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By Dateline staff

What a month for music, with concerts by the Early Music Ensemble, the Jazz Bands, the Empyrean Ensemble and the Symphony Orchestra. And that’s just our own groups.

The Department of Music also presents two artists-in-residence: an individual, Fabián Panisello, and a group, the Wet Ink Ensemble, with on-stage seating for the latter’s concert. Panisello is billed as the featured composer for the Empyrean Ensemble concert and as guest conductor with the Symphony Orchestra.

Panisello also is scheduled to deliver a lecture, from 3 to 5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 18, in 266 Everson Hall, with admission free and open to the public.

Panisello is the conductor of the Ensemble Plural in Madrid (Spain), and has served as a guest conductor for such other ensembles and orchestras as musikFabrik of Cologne (Germany) Ensemble Contemporain of Lyon (France), Musiques Nouvelles of Brussels and the Israel Contemporary Players of Tel-Aviv.

The National Orchestra of Spain and the Southwestern German Radio Symphony Orchestra of Baden-Baden have commissioned his works.

The Department of Music also continues its free series of Noon Concerts, Nov. 3, 10 and 17, all Thursdays, in the Yocha Dehe Grand Lobby at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. (No concert Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 24.)

Besides the Panisello lecture, other special presentations this month include a talk on "The Lascivious Career of B Flat: Expressing Gender and Sex in Early Music," in which Bonnie J. Blackburn explores theoretical explanations of the origin of the meaning attached to B-flat through Renaissance music.

Blackburn is a musicologist from Wolfson College, Oxford University, and a director at large of the American Musicological Society.

Her lecture is scheduled from 4 to 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 14, in 266 Everson Hall, with admission free and open to the public.

The month's concerts:

Early Music Ensemble — 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, Church of St. Martin, 640 Hawthorn Lane, Davis.

Vocal works:

• William Byrd (1540-1623) — Mass for Four Voices
• Byrd — Motets Nunc dimittis and Ave verum corpus
• Byrd — Anthems Christ Rising Again, with Carole Hom and Hilary Hecht, sopranos
• Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) — Behold, Thou hast made my days, with Hecht, alto

Plus organ works by Gabrieli, Frescobaldi and others (with William Cooper, organist).

Wet Ink Ensemble — 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 14, Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

This New York-based new-music collective creates and promotes adventurous American music. The ensemble's repertoire is diverse, ranging from scores of rigorous notational complexity to indeterminate and improvisational music; from the American experimental tradition to the contemporary European avant-garde; from acoustic to amplified to electronic works; and works for homemade instruments.

Jazz Bands — 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 16, Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, Mondavi Center.

Empyrean Ensemble: Fabián Panisello Composer Portrait — 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 19, Vanderhoef Studio Theatre (cabaret seating). Preconcert lecture and discussion, 6:15 p.m., with the guest composers.

• Panisello — Cinco piezas métricas for flute, clarinet, violin, viola and cello (2004)
• Panisello — Il destino ineluttabile ogni cosa for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello and piano (2003)
• Fred Lerdahl — Duo for violin and piano (2005)

Symphony Orchestra — 7 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 20, Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center.

• Stravinsky — Berceuse and Finale from The Firebird (with Panisello, guest conductor)
• Panisello — Violin Concerto (with Hrabba Atladottir, violin, and Panisello, guest conductor)
• Strauss — Don Juan (Christian Baldini, conductor)
• Verdi — Overture to I vespri siciliani (Baldini, conductor)

Tickets required for all except the Early Music Ensemble concert, which has suggested donations of $6 for students and children, $12 for adults, at the door only. Advance tickets for the other concerts are available , or in person or by telephone at 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.