Virtual Events For Schools
The Mondavi Center is pleased to continue offering FREE Virtual Events for the 2024-25 season, thanks to our generous donors.
For Black History Month, we are offing two virtual events. Each is suitable for different grade ranges and require separate registration.
Melanie DeMore
Grammy-nominated songwriter, composer and vocal activist
Recommended for grades 2-8
Available February 3-14, 2025
Length: 30 minutes
Three-time Grammy-nominated songwriter, composer and vocal activist Melanie DeMore shares African American Spirituals and Civil Rights songs and examines the power of this music to inspire emotions, build community, and feed people’s spirits during challenging times. A dynamic and engaging guide, Melanie DeMore explores work songs, sorrow and jubilee songs, as well as zipper songs, and encourages us to create our own songs of hope and healing.
The video may be watched at once or in segments over your viewing week. Ms. DeMore also offers a 12-minute bonus video about spirituals and music from the Civil Right Movement titled “About Spiritual and Civil Rights Songs with Melanie DeMore.” First offered in 2022-23, we are pleased to bring this video to you again.
Our students are working on an essay contest for Black History Month and this program provided some great background knowledge from a different perspective. Also, it engaged another learning modality they otherwise wouldn’t have experienced.
3rd/4th grade teacher, Taylor St School, Robla Elementary School District
Grammy-nominated songwriter, composer and vocal activist Melanie DeMore dressed in a white shirt and black vest laughing in front of a glistening body of water.
Adapting History
Recommended for grades 7-12
Available February 3-14, 2025
Length: 40 minutes
Celebrate Black History Month through an oral telling of American music through history and American history through music. From gospel to blues, jazz to R&B, America has produced some of the most innovative music of the 20th century. Although the songs are easy on the ears, their inception occurred in cultural climates that were often discordant. Author and performer Dahlak Brathwaite uses spoken word poetry & hip hop to narrate the sometimes tense, sometimes strained history of our nation. His musical chronicle shows that despite conflict and misunderstanding, we can still be brilliantly creative. All roles in Adapting History are played by Dahlak. The video can be watched in its entirety or in 4 segments.
Dahlak Brathwaite is an award-winning dramatic auteur: playwright, composer, director, filmmaker, and performer who was a 2024 Princess Grace Award recipient. He is a graduate of NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, where he was awarded the Dean’s Full-Tuition Fellowship.
First offered in 2020-21, we are pleased to bring this video to you again.
This program helped students to see how history can be combined with music and acting. They saw that you can learn about history through creative performances like these.
7th & 8th grade teacher, Esparto Middle School, Esparto CA
A character, played by Dahlak Brathwaite, from the video Adapting History
Contact Us
Ruth Rosenberg
Director of Arts Education and Artist Engagement
rrosenberg@ucdavis.edu
530.752.6113
School Matinee Ticket questions:
Madi Miguel
Group Sales Coordinator
mcgrouptickets@ou.ad3.ucdavis.edu
530.754.4658
Other School Matinee questions:
Jennifer Mast
Business Services and Arts Education Coordinator
jmmast@ucdavis.edu
530.754.5431
Thank you to our Arts Education Sponsors
Les and Mary Stephens Dewall
MC Friends K-12 Arts Education Fund