Head for the Hills: Classical Concerts off the Coast 

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 control of textures” by The Strad magazine and earned plaudits around the world. Grammy-nominated for its latest album, 2022’s Musical Remembrances, the trio will play a vivacious varied program featuring Gabriela Lena Frank’s “Four Folk Songs,” “Five Melodies for Piano Trio, Op. 59, No. 1” by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Frank Martin’s “Piano Trio on Irish Folk Songs” and Smetana’s “Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 15.” Show time is 3 pm on Sunday, Feb. 26, at the Logan House at the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts. Visit www.chamberonthemountain.com.

Heading north, the Santa Ynez Valley Concert series continues its season of Music Academy-related programming that has boasted former Marilyn Horne Vocal Competition winner baritone John Brancy, ex-VP of programming/saxophonistPatrick Posey and faculty artists, Takács Quartet, now turns to fellow faculty member Conor Hanick for its next recital at St. Mark’s in-the-Valley Church in Los Olivos on Wednesday, March 1. The pianist will perform Beethoven Sonatas No. 30 & 31 sandwiched around Sonatas No. 2-5 by Galina Ustvolskaya, comparing and contrasting the two composers who employed the piano sonata as a long-lasting laboratory for exploring musical ideas. Visit www.smitv.org/syv-concert-series.