• ϲϿ Davis Concert Band and Campus Band: Earth Songs — Celebrating the biological, ecological and agricultural sciences. Also: a tribute to the bicycle, featuring well-known bicycle tunes. 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 1, Jackson Hall.
• ϲϿ Davis Symphony Orchestra — Family Concert, featuring the winners of the orchestra's 2011 Concerto Competition and the Composition Award. 7 p.m. Thursday, June 2, Jackson Hall.
• Alexander String Quartet — Beethoven's String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132, and String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135. This is the last of the quartet's four concert dates in the Mondavi Center's 2010-11 season, and brings to a close the quartet's three-year Mondavi Center cycle of performing all of Beethoven’s string quartets. 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday, June 5, Vanderhoef Studio Theatre. Postperformance question-and-answer session with quartet members. The 2 p.m. concert is sold out; check with the box office about the waiting list.
• Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra — The “greatest large jazz ensemble working today,” according to the Chicago Tribune, draws from an extensive repertoire, including original works by Marsalis, Ted Nash and other members of the group. Marsalis, trumpeter, and the orchestra’s leader and music director, received the Pulitzer Prize in music in 1997 — becoming the first jazz artist to be so honored. He earned the prize for Blood on the Fields, a commissioned work for Jazz at Lincoln Center, the orchestra’s parent organization (with Marsalis as artistic director). 8 p.m. Saturday, June 18, Jackson Hall.
• Pink Martini — A 12-member band that draws inspiration jazz, classical, old-fashioned pop and the romantic Hollywood musicals of the 1940s and ’50s — with a more global perspective. As Pink Martini bandleader and pianist Thomas Lauderdale said, “If the United Nations had a house band in 1962, then hopefully we’d be that band.” Pink Martini’s latest album is Splendour in the Grass, described as a virtual carnival of musical influences, with one grand purpose: to rebuild a culture that sings and dances. 8 p.m. Tuesday, July 5, Jackson Hall.
• Return to Forever IV — The much honored jazz-rock fusion ensemble is making one of its storied returns to action, almost 40 years after appearing on the scene. Driven once again by the powerful engine of Chick Corea’s keyboards, Stanley Clarke’s bass and Lenny White’s drums, RTF IV takes to the road in the company of French violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, veteran of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Australian guitarist Frank Gambale, described by the Mondavi Center as "fiery-fingered." Zappa Plays Zappa — founded by Dweezil Zappa, son of the late Frank Zappa — shares the bill. 8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 21, Jackson Hall.
Tickets are available , or by visiting or calling the Mondavi Center box office, (530) 754-2787 or (866) 754-2787. Box office hours: noon-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday, and one hour before ticketed events.
Media Resources
Dave Jones, Dateline, 530-752-6556, dljones@ucdavis.edu