Noon concert features music of Haydn, Schubert, Mozart

This week's Shinkoskey Noon Concert features George Hayes, violin; István Polonyi, viola; Susan Lamb Cook, cello; Sandra McPherson, clarinet; and Hrabba Atladottir, violin performing Joseph Haydn's String Trio in G Major, Franz Schubert's "Allegro" from String Trio in B-Flat Major, D. 471 and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Clarinet Quintet in A Major.  Thursday, May 7 at 12:05 p.m. in the Ann E. Pitzer Center. Free and open to all.

Ongoing Art Exhibitions at UC Davis

Fabric remnants, paper, wood scrap, thread, bits of hardware and discarded notions from consumer culture accumulate energy and presence as she stitches, bundles, cuts, recuts, patches, layers and folds – sorting possibilities while watching for a move. Tulle is foundational to Couzens’s constructions. 

She uses it like paint, its transparency and nuanced palette kindle the senses, sending shivers that deliberately undermine Date Night notions of femininity. Although tulle is a fragile medium, heaviness and density can be felt, identities dissolve into pure form, color fields float and flow, calling our sensibilities to dance. For Couzens, questions have a longer life than answers and she intentionally leaves work on pause, the mind and senses continuously elicited and circulating. When she sticks the landing, in irritated fits of resistance to her considerable stockpile of formal conclusions, she pivots, renegotiating the heightened space of charged ambiguity. In these fraught days of divisiveness, such states beckon reverie, holding space on its generous higher ground.

Julia Couzens (b 1947) earned a MA from the California State University, Sacramento, in 1987 and her MFA from the University of California, Davis, in 1990. Her drawings, sculpture, and textile constructions have been shown nationally and internationally in over twenty solo and two-person exhibitions, and over one hundred group exhibitions.

Auburn symphony celebrates anniversary Sunday at Mondavi Center; more next week

The Auburn Symphony travels to the Mondavi Center in celebration of their 38th season finale

3 p.m. Sunday, May 10, Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts

Under the baton of Maestro Ryan Murray, they will perform Ethyl Smyth’s The Wreckers Overture, followed by two of the most popular pieces in the symphonic repertoire. Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 will feature local rising star Parker Van Ostrand, currently a student at the San Francisco Conservatory studying under Garrick Ohlsson and Yoshikazu Nagai, and finishing with the gorgeous Camille Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony featuring Dr. Faythe Vollrath. More information and tickets.

Ryan Murray, conductor
Parker Van Ostrand, piano
Faythe Vollrath, organ

More next week: double header of music in two theatres

Next week

Book talk features authors on Japanese folklore; 17^th century France

Manetti Shrem Museum, Tuesday, May 12, 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Claire Goldstein
In the Sun King’s Cosmos: Comets and the Cultural Imagination of Seventeenth-Century France

Michael Dylan Foster
The Book of Yōkai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore

Join in celebrating the creativity, scholarship and innovation of recently published UC Davis faculty authors. This ongoing series includes presentations, audience Q&A and light refreshments. 

Claire Goldstein, professor of French and Italian, discusses In the Sun King’s Cosmos, her engaging study of how comets shaped scientific, political and cultural imagination in 17th century France. Michael Dylan Foster, professor of Japanese, presents the expanded edition of The Book of Yōkai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore exploring the history and ongoing cultural life of Japan’s supernatural beings. 

Covered is presented by the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum and UC Davis Library. The partnership is part of Elevate the Arts, a campus-wide initiative fostering collaboration among UC Davis faculty in the arts to support and amplify one another’s work.

Coming up

Spring concerts start next week with Empyrean Ensemble

In the final weeks of spring quarter 2026, the UC Davis Department of Music offers a variety of concerts and events that are sure to engage and entertain. From jazz to bluegrass to mariachi, there is something for everyone. 

First up several free performances begin on Saturday, May 16 with a concert by the Empyrean Ensemble, the department’s professional new music ensemble in residence. Conducted by Matilda Hofman, the program includes premieres by UC Davis graduate student composers Alejandro Arreola, Patricia Bartow, Peter Chatterjee, Paul Engle, Max Gibson, and Guang Yang. Concert begins at 7 p.m. in the Pitzer Center. 

We will keep you up on more events in this spring concert series next week and beyond in the Arts Blog.