Tag archives: Classical Music
Osmo Vänskä made his Music Academy debut back in 2005, when the Finnish-born and Grammy Award-winning longtime conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra coaxed the fellows-powered Academy Festival Orchestra (AFO) into delivering a marvelous Mahler’s “Symphony No. 5.” That would be the same 70-minute work that served as the musical centerpiece of Tár, the 2022 multi-Oscar […]
The Music Academy’s 76th annual festival Summer of the Artist got off to a glorious start with two major sold-out concerts at Hahn Hall on the Miraflores campus. Kicking off the eight-week event, which ends on August 5, was the ever-popular Takacs Quartet with violinists Edward Dusinberre and Harumi Rhodes, cellist András Fejér, and violist […]
After 75 years of having the Music Academy (née “of the West”) in our backyard – marked last summer by a celebratory return to fully in-person programming – it can be easy to take the institute’s summer festival for granted. But the truth is, the Academy not only keeps the classical music scene afloat during […]
The venerable Granada was not surprisingly sold out when the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under Venezuelan maestro Gustavo Dudamel performed for the last concert of CAMA’s 104th season international series. It was one of the last chances to see Dudamel, 42, at the orchestra’s helm – he took over from Finn Esa-Pekka Salonen who had […]
CAMA, Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara, left one of its best for last when Philadelphia’s Curtis Symphony Orchestra under Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä, former maestro of the Minnesota and Seoul Philharmonic orchestras, performed the penultimate show of its 104th international series season at the Granada with Russian pianist Yefim Bronfman playing Schumann’s “Concerto […]
Santa Barbara Choral Society wrapped its 75th anniversary season with a “Mozart to Modern” concert at First Presbyterian Church under veteran conductor JoAnn Wasserman, herself celebrating her 30th anniversary. The performance featured soprano soloist Tamara Bevard and tenor Jimmer Bolden with Mozart’s Requiem and works by Palestrina, Durufle, Gjeilo, Lauridsen, Aaron Copland and Christopher Tin. […]
Santa Barbara Symphony concluded its seven-event Concert Aperitif series with a quintessential performance. Todd and Allyson Aldrich opened the doors of their stunning Montecito aerie for a recital by Russian violinist Philippe Quint, 49, who played in the orchestra’s Platinum Sounds: The Symphony Turns 70 concert at the Granada two days later. Playing a 1708 […]
It was anything but glacial when Icelandic pianist Vikingur Olafsson perfumed a 95-minute Mozart and Contemporaries concert at the Music Academy’s Hahn Hall. The hugely entertaining show shed light on lesser-known musical figures, including Italian composers Domenico Cimarosa and Baldassare Galuppi, and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, the fifth child and second son of Johann Sebastian […]
Banjo player Noam Pikelny and guitarist Chris Eldridge of the Punch Brothers have teamed up with bassist and founding former member, Greg Garrison of Leftover Salmon fame, and mandolinist Andrew Marlin (Watchhouse) to form a bluegrass bound band called Mighty Poplar. Born out of impromptu backstage jams at festivals, Mighty Poplar lets the members return […]
Three long years after the original plan, the Lobero Theatre Chamber Music Project is finally getting the chance to perform its first series of concerts in a full-fledged festival format, launching what is sure to be one of the classical music highlights of the year. The project grew out of the ashes of the Santa […]
The programming for the Santa Barbara Symphony’s milestone 70th anniversary has resulted in a sensational and supremely successful season, a nine-month musical journey that has weaved together a variety of collaborative explored genres and cultural traditions. Concerts have cut a wide swath across and beyond what is traditionally considered classical music, including such uniquely Santa […]
Love & Justice: In the Footsteps of Beethoven’s Rebel Opera – is the second film in Lompoc native and former Santa Barbara resident Kerry Candaele’s Beethoven trilogy, and an effort we may safely describe as a case of art imitating life imitating art. Candaele, who taught for years at Cate School, spent the last decade […]
The Montecito-based Music Academy – “of the West” got dropped midway through last summer – looks like it will have no trouble maintaining the momentum of its milestone 75th anniversary last year, at least according to the roster of artists and ambitious programming unveiled earlier this week. The “Summer of the Artist” season boasts soprano […]
Opera Santa Barbara’s recent seasons have represented remarkable innovation for the company, from staging productions for the Concerts in Your Car series during the pandemic, to taking on Wagner for the first time, to mounting a mountain of new works. That ambitiousness continues this weekend with The Light in the Piazza, the first time OSB […]
It was certainly a plucky performance when the Grammy award-winning Attacca Quartet, a decidedly funky and exuberant foursome, played at the Music Academy’s Hahn Hall, as part of the popular UCSB Arts & Lectures series. The works, all by Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy-winning composer Caroline Shaw, known for “a world of sound never heard before,” […]
Piano faculty member Jerome Lowenthal figured he’d wrapped up his half-century at the Music Academy when he was the star of MA’s 2019 Opening Night Gala, “Honoring a Legend,” a densely packed evening that featured a cocktail reception, a performance at Hahn Hall curated by Lowenthal that featured a series of MA alumni pianists from […]
Aging Cossack Taras Bulba reigned supreme when Filharmonie Brno Philharmonic, the Czech orchestra conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, performed at the Granada, part of CAMA’s international series. The Leoš Janáček work, a three-part rhapsody for orchestra based on the 17th-century historical novella, concluded the first half on a high note after Martinu’s “Sinfonietta ‘La Jolla’” […]
Due for a day trip but desiring to hear chamber music at your destination? Here are a couple of concerts to consider. Over in Ojai, the Chamber On The Mountain presents the Neave Piano Trio, featuring violinist Anna Williams, cellist Mikhail Veselov, and pianist Eri Nakamura, who have been praised for “eloquent phrasing and deft […]
The Westmont Orchestra performs at several locations as part of a Presidents’ Day weekend tour, Feb. 16-18. These concerts are open to the public and free. The orchestra will perform “Amazing Grace,” Bizet’s “Carmen Suite” and Franck’s “Symphony in D minor” at 7 pm Thursday in San Marcos High School (4750 Hollister Ave., Santa Barbara); […]
After three years of enforced layoff because of the pandemic, Santa Barbara’s Master Chorale, under new director David Lozano Torres, was in fine voice when it performed Haydn’s great masterpiece The Creation, an oratorio written in 1797 based on the book of Genesis, at First Presbyterian Church. Now in its 39th season, the group stages […]
