Music After the Music Academy

Music Academy of the West’s summer festival and its 100-something event season has moved to the rear-view mirror after last weekend’s triumphant performance of Mahler’s Third at the final Academy Festival Orchestra symphony concert, complete with the MAW women’s chorus (which sprinkled in eight LVI fellows) and the Sing! Children’s Choir. But there’s only a short lull before the comprehensive classical season in town gets going again. 

As always, Camerata Pacifica stakes its claim to the first concert of the fall season, with the chamber ensemble’s Santa Barbara opening night slated for September 26 at MAW’s Hahn Hall featuring an all-string program anchored by Brahms’ “String Sextet in G Major, Op. 36.” The rundown also features Anton Arensky’s “String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 35,” featuring an unusual scoring for violin, viola and two cellos (with a guest appearance by Columbian cellist Santiago Cañón-Valencia), and Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks’ 2013 piece “Castillo Interior for Violin & Cello.” 

Program highlights of the eight-concert season include the world premiere of a Camerata Pacifica-commissioned “Wind Quintet” by David Bruce presented among pieces by several other contemporary composers, and the launch of the ambitious “Beethoven 32” initiative, a three-year project that will see principal piano Gilles Vonsattel performing all 32 of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas in a blend of solo recitals and chamber programs. (Perfect for those who had their appetite whetted by Jeremy Denk’s three-night run of select sonatas in context and conversation at MAW in July). The undertaking kicks off in October with “Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat Major, Op. 106, ‘Hammerklavier,’” on a program with another solo piano work in Chopin’s “Nocturne No. 11 in G Minor, Op. 37, No. 1,” and one of Mozart’s wind serenades. Vonsattel plays three more Beethoven Sonatas on chamber programs in January and May, and also offers back-to-back solo recitals in March and April – performed only in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles – encompassing eight more of the composer’s sonatas. 

Also on tap this season: the Camerata Pacifica debuts of bassoonist Eleni Katz, horn players David Byrd-Marrow and Melia Badalian, and percussionists Ayano Kataoka and Svet Stoyanov along with the return of almost a dozen other guest artists.

Visit www.cameratapacifica.org.