Philadelphia-based South African conductor Andrew Lipke was in fine form when he led the annual Santa Barbara Symphony New Year Pops concert at the Granada featuring a mix of film scores, pop, rock and other hits, with Lipke even swapping his baton for an electric guitar. Symphony board member Robert Weinman returned as honorary maestro […]
As usual, tout le monde was at the New Year’s Day lunch thrown by affable gardening guru George Schoellkopf and international artist Gérald Incandela at their magnificent Summerland aerie. The tony twosome – who fly between their sprawling homes here and in the town of Washington, Connecticut – kicked off 2025 in splendiferous style with […]
With Love, Meghan – the Duchess of Sussex’s long-awaited cookery and homemaking series on Netflix – launches on Wednesday (Jan. 15). The series with her lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard was first teased last March and shows Markle cooking in the Montecito kitchen of two good friends, Tom and Sherrie Cipolla, who split their time […]
Esbee, the Montecito-based clothing brand founded by partners Andrew Schmoller and Eli Gill, is expanding its overall brand image with a foray into sports partnerships. With the mantra of “Perfect Fits, Best Fabrics, and Made in the USA,” the dynamic duo has announced its partnership with the Santa Barbara-based Grunion Rugby Football Club. “It’s a […]
Santa Barbara Revels Winter Solstice Celebration The Ghosts of Haddon Hall at the Lobero was last produced 11 years ago and this year’s production was undoubtedly one of the best and sleekest productions staged by founder Susan Keller’s talented company. The colorful, energized show directed by Matt Tavianini with Dauri Kennedy as the new music […]
Adam’s Angels celebrated their fifth annual Holiday Community event at the Veterans Building when more than 100 volunteers prepared 650 meals of both meat and vegetarian lasagna, salad and dessert to make sure no one was left hungry during Yuletide. A ‘pop up shop’ had racks of new jackets, warm gear and shoes provided by […]
Prince Harry was one of the British Royal Family’s most popular members, but his decision to move to Montecito and publicly criticize the historic institution has seen his popularity plunge. On October, 2019, the Duke of Sussex was liked by 71 percent and disliked by 22 percent of the British public. But data from last […]
Montecito’s Terry Pillow had more cause than most to quaff Champagne over the New Year when a photo of actress Portia de Rossi appeared in the London Daily Mail carrying one of his popular Homer leather bags at her new Cotswolds estate with wifeEllen DeGeneres. “The phones were ringing off the hook on Coast Village […]
It was certainly a Nutcracker with a difference when State Street Ballet – alongside the Opera San Luis Obispo Grand Orchestra conducted by Brian Asher Alhadeff, and a chorus of youngsters from the Music Academy of the West’s Sing! Project and the State Street Ballet Academy – joined in the spectacular production at the Granada. […]
Now celebrating its 30th anniversary Pink Martini brought its signature multi-lingual blend of jazz, classic and pop music to a festive, sold-out Arlington Holiday Show staged by UCSB’s popular Arts & Lectures program. With a dozen musicians, founder Thomas Lauderdale on piano, and the undoubted vocal talents of leader singer China Forbes (a fellow student […]
Quire of Voyces under founder and musical director Nathan Kreitzer was in fine form at St. Anthony’s Chapel for its annual Yuletide concert. Traditional favorites like “Away in a Manger” and “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” were on the menu with the 11-part concert wrapping with “Silent Night.” A joyous afternoon full of Christmas spirit.
Montecito political pundit Dennis Miller has signed up for a new docuseries for the Fox News streaming service Fox Nation. The series, The Infomercials That Sold Us, is steaming on the platform now and takes “a nostalgic and poignant look back at the years when infomercials ruled late night TV, featuring interviews with the colorful […]
Santa Barbara Choral Society under veteran conductor JoAnne Wasserman was in top form for its 10th annual Hallelujah Project at the historic Lobero, which also included young Sing! project choral students from the Music Academy of the West, and Emmy-winning actress Meredith Baxter in a rocking chair reciting ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. Accompanied by […]
Westmont College fielded its full arsenal at the Granada for its 20th annual sold-out Christmas Festival. Always a wonderful start to Yuletide, the concert, Dwelling Place, was the fourth year at the historic theater after many years at the First Presbyterian Church. Featuring the Westmont Orchestra directed by Ruth Lin, head of the college’s music […]
“Extraordinary” was the theme at the Women’s Economic Ventures annual holiday appreciation fête for the League of Extraordinary Women at the downtown eatery Gala. Restaurateur Tara Penke, who catered my 71st birthday bash in July, and organization CEO Nicki Parr celebrated a year of impact for WEV – which has been supporting women in their […]
Santa Barbara Historical Museum had more than 300 lunar-tics at the Members Holiday Soirée under a full moon, which also marked the opening of two new exhibitions: The Chair, featuring seating through the ages, and J. Walter Collinge, displaying the photographer’s images of our Eden by the Beach before and after the 1925 earthquake. The […]
Social gridlock reigned when Santa Barbara Beautiful threw its annual Yuletide bash at the Voice Gallery in La Cumbre Plaza with 100 guests. Since its founding in 1965 the organization has planted 13,000 trees in our Eden by the Beach as well as placing colorful murals in the Library Plaza and the area at the […]
Lobero Associates hosted its annual holiday tea at the University Club while collecting toys for CALM, which fights child abuse. Established in 1972, the associates have raised more than $1.5 million – purchasing a Steinway grand piano, updating the historic theater’s bathrooms and replacing the theater’s ancient curtain, and undertaking innumerable other tasks. Paula Bottiani […]
Talk about the Fab Four! The Tony Award-winning musical, Million Dollar Quartet staged by the Ensemble Theatre Company at the New Vic is set on December 4, 1956, when, in an extraordinary twist of fate, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins were brought together at Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee, for […]
The reviews are in for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s latest Netflix endeavor Polo, the penultimate installment of their $100 million deal with the streaming giant. But despite the likely high hopes it would join the ranks of works like Disney’s soccer saga with Ryan Reynolds, Welcome to Wrexham, and 2020’s, The Last Dance, the […]
Classical music fans hit the “jack-pot” at the Music Academy of the West’s Hahn Hall when New York’s JACK Quartet celebrated their landmark 20th anniversary season. Founded by four alumni of the Eastman School of Music, the Fab Four – violist John Pickford Richards, violinists Ari Streisfeld and Christopher Otto, and cellist Kevin McFarland – […]
Tchaikovsky might not have approved, but a packed audience at the Arlington Theatre watching the New York-based Dorrance Dance company’s Nutcracker Suite, part of UCSB’s popular Arts & Lectures series, showed their approval after a 75-minute jazzy new version of the Christmas tradition. Set to a new arrangement of the Yuletide classic by Duke Ellington […]
Thomas Tighe, who is retiring as head of Direct Relief after 24 years was fêted by members of the charity’s Legacy Society at the organization’s headquarters. Since starting in 2000, Tighe has seen the charity’s expansion become the fifth largest charity in the U.S. among the largest providers of charitable medicine in America and globally. […]
La Arcada, the charming thoroughfare off State Street, had its 29th annual Christmas Walk with carolers in Dickensian costume, a real snow machine and free popcorn for 1,000 guests. Youngsters were even able to send letters to Santa Claus with typewriters in the Crafter’s Library which, given their age, was probably the first time they’d […]
Prince Harry and wife Meghan have no plans to return to the U.K. with their children Archie and Lilibet. The Riven Rock resident, 40, opened up about his decision to stay in the U.S. at the annual New York Times DealBook Summit in Manhattan. The Sussexes have called Montecito home for four years after leaving […]
It was a spectacular start to Yuletide when Montecito Bank & Trust held its 22nd annual Community Dividends lunch at the Hilton for 300 guests. More than 195 local charities received checks of varying amounts, with two organizations – Casa Pacifica Centers for Children and Families, and the Youth and Family Services YMCA’s Noah’s Anchorage, […]
The Veterans’ Memorial Building, just a tiara’s toss from Stearns Wharf, was socially gridlocked when 600 needy guests descended on the oceanside locale for the fifth annual Thanksgiving lunch organized by Adam’s Angels, founded by Douglas Elliman realtor Adam McKaig. More than 350 pounds of turkey breast bought at Shalhoob’s found its way to the […]
To the new 449-seat capacity Harbor Restaurant, atop Stearns Wharf, with my trusty shutterbug Priscilla, which opened in September with panoramic views over the Pacific through giant crystal-clear windows. The seafood eatery first opened in 1941 and has undergone an impressive renovation under its new owners, Santa Barbara realtor John Thyne III and wife Olesya, […]
Montecito actor Josh Brolin has revealed mega director James Cameron’s reaction to him rejecting a role in the Avatar sequel, The Way of Water. The Men in Black III star, 56, detailed he declined to appear as a new character in the 2022 box office smash 13 years after Cameron’s original film became the highest […]
To the Ritz-Carlton Bacara for the American Cancer Society’s annual Riviera Gala “Where Hope Grows,” which hosted 150 guests and raised around $200,000. The bustling bash was emceed by David Moorman, with a welcome from Greater Los Angeles board member Adam Lopez, and 2024 corporate chair Karina Kulangara – a scientist with Agilent Technologies, who […]
Social gridlock reigned at the Waterhouse Gallery in the charming La Arcada complex on State and Figueroa, when owners Diane and Ralph Waterhouse celebrated the 40th anniversary of their eponymous locale with a fun wine-fueled fête in the store, just a tiara’s toss from the turtle fountain. The tony twosome, who also own a Coast […]
CAMA – Community Arts Music Association – hosted its latest Masterseries concert at the Lobero when violinist Anne Akiko Meyers showed off her undoubted talents. The hugely entertaining program, with Grammy nominee Meyers, 54, playing her 1741 “ex-Vieuxtemps” Guarneri del Gesu, included Corelli’s “La Folia Sonata,” Beethoven’s “Sonata No. 5 in F Major ‘Spring,’” Lauridsen’s […]
Santa Barbara Symphony held its second Concert Aperitif event, one of five, at the charming and quirky new home of Joan Rutkowski on Chapala Street – starring Geneva-based conductor and pianist David Greilsammer before he headed to the Granada nearby for the French Connections concert spanning three centuries. The entertaining 100-minute program with Greilsammer, conducting […]
Local warbler Katy Perry is launching an iconic world tour with her daughter Daisy Dove in tow. The 13-time Grammy nominated singer says it is an “adventure together” as they travel the globe. The Montecito resident says her Lifetimes Tour will be traveling around the U.K. next year and says she loves how London is […]
The Organic Soup Kitchen, which has served more than three million bowls to needy residents in Santa Barbara County, celebrated its 15th anniversary with a bountiful bash for 250 guests at the Cabrillo Pavilion. Founder and executive director Anthony Carroccio declared: “When we served our first bowl in the park in 2009, we were visionaries […]
The tony triumvirate of British oboe player Nicholas Daniel, fellow Brit violist Timothy Ridout, and Estonian pianist Irina Zahharenkova received justifiable star billing at Camerata Pacifica’s latest concert at the Music Academy of the West’s Hahn Hall. Daniel and Zahharenkova shone brightly in Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Sonata for Oboe and Piano in D Major,” while Ridout […]
Bob and Holly Murphy celebrated the 14th anniversary of their colorful La Arcada two-story gift store Coast 2 Coast Collection with a boffo bash for more than 150 guests, a fun fête so large they took over the eatery State & Fig, just across the way to accommodate everyone. The locale – formerly Hampstead Village, […]
To the historic University Club for a coffee table tome launch and talk on the late Spanish couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga, whose name is enjoying a resurgence of late. The book Balenciaga – Kublin: A Fashion Record by the Hungarian photographer’s daughter, Maria Kublin andfashion curator and lecturer Ana Balda – records the photographer’s close relationship […]
Scott Reed, former president of the Music Academy of the West, commemorated the first year of his company Lane 4 Fundraising, a fundraising strategy firm he launched with the academy colleague Jon Bishop last fall. A nod to the dynamic duo’s passion for competitive swimming, Lane 4 works with some top nonprofits in our community […]
CAMA’s latest international concert at the Granada was La Serenìssima at its best with mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital conducting San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Grammy-winning soprano Esteli Gomez interspersing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with gondola songs. It was also the 300th anniversary of Vivaldi’s enduringly popular Baroque masterpiece which I last heard on a misty New […]