This Week @ MAW

Friday, July 10: After a stirring introduction to the Lehrer Vocal Institute singers for 2026 last week, the vocal season shifts into full swing as the season’s major events rapidly approach. Today, it’s a masterclass with Paul Curran, whose credits include directing productions across the world with opera companies ranging from the Met, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, and San Francisco Opera domestically to La Scala, La Fenice, and Tokyo Opera overseas. The former artistic director of the Norwegian National Opera will be helming MAW’s 2026 Opera Scenes on Tuesday, July 14. First, though, he coaches a number of singers in front of an audience this afternoon when we imagine there might be a preview of a piece or two. (3:30 pm; Hahn Hall; $10)… 

Tonight’s Picnic Concert, “Missy Mazzoli in Her Words,” is a deep dive into compositions and other projects by the Grammy-nominated composer who is serving as one of this year’s Mosher Guest Artists. Mazzoli’s music has been performed worldwide by leading orchestras, ensembles and soloists including the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, Kronos Quartet, and violinist Jennifer Koh, while her commissioned operas include the critically acclaimed Breaking the Waves and Proving Up. The fellows performing in the Picnic Concert – the popular series that returns this summer after a hiatus – will take on a quartet of Mazzoli’s works, including the world premiere of a new series of Piano Études played by the six solo piano fellows, and her fine chamber piece “Ecstatic Science”  – commissioned by the New York-based sextet yMusic and  performed on flute, clarinet, trumpet, violin, viola and cello. The piece blends fluid, meditative textures with rapidly shifting, rhythmic patterns meant to draw connections between music and the natural sciences. Mezzo-soprano Tracy Lin Waagner sings “Self-Portrait with Disheveled Hair,” which was commissioned by LVI Co-director Sasha Cooke, while Maple Quartet, the 2026 Emerging Artists String Quartet, will close out their residency by joining with two double bassists for Mazzoli’s chamber concerto “Dark with Excessive Bright.” Also having its world premiere: “A Cathedral of Rust and Birds”by Mia Turakhia, the teenage award-winner who was an early mentee at the Mazzoli-co-founded Luna Composition Lab. The Mosher honoree’s curated program also features her arrangement of Hildegard von Bingen’s 12th-century sacred chant “O frondens virga,” also performed by Waagner with cellist Elliott Kim, plus Meredith Monk’s Stringsongs. Not to be missed. (7:30 pm; Hahn Hall; $10-65)

Saturday, July 11: The second Academy Festival Orchestra concert is out of this world, literally, as the program is anchored by Holst’s The Planets, his century-plus old orchestral suite that has been wildly popular ever since its first performance in 1918. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet in our solar system and reflects more of its astrological significance than astronomical properties. No matter. What makes tonight’s rendition soar is the accompanying projection of NASA images and footage in HD on the big screen at the Granada behind the orchestra, new images that will be making their Santa Barbara debut. Grammy and Emmy Award-winning conductor Xian Zhang, music director of both the New Jersey Symphony and Seattle Symphony, conducts the program that kicks off with Nokuthula Ngwenyama’s “Primal Message,” an 11-minute musical reverie for harp, celesta, percussion and strings, and Anton Webern’s orchestral tone poem “Im Sommerwind”– colorful works that should set the scene nicely for planetary exploration. (7:30; Granada Theatre; $10-$125)

Monday, July 13: MAW’s Concerto Competition morphed into one for duos. Now, it’s gone, along with the Solo Piano Competition, both of which provided winners with prize money as well as a chance to perform either at the end of the summer or the beginning of the following year. (Don’t worry, the Vocal Competition still takes place in the last week of the season.) Both have also evolved into performance rather than competitive events. Tonight is the first of three Solo Piano Spotlight concerts, each featuring two of the six solo piano fellows getting significant space to showcase sonatas. Spotlights 2 & 3 take place the next two Mondays, making the week’s opening day a little brighter. (7:30 pm; Hahn Hall; $10-50)

Tuesday, July 14: This year’s Opera Scenes has a hyperfocus, with a pair of LVI singers (and a vocal pianist) shining on selections from eight different operas that span the centuries, including Verdi’s La traviata, Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, and Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking. That’s 18 singers in all, representing the vocalists who don’t have the most massive roles in the full production of Kevin Puts’ Elizabeth Cree later in the month. (7:30 pm; Hahn Hall; $10-80)

Wednesday, July 15: Speaking of Kevin Puts, the highly decorated, very influential American composer is next up in the chat series, sitting down for a panel discussion hosted by Lehrer Vocal Institute Co-directors Sasha Cooke and John Churchwell. Guests can get insight not only into Elizabeth Cree, but also Puts’ upcoming premieres, commissions, and creative perspectives in an intimate afternoon setting. (1:30 pm; Lehmann Hall; $10)…

Tonight it’s another one of those events that makes MAW just a must-attend event on the classical calendar: a recital by faculty pianist Jeremy Denk, now in his 12th season as a teaching artist here. The winner of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize who was also recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Denk will perform the most challenging and perhaps rewarding of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas – “No. 29 in B-flat Major, Op. 106, ‘Hammerklavier’” – along with a delicious pair of appetizers in the six Piano Études by Unsuk Chin and several more by Hélène de Montgeroult. A lot more folks can see why Denk is so celebrated, as the capacity this time around is twice that of Hahn Hall, his usual site for MAW recitals. (7:30 pm; Lobero Theatre; $10-125)

Thursday, July 16: The second x2 Series concert – in which faculty members and fellows share the stage, each piece gifting both teaching experience and revelatory treats for the audience – is dubbed “Legions Will Rise” after the Puts piece for violin, clarinet, and percussion. Ten more musicians comprise the split cast for the two works that sandwich Puts’ composition: La revue de cuisine, the one-act ballet by Martinů and Anton Arensky’s “String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 35.” (7:30 pm; Hahn Hall; $10-65)