Santa Barbara’s United Nations Association has awarded the local nonprofit ShelterBox USA, which has helped with more than 100 disasters in over 100 countries since 2000, its sixth annual Peace Prize. Current deployments include Ukraine, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Syria. Kerri Murray, president of ShelterBox, which was nominated for a Nobel Peace […]
Gourmands and oenophiles were out in force when the Fund for Santa Barbara hosted its 29th annual Bread & Roses event for 500 guests at Elings Park, its second year at the locale after many years at the QAD headquarters in Summerland. The bountiful bash, co-hosted by Chelsea Lancaster and Wendy Sims-Moten, raised around $200,000 […]
Social gridlock reigned at the Birnam Wood Club when real estate investor and inventor Ray Winn, 88, hosted a birthday bash for his partner of 34 years Peter Kavoian, who was celebrating the 16th anniversary of his half century, and Peter’s mother Anna who is 92. The tony twosome, who split their time between their […]
The St. Francis Courtyard at Old Mission Santa Barbara hosted the Gems and Jeans edition of the annual Mission Moonlight barbecue with 150 sold-out guests helping raise around $100,000 towards the historic institution’s archive-library and the conservation of the historic buildings and gardens that date back to 1786. The fun fest, chaired by Donna Reeves, […]
Globetrotting accountant Frank McGinity opened the gates of his charming Riven Rock estate, just a tiara’s toss from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, for An Artful Affair for 120 guests organized by the Art Foundation of Santa Barbara. Five local plein air artists – Ralph Waterhouse, Derek Harrison, Annie Hoffman, Ray Hunter, and Ann […]
EPIC!, the $10 million capital and endowment campaign for the restoration of 230-acre Elings Park, is well on its way to meeting its goal, says executive director Dean Noble. After almost 50 years of active use, the popular leisure area built on a city tip needs a number of “essential updates” to help keep it […]
After an almost three-year hiatus, Santa Barbara’s renowned music director Heiichiro Ohyama flew in from Japan to return to the Lobero for an evening by an artfully created ensemble in the Chamber Music Project’s season premiere. Ohyama, who led the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra for 35 years until it played its final concert in 2017 […]
Adrian Spence’s Camerata Pacifica, which is celebrating its 33rd season, put on a doozy of a show at the Music Academy’s Hahn Hall. Yura Lee, a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, mesmerized on both violin and viola with her frenzied renditions of Kodály’s “Sonata for Solo Cello in B Minor,” specially […]
I first saw Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats at the New London Theatre in the 1980s, which ran for 21 years until it closed in 2002 after an amazing 8,949 performances. The show, based on a 1939 poetry collection Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot, tells the story of one magical night when […]
Even the cavernous stage of the venerable Granada Theatre was filled to capacity when 170 performers helped launch the Santa Barbara Symphony’s 70th season with Carl Orff’s magnificent Carmina Burana featuring Rodney Gustafson’s State Street Ballet, Santa Barbara Choral Society under Jo Anne Wasserman, the Quire of Voyces under director Nathan Kreitzer, and the Music […]
Santa Barbara Museum of Art is accentuating the negative with its latest exhibition, “A Time of Gifts: Six Years of Photographs Given to the Collection, 2016-2022.” The show, which runs through January 15, features more than 80 superb photographs by Robert Adams, Diane Arbus, Kwame Brathwaite, Nell Campbell, Awol Erizku, Janna Ireland, Aaron Siskind, and […]
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, […]
Kenny and Elizabeth Slaught opened the doors of their Montecito aerie for the Dream Foundation’s second annual Twilight in the Garden with 150 guests raising around $500,000. The dynamic duo also hosted the organization’s first event 28 years ago. Kenny is stepping down as decade-long chairman of the foundation but continuing as vice-chairman. Chief Executive […]
Beatification can have its drawbacks as this illustrious organ’s bridle correspondent Lynn Kirst, who has been Fiesta’s Saint Barbara for the last year, found out. She has now ditched her white go-go boots and ornate gown, celebrating with a boffo bash for 75 guests at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum, a prize she won at […]
Montecito’s Pierre Lafond Wine Bistro restaurant, which has been closed since the pandemic, is having a new lease on life. The Charter Oak Restaurant in St. Helena in the heart of the Napa Valley run by chef Christopher Kostow, also of the Michelin 3-starred The Restaurant at Meadowood (TRAM), has just allegedly signed a lease […]
The Food Bank of Santa Barbara County hosted its annual Table of Life gala at the picturesque Montecito estate of Steve and Cindy Leonard, a short distance from Westmont College. More than 130 guests helped raise around $500,000 towards the $16.5 million cost of a new 57,000-square-foot warehouse and offices, or Sharehouse, near Deckers in […]
Former Santa Barbara Yacht Club commodore Roger Chrisman and his wife, Sarah, who recently bought the 83-foot steel-hulled schooner Mystic Whaler, which boasts 110-foot masts and 3,000 square feet of sail, sailed it up to our tony town’s harbor from its Channel Islands base in Oxnard for a three-week stay, just a tiara’s toss from […]
It was truly a night on the tiles when the Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation hosted its 20th anniversary Golden Gala on the expansive rooftop of MOXI, the Wolf Museum of Exploration, raising around $300,000 from 225 dinner guests, and another 200 guests who came for the after-party with K-LITE DJ Scott Topper providing the throbbing […]
It was music of a very different kind when Kathryn Martin, President and CEO of the Santa Barbara Symphony, celebrated the tenth anniversary of her half century with an ABBA-solutely fabulous fête for 70 guests at the La Lieff tasting room in the Funk Zone. Featuring a cover band of the Swedish singers, Abba Dabba […]
Santa Barbara Choral Society, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary and the 30th anniversary of its artistic director and conductor Jo Anne Wasserman, hosted a donor appreciation and season kickoff bash in the Lobero Theatre Courtyard. On Saturday the choir will be joining 150 other performers, including Quire of Voyces, the State Street Ballet, and […]
Carmen Jones, the Oscar Hammerstein musical that opened the latest season of the Ensemble Theatre Company at the New Vic, took two years to come to fruition given the pandemic delays, but it was clearly worth the wait! Directed by Artistic Director Jonathan Fox, the hugely entertaining show featuring an all-Black cast and based on […]
Michael and Lisa Amador, longtime members of the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club, have taken over the management of the club’s eatery now renamed as Fieldside, which reopens next month. The dynamic duo have owned many successful restaurants in our Eden by the Beach, including Uncorked and the Nook in the Funk Zone. Lisa […]
Purple reigned at CADA’s 35th annual Amethyst Ball: Romance in Rio at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum with 230 glamorously garbed, masked, and befeathered guests raising in excess of $300,000 for the 73-year-old nonprofit that fights alcoholism and drug abuse and has served more than 18,000 addicted youth and adults in that time. Emceed by […]
The Santa Barbara Rescue Mission had a delightful change of venue for its 21st annual Road Trip to the Bayou with a move to the beach at Rancho Dos Pueblos rather than the main residence, which was being used as a set for a TV show. More than 350 guests turned out for the sandy […]
The venerable Granada Theatre was almost packed to overflowing when Opera Santa Barbara staged a magnificent version of Puccini’s beloved masterpiece Tosca. Artistic director Kostis Protopapas conducted the orchestra on stage while stage director Layna Chianakas managed the complexities of the spartan production with film and still images superbly. Greek soprano Eleni Calenos excelled as […]
Gordon Guy, the late Executive Director of New House, a 67-year-old charity which has helped more than 25,000 men suffering from drug and alcohol addiction, was honored at the sixth annual Heart of New House lunch at the Hilton with 200 guests raising around $75,000 for the organization. Gordon died earlier this year after a […]
Picturesque Godric Grove in Elings Park was the venue for the Santa Barbara Education Foundation’s second annual Love of Literacy lunch with 130 guests raising more than $30,000 for the cause. Keynote speaker, county supervisor Gregg Hart, whose mother was a teacher and father a librarian, expressed his love of literature, reading 60 books during […]
Santa Barbara Museum of Art was socially gridlocked when it launched its latest exhibition, The Architecture of Collage: Marshall Brown. The comprehensive presentation includes 24 artworks, including six recent acquisitions by SBMA, loans from the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the Art Institute of Chicago, and a private collector. In addition, an original etching […]
This year’s Red Feather Ball for United Way of Santa Barbara County had a decidedly Moroccan flavor with the theme Voyage to Marrakesh, a cosmopolitan city I have visited many times, including the 70th anniversary of one of the world’s top hotels, La Mamounia, when it was owned by King Hassan II, and the 70th […]
Given the intense sunshine, there were so many umbrellas out at the Hilton’s Plaza del Sol for the 10th annual Heroes of Hospice of Santa Barbara lunch that it looked like a Mary Poppins convention! The bountiful bash for 260 guests, co-hosted by KEYT-TV anchors Beth Farnsworth and C.J. Ward, also featured local lifestyle strategist […]
Social gridlock reigned at the Music Academy when Santa Barbara Beautiful staged its 58th annual award celebration with 200 guests at the Kuehn Court reception with wandering musical troubadours Ted Hoagland, Chris Judge, and Collin Richardson. The awards celebration was staged in the Lehman Ballroom, emceed by ubiquitous KEYT-TV reporter John Palminteri, with a welcome […]
It was a case of high Cs on the high seas when Hiroko Benko, owner of the popular whale-watching vessel Condor Express, hosted a two-hour opera cruise for 70 music lovers, the first in three years. Featuring new Chrisman Studio tenor artist Kyle Rudolph from San Diego, and soprano Chelsea Chaves from Orange County accompanied […]
The Scottish bagpipes sounded loud and clear at the University Club when Susan Keller’s Santa Barbara Revels celebrated its seventh annual Equinox concert celebrating the changing seasons. The al fresco evening on the Sola Patio combined selections from three centuries of Spanish and Mexican music of the New World, in an echo of the Revels […]
International locally-based charity ShelterBox raised around $250,000 from 175 guests at a Tacos and Tequila party at the Summerland estate of John McGovern, who also received this year’s Community Partnership Award from president Kerri Murray. The sunset soirée, an immersive experience of the charity’s lifesaving work, included interactive demonstrations of shelters and equipment, used in […]
Oscar winning actor Kevin Costner opened the gates of his Carpinteria oceanside estate for One805LIVE! which attracted 1,500 guests and raised around $1 million for all three First Responder groups – fire, police, and the sheriff – purchasing equipment, supporting public safety and taking care of those who take care of us. Cars were parked […]
The cavernous stage at the venerable Granada Theatre was socially gridlocked with more than 200 guests for the sixth annual Legends gala emceed by the ubiquitous Andrew Firestone. The recipients, who have illuminated and advanced the performing arts in a significant way, were philanthropists Palmer and Joan Jackson, who have contributed to hundreds of nonprofits […]
It was one hull of a night when 50 maritime mavens turned out for a commissioning bash for the USS Santa Barbara at the Summerland estate of Pat and Ursula Nesbitt. Emcee Andrew Firestone helped raise more than $350,000 to outfit the 127-foot trimaran hulled aluminum 70-crew vessel, the third to be named after our […]
Santa Barbara winemaker Doug Margerum has been nominated Winemaker of the Year for the 23rd anniversary of Wine Enthusiast’s coveted Annual Wine Star Awards, which honors individuals and companies that make outstanding contributions to the wine and alcohol beverage world. Winners will be announced in the magazine’s Best of Year issue in December. Since the […]
This is an article I had hoped I wouldn’t be writing for a few years more, the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at the age of 96, after an extraordinary reign of more than 70 years. I had wished that, given the Scottish Bowes-Lyon genes from the earls of Strathmore, like her mother […]
Justine Roddick and Tina Schlieske opened the gates of their charming Montecito estate for a special concert by iconic singer-songwriter Patti Smith. More than 120 guests turned out for the Merryl Brown-organized boffo bash, which raised $135,000 to be split equally between the Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation and CADA – the Council on Alcoholism and […]