the 2014–2015 Music and Words Festival with the Department of Music and a partnership with Native American Studies, both early next year. Music and Words will include a residency by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Melinda Wagner, performances of new works by composer fellowship winners and Bob Ostertag, UC Davis professor of cinema and technocultural studies; as well as participation by the Empyrean Ensemble.