Weekender: Glassblowing Artist, Violin, Opera and More

Get Your Art on Thursday Through Sunday; Most Events Free

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Photos of blown glass with black frame
Josiah McElheny, "From the Library of Doubles II," 2022. Hand-blown, cut, polished, and mirrored glass; low-iron mirror and two-way mirror, electric light; walnut frame. (Courtesy photo)

Attend talk by glassblowing artist Josiah McElheny

Thursday, Feb. 1, 4:30 - 6 p.m. in the Community Room, Manetti Shrem Museum of Art

Josiah McElheny is an expert glassblower whose installations, sculpture, paintings and films engage with the history of his medium and the history of ideas, with a particular interest in the fields of literature, architecture, music theory and astronomy. His works often combine glass, or mirror with other materials, to emphasize the importance of the act of looking “as a subject in and of itself.” He has received numerous awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship, The 15th Rakow Commission at The Corning Museum of Glass and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Award. McElheny has exhibited widely, including selected solo exhibitions at Cantor Art Center at Stanford University, Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University, Houston and Madison Square Park, New York.

Organized by The Manetti Shrem California Studio in the Department of Art and Art History. Co-sponsored by the Manetti Shrem Museum.  

For more information visit Josiah McElheny at the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art

Two musicians in black and white portrait, side by side

Listen to the Lehman Duo play violin, viola

Thursday, Feb. 1, 12:05-1 p.m., Anne E. Pitzer Center, free

A Shinkoskey Noon Concert

Playing chamber music with friends is one of life’s greatest pleasures. The give and take, the exchange of opinions, and the search for an end result that is more than the sum of its parts are all rewards for the hard work and sometimes chaotic and quarrelsome rehearsal process. Playing chamber music with your spouse intensifies the experience in a very singular way. Although the rehearsal process may require perhaps a greater deal of diplomacy, tact, and understanding than working with “colleagues,” the payoff is also greater because you know that your partner, in this case, has your back ’til death do us part’!

Take part in conference: ‘Decentering Opera’

Saturday, Feb. 3, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 4, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. at the Mondavi Center. Register here for free.

This two-day conference investigates different aspects of opera studies, locating opera at the margins or outside traditional centers and modalities of production, consumption and criticism. Decentering Opera is made possible by the Jan and Beta Popper Endowed Professorship in Opera.

Basement Gallery Ball Opening Event

Feb. 2, 5-8 p.m.

Basement Gallery, Art Building

This event will be a night of extravagance, elegance, and of course, art.

Undergraduate students will exhibit work that displays wild decoration, vibrant colors, and exaggerated expressions evocative of the Carnival of Venice.

Visitors and artists are invited to wear their wildest outfits with a mask to match. 

More information here.

Get free tickets for Rising Stars of Opera

Sunday, Feb. 4, 2 p.m., The Mondavi Center, Jackson Hall, free but ticketed event

Since its inception in 2010, Rising Stars of Opera has featured vocal artistry, stirring arias and a glimpse at the opera stars of tomorrow; and every ticket has been free to the public thanks to the generosity of Barbara K. Jackson. Today, Rising Stars of Opera features several singers from the acclaimed San Francisco Opera Center performing a wide range of great arias with full orchestral accompaniment from our own UC Davis Symphony Orchestra.

This event is free, but requires tickets to be reserved here.

Watch a short clip here: Rising Stars: The Adler Fellows at San Francisco Opera

Art Spark: every weekend

  • Saturdays and Sundays, 1-4 p.m., Manetti Shrem Museum of Art

Spark your creativity this winter with an afternoon in the Carol and Gerry Parker Art Studio, where you can explore a different theme each month connected to the art on view in the museum.

February: Watery Worlds

Explore water-based mediums to create collaborative artworks that will continue to shift and evolve over the month, with environments and figures prompted by the style of Shiva Ahmadi.

Special Event: ‘Comics, Identity, Representation’ at Design Museum

Saturday, Feb. 6, 6-8:30 p.m., the UC Davis Design Museum, Room 1002, Cruess Hall. The event is free but participants must register here.

In conjunction with the UC Davis Design Museum exhibition  “STILL…Racism in America: A Retrospective in Cartoons,” the School of Education’s Expanding Equity in Educational Research Speaker Series offers a presentation by Enrique García and an interview discussion with cartoonist Barbara Brandon-Croft and exhibition curator Tara Nakashima Donahue on “Comics, Identity & Representation.” Moderated by the School of Education’s Darnel Degand, the program explores how comics have evolved beyond entertainment to become powerful voices that can educate and inspire readers.

Moderated by the School of Education’s Darnel Degand, the program explores how comics have evolved beyond entertainment to become powerful voices that can educate and inspire readers.

triptych of photos of speakers

Coming up next week

The Mondavi Center Presents Lakecia Benjamin and Phoenix Playing Jazz

Thursday, Feb. 8 - Saturday, Feb. 10, 7:30 p.m., The Mondavi Center’s Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, tickets starting at $45

Lakecia Benjamin was voted 2020 Downbeat Critics Poll Rising Star Alto Saxophonist and Up and Coming Artist of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association.

A charismatic and dynamic performer who has played alongside Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, The Roots, Macy Gray and many more, Benjamin also has an inimitable skill of fusing traditional conceptions of jazz, hip hop and soul in her original songs. For this Studio debut, Benjamin features the quartet from her 2023 release Phoenix, an album that featured cameos by some of Benjamin’s heroes including Wayne Shorter, Angela Davis, Dianne Reeves and Patrice Rushen.

See a clip of her here Lakecia Benjamin Quartet Spiral

Get tickets: Lakecia Benjamin and Phoenix | Mondavi Center

Ongoing exhibits

By Any Means Necessary: Marginalized Students Give Voice in the Third World

Through April 22, Shields Library, located in the north side of the lobby on the main level of the Shields Library in front of Archives and Special Collections, free

Poster for library collection display in aged paper, blue and black

By Any Means Necessary: Marginalized Students Give Voice in the Third World Forum is an exhibition highlighting a student-run, student-produced, student-published newspaper at UC Davis. Starting off as the Third World News in 1970, the newspaper informed and educated students about the Third World movement, as well as provided a platform, a “place of refuge and ‘common ground’ for people of color” to voice their concerns and express themselves and the struggle for justice on the Davis campus.

Third World Forum encourages student and community involvement in the newspaper by requesting contributions in the form of letters, articles, poetry, art and photography. To provide examples of these contributions, the exhibition also features the photography of the People’s Monitor and Third World Forum staff member, Francisco Dominguez, whose newly acquired collection of photographs are in line to be processed by Archives and Special Collections.


For more ongoing exhibits check out Continuing UC Davis Museum Exhibitions Winter 2024

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Arts Blog Editor: Karen Nikos-Rose, kmnikos@ucdavis.edu

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