Classical Corner

This week’s entries include another intriguing entry in the Santa Barbara Music Club’s 55th season of free community concerts at 3 pm on Saturday, January 11, at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Hope Ranch Annex. Composer Eric Valinsky will be joined by piano compatriot Pascal Salomon for the world premiere of Valinsky’s four-handversion of Wisperfal, a four-movement fantasy based on Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons that was originally commissioned by Ballet Santa Barbara (now the AD&M Performance Group) in 2010. The title came from abbreviations for the seasons, and Valinsky drew from Vivaldi’s use of ostinato, the repetition of musical patterns for musical effect, and sequence, therepetitive patterns that shift in pitch. Originally intended for several instruments, budgetary considerations constrained the work to piano solo, which the composer believed never quite did justice to his musical ideas. So 14 years later, he expanded the work to piano four-hands. Valinsky will also accompany oboist Adelle Rodkey in performing Strauss’s “Concerto in D Major for Oboe and Small Orchestra or Piano”and young contemporary Czech composer Lukáš Sommer’s“Impromptu.” Info at https://sbmusicclub.org. 

Later that evening, Mezzo-soprano, Tivoli Treloar, a 2022-23 vocal fellow at the Music Academy of the West, makes her Santa Ynez Valley debut in recital at St. Mark’s In-the-Valley Church in Los Olivos as part of the Santa Ynez Valley Concert Series. UCLA alum Treloar, who is currently working toward a master’s at Juilliard, will be accompanied by UCLA faculty pianist and director Lucy Tucker Yates in a program of pieces composed between the two world wars from Korngold, Obradors, Poulenc, and Kurt Weill, among others. Visit https://smitv.ejoinme.org/SYVCSTickets.