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BlackBox ensemble Thursday, Friday; Arts @ Shields: Afro-Cuban Ensemble

First: a Shinkoskey Noon Concert, Thursday, March 5, 12:05–1 p.m. at the Pitzer Center, free

Named as “ambitious” by TimeOut and The New Yorker, the NYC-based BlackBox Ensemble is a collective of contemporary music performers dedicated to exploring the wide-ranging world of the music of our time. Their name, BlackBox, comes from the many meanings the term holds. In theatre, a black box is a bare, flexible space — four dark walls that can transform into anything, creating an environment ripe for bold experimentation and intimate connection. In science and technology, a black box is a system with known inputs and outputs, but the mystery of what happens inside makes it compelling.

Program

Brittany Green: shift.unravel.BREAK

Baldwin Giang: butterfly, posthumously

Ursula Mamlok: Die Laterne

James Diaz: mil cuartos blancos en linea recta

Julius Eastman: Joy Boy

Arts @ Shields: Afro-Cuban Ensemble Pop Up at the library

Thursday, March 5, 2–3 p.m. at Shields Library, 100 NW Quad, University of California Davis, Brian Rice, director

Take a break from your day to enjoy a pop-up concent. The Afro-Cuban Ensemble studies and performs music from the African-derived folkloric traditions of Cuba, the instruments and techniques of the Yoruba, Bantu, Arara and Iyesa drumming, and song traditions including the bembe, batá, guiro (chekere), as well as Cuban secular music such as Rumba, La Conga, Conga Santiago.

BlackBox Ensemble: Friday Concert

Artists in Residence, Friday, March 6, 5–6:30 p.m. at the Pitzer Center

Program

Jessie Cox: Quantify

Evan Wright: Songs for the People PREMIERE

Colin Minigan: The Shoe Thief PREMIERE

Brittany Green: Maps

Zoë Wallace: L’Horlage / Charles Baudelaire PREMIERE

Max Gibson: breathing in shimmering stardust left by exploding constellations of a moment (a microscopic moment of love) 

Joseph Donald Peterson: Wood Grain Pieces: Redwood Premiere

Colloquium explores intersection of art history, climate change

Templeton Colloquium, Friday, March 6 , 4 p.m., Manetti Shrem Museum of Art

The intersection between climate change and art history opens new pathways for understanding how visual and material culture mediates human relationships to the natural world. The 2026 Templeton Colloquium in Art History at 51�ԹϺ��� Davis — “Art History and Climate Change” —- examines how historical and contemporary depictions of nature illuminate aesthetic practices, register environmental knowledge, and respond to ecological stress. 

The colloquium will be held at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art on Friday, March 6 at 4 p.m. with a reception to follow. The event is free and open to the public.

This year’s event has been organized and moderated by John F. López, Associate Professor of Art History, Architecture of the Ancient Americas, Latin America, and Europe, and History of Urbanism, Cartography, and the Environment, 51�ԹϺ��� Davis. 

Far from being a luxury of elite culture, art history is an essential tool for imagining alternative ecological futures..” -— John F. López.

This year’s speakers — Alan C. Braddock, Ralph H. Wark Professor of Art History, Environmental Humanities and American Studies. William and Mary; and Andrew Patrizio, Professor of Scottish Visual Culture, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh, — examine how art history is key for understanding and addressing climate change.

In "Art and the Climate of Industrial Meat," Braddock examines an emerging body of creative work by artists who have begun to direct attention at the meat industry as an agent of climate violence using diverse media, historical references, and other aesthetic strategies. In “Looking for Love in Chaos Terrains," Patrizio draws on a small set of contemporary art practices that speak to the theme of global climate change: Ilana Halperin's Chaos Terrain (2023); Hanna Tuulikki's Love (Warbler Remix) (2025) and Elizabeth Ogilvie's Out of Ice (2014-).

Co-sponsored by the Department of Art and Art History and the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, the colloquium is made possible through an endowment established by Alan Templeton (B.A., art history and psychology, ‘82). The Templeton Colloquium brings distinguished speakers to campus for a conversation on vital debates and topics in art history for both scholars and a general audience.

The Department of Art and Art History is part of the College of Letters and Science at 51�ԹϺ��� Davis. 

Make your own art at Manetti Shrem Museum

Art Spark: Spinning Spiral Sculptures
Begins this Saturday: March 7, 14, 21 & 28
1-4 p.m.

Drop by the Carol and Gerry Parker Art Studio at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art for an afternoon of art making inspired by works on view in the museum. This month, create a sculpture with found objects on a spiral wire base that twirls, inspired by The Elephant in the Room and other works in . All materials are provided. 

Mondavi Center for the Performing Art this weekend

Sphinx Virtuosi with Randall Goosby, violin, offer conductorless chamber orchestra

Thursday, March 5, 7:30 p.m., Jackson Hall

As the nation’s leading nonprofit dedicated to transforming lives through the arts, the ensemble expands the reach of classical music through purposeful programming and community engagement.

Joined by acclaimed violinist Randall Goosby, who returns after his stunning debut performance with the London Philharmonic Orchestra last season, their robust program incorporates a thoughtfully curated mix of new and classic pieces.

More .

Concert Bands of 51�ԹϺ��� Davis play Saturday

Saturday, March 7, 7–9 p.m. at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts

Program

• Campus Band Blue – Matthew Okumoto, conductor
• Frank Ticheli: Abracadabra
• Omar Thomas: Shenandoah (arr.)
• John Mackey: Undertow

Campus Band Gold – Garrett Rigsby, conductor

Roshanne Etezady: Parhelion

Eric Whitacre: Sleep

Joe Hisaishi: Spirited Away

arr. Kazuhiro Morita

— INTERMISSION

51�ԹϺ��� Davis Concert Band – Pete Nowlen, conductor

Percy Fletcher: Vanity Fair

Reena Esmail: Chamak (चमक)

Malcolm Argent: Four Scottish Dances, op. 59

arr. John P. Paynter

Nubia Jaime-Donjuan Hermosillo: Tundra

Joined by acclaimed violinist Randall Goosby, who returns after his stunning debut performance with the London Philharmonic Orchestra last season, their robust program incorporates a thoughtfully curated mix of new and classic pieces. 

Ivalas Quartet plays Vanderhoef Studio Theatre Sunday

Vanderhoef studio theatre, Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, 2:30 and 7 p.m., Sunday

With a mission to enrich the classical music world by spotlighting past and present BIPOC composers alongside the standard repertory, The Ivalas Quartet served as the Graduate Resident String Quartet at The Juilliard School from 2022 to 2024. They were previously in residence at the University of Colorado-Boulder under the mentorship of the Takács Quartet.

In their Mondavi Center debut, the ensemble will perform Haydn’s String Quartet No. 4 “Sunrise”, known for its rising theme and perfect blend of elegance and innovation. They’ll also present Derrick Skye’s Deliverance, a recent transcultural work that fuses Persian classical melodies with rhythms from West and North Africa, creating a rich, cross-cultural musical experience. The program will conclude with Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 13, a profound exploration that moves from introspective depth to the sweeping energy of its reworked finale.

Coming up ...

At Mondavi Center 

Poet, Memoirist Javier Zamora featured in Campus Community Book Project

 Tuesday, March 10, 7:30 p.m., Jackson Hall

Memoirist, poet, and speaker Javier Zamora believes that immigrants must keep ownership of their own stories.

In his award-winning memoir, Solito, he explores his harrowing journey to the U.S. as an unaccompanied 9-year-old that gives a unique and unforgettable glimpse into the realities of child migration.

Accompanied only by strangers and a hired “coyote,” he left his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with his mother and father in the United States. The three-thousand-mile journey is supposed to last two weeks but stretched into two life-altering months spent among strangers turned guardians as they traveled to the United States.

Narrated by his 9-year-old self, Zamora’s memoir, Solito, provides an intimate account of his near-impossible journey and the unexpected moments of kindness, love, and joy scattered across perilous boat trips, desert treks, arrests and betrayals.

51�ԹϺ��� Davis Choirs perform works by living composers

Friday, March 13 , 7 p.m. in the Ann E. Pitzer Center, 51�ԹϺ��� Davis

The choruses perform choral works ideal for the acoustics of the intimate Pitzer Center. 

The repertoire incorporates several different choral traditions and languages, from Latin, to Haitian Creole, to Korean and Portuguese. The program concludes with “World O World” from the “Djesse” music project by the five-time Grammy Award-winning composer Jacob Collier.

The program includes premieres graduate student composers Colin Minigan, Flowers, and

James Larkins, Our Two Souls. In addition, there will be a premiere of a new work by Professor Kurt Rohde and a performance of a choral work by Pablo Ortiz, professor emeritus.

The concert also includes performances of Rosephanye Powell’s Non nobis, Domine, Hyo Won-Woo’s Cum Sancto Spiritu, Sydney Guillaume’s Tchaka, Jacob Narverud’s Ad Astra, and Daniel Afonso’s Boa Noite, Minha Gente.

Tickets are $12 51�ԹϺ��� Davis students; $15.50 children (under 18), $24 faculty/staff $27.50 and regular (reserved seating). Tickets are available at the Mondavi Center Ticket Office in person or by calling 530-754-2787 between noon and 5 p.m., Tuesday through Friday. Tickets are also available online at MondaviArts.org.

For more information about the Department of Music in the College of Letters and Science at 51�ԹϺ��� Davis, visit arts.ucdavis.edu/music.