CAMA Kicks Off

CAMA – the Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara – kicked off its 104th concert season in grand style at the Granada Theatre with the City of Birmingham Symphony and its dynamic conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, who last appeared in our Eden by the Beach 34 years ago.

She succeeded British conductor Sir Simon Rattle, who performed here with the London Symphony Orchestra in March. The concert was part of an eight-city tour that culminates later this month at New York’s Carnegie Hall.

On the 150th anniversary of his birthday, British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams’ enchanting “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis” launched the thoroughly entertaining concert wrapping with Debussy’s classic “La Mer.”

Elgar’s “Cello Concerto in E Minor,” played by Sheku Kanneh-Mason on a 1700 Matteo Goffriller instrument, who garnered global fame playing at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, in 2018, was sandwiched with Weinberg’s “Jewish Rhapsody” from Festive Scenes.

I last saw Sheku play with his pianist sister Isata at a UCSB Arts & Lectures concert at Campbell Hall last year.

The Sussexi, who were back in our rarefied enclave after an unexpected stay in London following Queen Elizabeth’s death, missed a treat, although they were spotted at the Jack Johnson concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl.