The Magic of MAW
By Richard Mineards   |   April 2, 2024

Social gridlock reigned at the Music Academy of the West’s Hahn Hall when VIP donors got a sneak peek at this year’s 77th annual summer festival “The Magic of Music.” Featuring 150 performances with more than 137 fellows between June 12 and Aug. 3, new academy president and CEO Shauna Quill outlined the many programs […]

Raising Cain at Carrillo
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 26, 2024

Blues guitarist/singer-songwriter Chris Cain was already 30 before he formed his first band in 1986 in his hometown of San Jose, far from the blues meccas of the Mississippi Delta, Memphis, or Chicago. In fact, even to this day, Cain has never lived anywhere else but northern California.  But he’d grown up listening to his […]

 

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Sounds at SOhO: Fillmore FRENZ-y & Boffo Broadway
By Richard Mineards   |   March 26, 2024

Kenny Lee Lewis, bassist and backup singer for the Steve Miller Band since the early 1980s, has put together a five-piece band called THE FRENZ and secured half a dozen special guest singers and musicians with decades of combined rock history for a tribute show at the iconic Fillmore West in San Francisco and its […]

State Street’s ‘Cinderella’ back on stage
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 26, 2024

The choreography for State Street Ballet’s Cinderella has essentially never changed over the nearly 20 years since the family-friendly work premiered in town in 2005 and then went on a sold-out tour around the East Coast of the country. State Street founder and artistic director Rodney Gustafson created the piece just shy of the company’s […]

The Symphonic Sphinxes
By Richard Mineards   |   March 26, 2024

CAMA, the Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara. hosted its last concert of its current Masterseries with the 18-member Sphinx Virtuosi at the Lobero. The talented ensemble was founded in Detroit in 1997 to champion black and Latinx composers and musicians to bring more diversity to the arts. The tony troupe performed four commissioned […]

Different Types of Casting
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 19, 2024

Web-slinging hero Miles Morales returned last year in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, released five years after the smash hit Into the Spider-Verse claimed the Academy Award for animation. The sequel, which features breathtaking animation that pushes the limits of the form and also received a nomination, features a large cast of Spider-People, paying homage to […]

Vocal Recital Offers High Notes, Drama
By Scott Craig   |   March 19, 2024

Two Westmont voice instructors will join forces in a recital, “A Song Celebration,” on Saturday, March 23, at 4 pm in Deane Chapel on Westmont’s lower campus. The performance is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact the music department at (805) 565-6040. Tenor Chad Ruyle and soprano Nichole Dechaine, who […]

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  • The Symphonic Sphinx Virtuosi
    By Steven Libowitz   |   March 19, 2024

    The Sphinx Organization was founded in Detroit back in 1997, and much like Motown Records more than three decades earlier, it has championed composers and musicians of color – in this case in the realm of classical music. Sphinx’s vision for more than three decades has been to make classical music more representative of our […]

    Milt Is Gone, but Magic Marches on 
    By Steven Libowitz   |   March 12, 2024

    If Juliana Chen hadn’t broken her knee as a foot juggling teenager, we might be seeing the native of the Hunan Province of the People’s Republic of China performing in town with the famous Guangzhou Acrobatic Troupe or another Chinese extravaganza. Instead, Chen chose magic as the best way to channel her dexterity and dreams […]

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    Flower Power: Orchid Overflow at Showgrounds
    By Steven Libowitz   |   March 12, 2024

    Folks who aren’t fanatical about orchids may not realize it, but the Santa Barbara International Orchid Show is a very big deal. The show’s longevity is a big part of that – it’s been nearly eight decades since its first iteration in at the Montecito Grange Hall in 1945, and the SBIOS has ensconced at […]

    Southern California Museums’ 19th Annual Free-for-All Day Event
    By Joanne A Calitri   |   March 12, 2024

    The SoCal Museums organization is holding its 19th Annual Museums Free All Day event on Saturday, March 23.  This free ticket covers all ages for general admission at over 30 museums from Santa Barbara County through Los Angeles County. The museums participating cover the arts, cultural heritage, natural history, and science. And the free day […]

    SBIFF at the Oscars
    By Steven Libowitz   |   March 12, 2024

    The masterful moviemakers of 2023, at least as measured by the powers that be, have been speechifying down in L.A. at the SAG and PGA awards and across the pond for BAFTA. Many of them will likely get one last chance to orate on their opportunities and output at the Oscars, when the Academy Awards […]

    Movie Scenes, Music and Guests, oh my! 
    By Steven Libowitz   |   March 12, 2024

    If you find yourself still craving Academy Award-winning cinematic splendor on the big screen, the Santa Barbara Symphony has just the ticket. In its return to the Granada – following a forced move to the Lobero last month due to water damage at The G – the symphony builds on the Oscar buzz with its […]

    Illuminate Ideas and Imagination Through Movies
    By Steven Libowitz   |   March 12, 2024

    The area’s newest film festival, and one with a decidedly different focus, gets going next month. The ILLUMINATE Film Festival, an annual celebration of short and full-length evolutionary cinematic endeavors that aspire to elevate humanity’s sense of self, purpose and possibility, is actually celebrating its 10th anniversary, but relocated from Sedona, Arizona last year. With […]

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