About Jackson Hall and the Mondavi Center


The UCDavis Symphony Orchestra is resident in the Robert and Margit Mondavi Center for the Arts at UCDavis and presents its concerts in the fabulous art-music venue there, W. Turrentine and Barbara K. Jackson Hall. From the early 1980s forward the UCDSO and its conductor played a pivotal role in establishing the artistic and financial climate that led to the planning and execution of a Center for the Arts at UCDavis; as pictured above, the orchestra was present at every major turning point in the project. The UCDSO presented the first public event in Jackson Hall: the "Hard Hat Concert" of 28 September 2002 for the builders and their families.

Jackson Hall seats some 1,500 for concerts of classical music. It was designed by BOORA Architects of Portland, Oregon (Stan Boles, FAIA, principal), with acoustic design by Ron McKay of McKay, Conant, Brook of Westlake Village, California; and theatre design by Auerbach and Associates of San Francisco. The general contractor was McCarthy Building Companies, Inc., of St. Louis. The Mondavi Center cost $57 million, approximately half of which was raised through private donations. Ground was broken in May 2000 and the hall opened in September 2002.

The $10-million gift received from Robert and Margrit Mondavi in the summer of 2001 represented the climax of the long campaign to fund the arts center at UCDavis. The legendary winemaker Robert Mondavi—who celebrated his 90th birthday in June 2003—and his wife have an extended relationship with the University, based on their notion that the California wine industry and the Robert Mondavi company could not have succeded as they have done without scientific and technical innovations that originated from Davis. They see fine music, wine, and food as components of the good life, a foundational principle in their philanthropy. The Mondavis are long-time supporters of the Napa Symphony and other good-music enterprises in the Napa Valley and elsewhere in northern California, and were central founders of Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food & The Arts in Napa.

Mondavi Center's main hall is named for one of northern California's most generous and hard-working patrons of the arts, Barbara K. Jackson, and her late husband, history professor W. Turrentine Jackson. Barbara Jackson's $5-million gift to the Mondavi Center campaign came at a critical stage and may be credited with having turned the corner toward fulfillment of the long-held campus dream. The Jacksons had already been major backers of the UCDSO and the Department of Music—and of course of the Department of History as well. There are two Barbara K. Jackson Professorships in Music, in orchestral and choral conducting; additionally Jackson, an award-winning opera costumer, has sponsored young professional singers through the San Francisco Opera's Merola Program. See also: more on Barbara Jackson.

                         

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Corrections, comments, questions? Click on: dkholoman@ucdavis.edu.
Last updated Sunday June 21, 2009, 12:58:14 .