Music, Meditation & Mathison at MAW, Plus More Entertain Matters

Music & Meditation Santa Barbara continues its second season at Weinman Hall at the Music Academy of the West on Friday afternoon October 23 with well-known locally-based clarinetist Nancy Mathison joining and pianist-artistic director Antonio Artese for an intimate one-hour program. After a guided meditation and period of intentional silence led by Jessica Kolbe, Mathison (a 1978 MAW alum), will employ three different clarinets to reveal the remarkable range of colors and registers of the instrument in works by Bach, Mozart, Schumann, Vaughan Williams, and John Coltrane. The latter represents the series’ first broadening beyond the classical tradition to the jazz great’s world, where improvisation, spirituality, and deep listening are intertwined. 

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Purcell-a-Palooza 

The Master Chorale concert goes for Baroque, both by introducing its new Artistic Director and Conductor, Dr. William Cutter, and producing a concert fully focused on music by Henry Purcell on Saturday afternoon October 24 at Trinity Lutheran Church. Purcell-Palooza puts its attention on the prolific English “composer’s composer” of the Baroque era, with selections from his opera Dido and Aeneas; “Come ye Sons of Art,” Purcell’s birthday ode to his primary patron, Queen Mary; the Rondeau from Abdelazer, as heard in the 2005 film Pride and Prejudice; and other pieces. The Dance Hub’s Carrie Diamond provides the choreography for dancers Summer Fowler, Evelyn Mills, and Nik Valinsky. Cutter comes to the Master Chorale after 30-plus years as MIT’s director of Choral Programs and Professor of Core Studies at the Boston Conservatory back east, where he also served as rehearsal conductor and chorus master for the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops. 

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Sold out Show of the Week: Etheridge Strips Down

Melissa Etheridge is paring back the loud rock band for her solo acoustic tour, allowing the spotlight to shine on her estimable vocal power, storytelling prowess, and solo guitar, piano and harmonica. To these skill sets will be added her own body and boots-produced rhythm as she shares her greatest hits and selections from Rise, her 17th album. In the interim following 2019’s The Medicine Show, the Oscar and Grammy winning Etheridge launched Etheridge TV, wrote her memoir “Talking to My Angels,” and scored on Broadway with her one-woman show Melissa Etheridge: My Window. Now she returns to concert halls – including the Lobero on Friday, October 23 – with a deeply personal collection of songs and a renewed sense of gratitude.

SBIFF Salutes Saint

Eva Marie Saint, who passed away at age 102 earlier this month, led a long life that included stardom in Hollywood and decades as a Montecito resident. But her image on the screen will enjoy an even longer life through many of her movies, albeit mostly through streaming or some new format as time goes by. But first our local newly-refurbished art house five-plex, aka SBIFF’s McHurley Film Center, which had already christened one of its theaters as Eva Marie Saint Theatre, will show two of those classics as they should be seen. The still-jarring classics On the Waterfront and North by Northwest will grace McHurley Film Center’s screens October 23-29. 

In other SBIFF news, the Cinema Society’s expansive schedule of sneak preview screenings (boosted by filmmaker Q&As) ramps up in mid-autumn as more of the award-hopeful movies and film festival circuit favorites prepare for wide release. The general public may attend individual screenings on a space available basis. This week: Broken Country, which examines the economic and social pressures reshaping Canada, with director Mira Metter and producer Michael Werry (Oct. 22). Everytime, Germany’s entry to the Academy Awards (Oct. 23, no Q&A). The Javier Bardem–Penélope Cruz vehicle Bunker, in which the title structure causes a rift in a marriage, followed by a conversation with Bunker’s writer-director Florian Zeller (Oct. 24). Already-streaming Hoppers, which harbors animation award ambitions, boasts a Q&A with writer-director Daniel Chong. Writer-director Lukas Dhont talks about Coward, Belgium’s Oscar entry and Best Actor winner at Cannes (Nov. 1). 

Down the road, Emily Blunt is this year’s recipient of the Kirk Douglas Award for excellence in film, in a gala and tribute at The Ritz-Carlton Bacara on Thursday, December 10. Looking further ahead, the first announced tribute of SBIFF’s annual full festival in February is John Malkovich, who will receive the Outstanding Performer of the Year on Friday, February 12. Much more to come soon.  

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