Tag archives: Classical Music
You can’t fault Elizabeth Roe for expressing unbridled enthusiasm for returning to the Music Academy for her first purely public performance in town since spending the summer of 2001 as a fellow at the institute. Jerry Lowenthal was her mentor and Michael Towbes her compeer during the idyllic eight weeks, and now she’s heading back […]
If anybody isn’t clear about the direction the Santa Barbara Symphony has undertaken, let’s dispel any doubts: This is not your grandfather’s symphony. Not anymore. As in recent years, programs have become progressive, as a wide variety of musical genres, unusual instrumentation, and frequent collaborations are pushing up hard against the old-school focus on classical […]
CAMA Masterseries’ 40th anniversary season opens with a recital by a somewhat left-of-center duo, at least by instruments, as mandolinist Avi Avital and accordionist Hanzhi Wang team up to perform at the Lobero Theatre. The two are veritable virtuosos – Avital’s skill has been compared to Jascha Heifetz while Wang is the only accordionist ever […]
Retired lawyer Robert (Bob) Montgomery, probably the longest serving president in the Community Arts Music Association’s 106-year history, received the organization’s top Bravo! Award for his extraordinary service at a packed dinner of 70 guests at the Birnam Wood clubhouse. Fittingly enough, it was presented by former award winner Deborah Bertling, immediate past president of […]
Camerata Pacifica launched its 34th season in fine style at the Music Academy’s Hahn Hall with works by Beethoven, Mozart, and Elgar. Musical lovers turned out in force to see the chamber music group founded by Irishman Adrian Spence at the age of 25, with an inaugural performance at the Lobero as the Bach Camerata. […]
The Music Academy (MA) didn’t waste any time finding a successor to Scott Reed, who announced last spring that the 2023 Summer Festival would be his last as president and CEO after 12 years at the helm. Less than a week after the final symphony concert at the Granada earlier this month, the Music Academy […]
In announcing its 2023-24 and 34th season programming, Camerata Pacifica’s founder and Artistic Director Adrian Spence delightedly shared the appointment of Ana Papakhian as its new executive director. Papakhian is well-known in the classical music world here, and I would add nationally as well, with 27 years of experience in the field, most recently as […]
Scott Reed’s brief speech at his last official public appearance as the Music Academy’s president/CEO after 12 years at the helm, which drew an instant standing ovation, set the stage for the emotional rollercoaster ride provided by the Academy Festival Orchestra at the Granada last Saturday night in the final event of the 2023 Summer […]
Montecito’s Music Academy wrapped up its 76th Summer Festival in splendid style when Hannu Lintu conducted the Academy Festival Orchestra at the Granada. The entertaining show featured Richard Strauss’ 1898 “Ein Heldenleben” and Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” with Lintu, 55, conductor of the Finnish National Opera and Ballet, at the top of his game. The […]
Don’t confuse Samuel Watson with the speed climbing champion of the same name, a teenager who holds the U.S. records and international gold medals in the new Olympic sport, although Sam Watson the Music Academy fellow has also made a meteoric rise. The 20-year-old contrabassoonist can’t scale an indoor wall in five seconds, but his […]
The final weeks of the Music Academy’s 76th annual Summer Festival have been the icing on the classical cake! Principal players with the London Symphony Orchestra showed their prowess at Lehmann Hall when they performed chamber works by Britten, Villa-Lobos, Perivolaris, Salzedo, Hahn, and Haydn with flutist Gareth Davies, cellist David Cohen, violinist Clare Duckworth, […]
Music Academy solo piano fellow Priscila Navarro is the $5,000 grand prize winner of the Innovation Institution’s 2023 Fast Pitch competition. Her new venture, Peru Piano, an anthology for inclusive education, was one of eight stellar pitches evaluated by a distinguished jury – Angelica Cortez, Executive Director Suzuki Association of the Americas; Music Academy alumnae […]
You’re at the symphony, so your socks match for once. You’ve made several such concessions to high art and anxiously await the concert. Finally, the enormous, pleated curtain slowly rises with the seriousness and gravity of stone, the audience bursts into applause, and here we have a hundred-plus musicians in their finery, staring out at […]
It wasn’t quite Tin Pan Alley, but the Music Academy’s latest chamber night at Lehmann Hall as the 76th annual Summer Festival winds down was pretty novel when a talented quartet played Bay Area composer Gabriella Smith’s work “Anthozoa.” Inspired by a diving trip to French Polynesia, Smith, 31, used two baking tins and even […]
The Music Academy’s 76th annual summer festival reached its halfway mark with a second chamber night concert at Lehmann Hall featuring works by Joan Tower’s “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No. 3,” Mozart’s “Piano Quartet in E-flat Major” with Qiyan Xing on violin, Molly Prow on viola, Simon Housner on cello, and Robert Brooks Carlson […]
Coleman, Prokofiev, and Mendelssohn Tear the Roof Off “The Music Academy.” This definite article and two modest nouns scarcely hint at what’s crouching in the woods near Butterfly Beach. My ex-girlfriend (or “wife” in the common parlance) and I attended the third Chamber Night event at the Music Academy’s Lehmann Hall on an otherwise mellow […]
The members of the Music Academy’s SING! children’s choir were part of the two triumphant performances of La bohème at the Granada Theatre last weekend. This Sunday afternoon, they’ll be back downtown as the stars of the show at the Lobero Theatre, once again joining forces with the Young People’s Chorus (YPC) of New York […]
Violinist extraordinaire Augustin Hadelich was back in our Eden by the Beach for the second time in two months when he performed at the Lobero as part of the Music Academy’s summer fest. Grammy Award winner Hadelich, who I saw at a CAMA Masterseries concert in April, his fifth appearance for the organization since 2015, […]
Mo Zhou wasn’t sure what the Academy’s new vocal program directors Sasha Cooke and John Churchwell had in mind when they asked her to helm this summer’s production of La bohème. A traditional take with period costumes and mid-19th century mannerisms? Something more modern? Instead, they asked Zhou, who had assistant directed three previous productions […]
It is hard to believe the Music Academy’s annual festival Summer of the Artist is almost halfway through. The third week of the highly entertaining program kicked off at Hahn Hall on the Miraflores campus with Avery Fisher Prize winning pianist Jeremy Denk playing an all-Bach program of five partitas. The New York City resident, […]
