True Blue: CAMA’s Philharmonic Concert is Also a Farewell

This year’s annual Santa Barbara visit by the Los Angeles Philharmonic on Friday, May 9, at the Granada not only closes out CAMA’s orchestral International Series for 2025-26, but also serves as the penultimate concert in president Mark Trueblood’s CAMA career after 27 years at the helm. It’s rather appropriate, as the LA Phil was the reason CAMA was created, which evolved into a more than century-long endeavor to bring major orchestras to a town much smaller than the municipalities these touring companies usually visit. 

In another nice touch of timing, the ensemble’s esteemed Conductor Laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen returns for his 16th CAMA appearance over the past three decades, including a dozen past performances with the LA Phil and three with London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, both of whom will be back next season, post-Trueblood. Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard serves as soloist for Bartok’s “Piano Concerto No. 3, Sz. 119, BB 127,” the middle work of a program that also includes Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun” and Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 3 in E-Flat Major, Op. 55, ‘Eroica.’”