Student Voices

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Student Voices

Being Creative at Home During COVID-19

While COVID-19 disrupted my life and routines by cutting my senior year of high school short and forcing the cancellation of events like choral performances, it also presented me with an interesting opportunity: time, with which I could do whatever I wanted.

Art studio major Rocio Perez installs an art piece about people being more present in nature

Calling All UC Davis Student Creatives

During this unprecedented time, the Mondavi Center wants to hear from UC Davis students about the various ways that they are staying creative during COVID-19 while learning and working remotely.

UC Davis Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster on Preparing for Rising Stars of Opera

Devon Bradshaw is concertmaster for the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra. She began playing with the orchestra as a UC Davis student and graduated in 2017 with a double major: a B.S. in statistics and a B.A. in music.

Mondavi Center Staff Picks: Jose Espinoza

The Mondavi Center staff is a diverse team with many interests, but all of us share a passion for the performing arts. As we look forward to the 2019-20 season, we'll be posting videos featuring staff members talking about the three shows they are most looking forward to seeing next season.

What Does It Mean to be Royal?

"If you are like me when it comes to certain orchestras, such as the one we have the pleasure of hearing on April 6, you may ask yourself: How does something earn the title of 'royal'?" UC Davis musicology Ph.D. student Jonathan Minnick shares a history lesson about how ensembles earn this special designation.

Student Voices: The Expressive Silence of World Music

No matter what languages we speak, we will never speak them all—and that’s when we let music do the talking.

Student Voices: Revitalizing the Jazz Brass Audience Connection

“Even now it feels like the performers are the only ones who understand what’s going on, and the audience is just a witness,” Sammy said in our interview. “That never made sense to me because the audience is there, and to pretend like they’re not there is to not include them in the experience. So we try to make them a part of every step.”

Student Voices: Fifty Years On (Part Two): A Personal Topography of Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks

It would not be an overstatement to say Morrison provided the soundtrack to my freshman year. Other musicians certainly contributed, often thanks to me seeing them at the Mondavi Center, but none had the same staying power as Morrison, and especially his 1968 album, Astral Weeks, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of its release this month.

Student Voices: Fifty Years On (Part One): Two Rock Albums to Remember from 1968

In a previous post, I wrote about two definitively American musicians, Bob Dylan and Sammy Miller. In keeping with that post’s comparison of American and British music, I now turn to two definitively British musical groups, the Beatles and the Kinks.

Student Voices: Institutional Infinity - The Power of Musical Patronage

With the right outlook, nonprofits should be able to provide commissioned artists not with a rigid set of expectations, but a nexus and an impetus to create art on their own terms and with their own idiosyncrasies. SFJazz showed me the power of that potential. With the infinitude of the universe for inspiration, how could musicians find the act of being commissioned anything but liberating?