Cabrero on a Bowl

The Lobero Theatre was almost gridlocked when the Music Academy staged a concert by the popular Takács Quartet, with four Academy fellows adding to the wonderful mix as the 75th annual summer festival kicked off.

The program featured works by Mozart, Beethoven, and wrapped with Mendelssohn’s “Octet in E-flat Major,” which he wrote when he was only 16.

Among the musicians participating were clarinetist Richie Hawley, pianists Natasha Kislenko and Jonathan Feldman, violist Nicholas Gallitano, and cellist Patrick Baek.

Just 48 hour later it was off to the Santa Barbara Bowl, which just a week earlier had hosted British singer Rod Stewart, for a community concert featuring the accomplished 100-member Academy Festival Orchestra under conductor Donato Cabrero playing Beethoven’s magnificent “Symphony No.5.”

With all tickets at just $10, the cost of a gallon of gas in Beverly Hills, the bargain of a lifetime!