UC Davis celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts during Monday’s Fall Convocation, and university leaders spoke with anticipation about two future facilities that will further enhance UCD’s arts programs: the Shrem Museum of Art and the new Music Recital Hall.

Margrit Mondavi spoke briefly, recalling how she and her late husband Robert “always believed in our philosophy — that wine, food and the arts enhance the quality of all of our lives.”

She beamed as she looked out over the large audience in the performing arts center that bears the family name, and said, “(Robert) believed, as I do, that in giving you are also rewarded beyond expectation.” She added, “It has been glorious to see the performances here, to meet some of the art faculty and to know that students will benefit for years to come. This makes our lives so rich; this is my reward.”

Mondavi also extended greetings to Barbara Jackson, the longtime Davis resident and music lover who was another major donor to the arts center. The primary venue at the Mondavi Center is Barbara K. and W. Turrentine Jackson Hall.

The Mondavis’ $35 million gift to UCD, announced in 2001, included money supporting the performing arts center and the adjacent Robert Mondavi Institute for Food and Wine Science. Margrit Mondavi subsequently became an important booster for the proposed Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art to be built next door. She also has funded fellowships for young artists studying at the university.

Chancellor Linda Katehi said the new Shrem Museum will fulfill a “decades-old dream” of a more spacious facility that would allow UCD to let the public see more more of its collection of artwork — much of which currently stays in storage, due to the lack of an appropriate venue to display more of the works.

Rachel Teagle, who recently joined the university staff as the Shrem Museum’s first director, said an architect is being selected and meetings are ongoing with students, faculty, staff and community members to details of the museum.

Katehi said the museum should break ground in 2014. Its exact dimensions and final budget — for construction and related start-up program costs — are still being worked out.

Katehi also told The Enterprise there soon will be visible progress toward the long-planned Music Recital Hall, giving the university a mid-sized modern venue. At just under 400 seats, it will accommodate larger audiences than the 150- to 250-seat Vanderhoef Studio Theatre and smaller crowds than Jackson Hall, at 1,600 to 1,800 seats.

Katehi said demolition of the old firehouse and related structures near Putah Creek should begin late next month. An architectural firm should be on board by January.

The Recital Hall will be a roughly $10 million project; UCD is still raising the final $2.7 million toward that goal, Katehi said.

Other speakers at the convocation included music department chairman Henry Spiller, who also performed some traditional Javanese music with the department’s Gamelan Ensemble; theater professor Peter Lichtenfels, who offered a tribute to the late Della Davidson, a long-serving dance professor who died earlier this year; and Jessie Ann Owens, dean of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, who gave a spirited address outlining the value of the arts as a critical component of the university’s broad educational mission.

Performers included vocalist Anush Avetisyan, winner of the 2012 Mondavi Center Young Artists Competition, and teenage pianist Grace Zhou, an award winner last year.

After the convocation, Mondavi, Katehi and others sliced a special commemorative cake — a miniature version of the Mondavi Center— on the lawn outside the center and the site of the Shrem Museum.

— Reach Jeff Hudson at [email protected] or 530-747-8055.

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