A world premiere along with classics by Brahms and Ravel are performed by the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra in a program titled “New Frontiers” at the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts on Mar. 9 at 7 p.m.
The concert, conceived of and conducted by orchestra music director and music professor Christian Baldini, includes “in the valley of the shadow” by Maya Miro Johnson. In the work, which was commissioned by the orchestra, the composer approaches music composition from an interdisciplinary space, as she says, “without restraint, and often concerning unanswerable questions about the human condition and its biological systems.”
A performance of Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major features local pianist Roger Xia as soloist. Xia performed on NPR’s “From the Top,” recorded in Davis in 2016. Ravel used virtuosity as the main ingredient in his G-Major Piano Concerto, with — at times — flavors of jazz, and elements of Stravinsky and Saint Saëns.
A graduate of Davis Senior High School, Xia has studied with Linda Beaulieu and Natsuki Fukasawa. He made his Carnegie Hall debut at age 10 and won top prizes at the Mondavi Center’s Young Artist Competition and Bouchaine Young Artists Series. He has also appeared with the Palo Alto Philharmonic, Camellia Symphony Orchestra, and at the Bear Valley Music Festival, the Junior Bach Festival and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI) Summer Program.
The concert also includes Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 1, which took the composer more than two decades to write. The result was a new symphonic form that arced towards the final movement rather than entirely rising from the first movement.
The UC Davis Symphony Orchestra’s 2023–2024 season continues with guest artists from the International Conductors Guild who lead the orchestra in a program featuring opera overtures among other works on May 4. The season ends June 1 with Antonín Dvořák’s Seventh Symphony and the premiere of a new work by alumna Aida Shirazi (Ph.D., music, ‘21).
Tickets are $24 for adults and $12 for students and youth. 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 Tickets.MondaviArts.org.
For more information about the College of Letters and Science’s Department of Music and future performances, visit arts.ucdavis.edu/music.
