Students, faculty, and visitors can attend the Florence Bayz Music Series every Wednesday during the academic year at Noon. The events are free and held in the Arts Building, room 157.

With the funding provided for the Florence Bayz Music Series, the Music Department can “bring in performers from other places, provide honoraria to visiting scholars, and promote and support our own students whether it's performances of undergraduate students who are performance majors to graduate student composers to hear their works being performed and premiered,” said Jonathan Ritter, chair of UC Riverside’s Department of Music.

Along with students getting the opportunity to share their work with peers and the community, there are a range of visiting scholars and artists. Graduate students help select who will appear; they also have an opportunity to ask questions of the artists following performances.

“Because the event occurs in a low-key environment, it fosters a great communal spirit among the department and a desire to learn from each other. The faculty and graduate students host and act like the emcee for the event to introduce their speakers. This injects a sense of community to the series,” said Amy Skjerseth, assistant professor of popular music and Bayz series coordinator.

The series brings in world-class musicians and scholars to talk and perform. Bringing such an eclectic group of people provides inspiration and creativity for all involved, even the opportunity to see a familiar instrument in a new way.

“We had an electric guitar professor from the Paris Conservatory visit,” Ritter said. “He was touring the U.S. performing Steve Reich electronic music, but not just the stuff like the famous piece for electric guitar that Reich wrote but other pieces that he transcribed for the guitar. Suddenly everyone in the room was having an ah-ha moment because they'd never thought about how other music can also be played on electric guitar. Now the electric guitar players are all scratching their heads with new light bulbs going off.”

In addition to sparking new ways of understanding music, the series helps connect students to working musicians and scholars.

“The series is a wonderful way for our graduate students to professionalize,” Skjerseth said. “That is such a unique opportunity. I haven't really seen many colloquium series across music departments that enable this extent of graduate student participation.”

Alumni return like jazz pianist Dhiren Panikker, who received his Ph.D. at UCR.  “He released a new jazz album and did an extraordinary concert,” Ritter said. Having alumni also gives students the chance to ask questions about the music business to help them break in after they graduate and allows them to start making professional connections within the UCR community outside the university.

The casual atmosphere allows students to socialize with their peers and meet with others in the department.

“This is so important for students on a deeper level,” Ritter said, “They have some time to catch up with each other to talk about the lecture or the performance that they just saw.”

The public can also come and find inspiration. The Florence Bayz Music Series “offers community building for our department and for the campus at large,” Ritter said.

For more information, visit the website for upcoming performances in the Florence Bayz Music Series.