The clichéd image of a random Boy Scout helping grandma across the street to earn points toward a merit badge is a thing of the past with the reinvigorated launch of Scouting America – a new identity that reflects the organization’s commitment to inclusivity and welcoming all youth, including girls, into its programs. “We’re all […]
A lot has changed in the world since Albert Brooks launched his career more than half a century ago as a comedian. A career that more or less revolutionized comedy with his appearances on just about every TV talk and variety show on the air led to landing key roles as an actor and making […]
There have been two tribute concerts for David Crosby in the 28 months since the legendary singer-songwriter passed away at his Santa Ynez home in 2023. But Locals and Legends: Celebrating the Music of David Crosby, slated for May 24 at the Granada Theatre, offers two significant additions. The show is co-presented by Santa Barbara […]
Three Dog Night – which surprisingly was not named for its innovative idea of a trio of lead singers – was one of the most successful bands of the late 1960s and early 1970s, selling more than 50 million records for such singles as “One,” “Easy To Be Hard,” “Joy to the World,” “Mama Told […]
Topanga Canyon-based Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum returns to Elings Park atop the Mesa with their outdoor staging of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, transforming the gorgeous Godric Grove Amphitheater into an enchanted forest for the holiday weekend May 24-25. The professional troupe sold out its single performance of Dream last year, when the actors incorporated […]
The Santa Barbara Maritime Museum new exhibition The Swiftest Recovery: Island Fox Chronicles, features a photographic showcase by Chuck Graham (who also contributes to the MJ) that highlights one of the most remarkable conservation success stories in recent history – the tiny fox at Channel Islands National Park. This exhibition, which offers a glimpse into […]
Lompoc Valley Community Healthcare Organization (LVCHO) has been around for more than a quarter century, but it wasn’t until last year that the organization began to raise its public profile in the community and focus in earnest on local fundraising. That’s because the nonprofit, founded in 1999 by local leaders, largely doesn’t deal directly with […]
The Santa Barbara Symphony’s adventurous 2024-25 season comes to a close this weekend with another unusual entry, as the pair of concerts represent the first time the organization has booked a soloist – in this case the very estimable violinist Gil Shaham – to perform different repertoire in the Saturday and Sunday concert. The Grammy-decorated […]
There’s another world premiere presenting just its second performance in town this weekend, this one fully commissioned by a patron of the local ensemble that will perform it at Hahn Hall on May 17. But the last time Camerata Pacifica played Dreammusik, written by Lera Auerbach for principal cellist Ani Aznavoorian, was back in 2014 […]
The long-awaited Santa Ynez Chumash Museum and Cultural Center is a project that dates to 2005. That inaugural impulse two decades ago was itself based on ideas that had begun germinating some thirty years before. All those decades of thinking and planning were seen as actually coming to long-awaited fruition when construction began in 2018. […]
The final concert in the current Santa Ynez Valley Concert Series takes place at 4 pm on Saturday, May 17, with the fourth annual Young Artist Showcase featuring young musicians from around Santa Barbara County performing at St. Mark’s in-the-Valley Church in Los Olivos. Admission is free. The Valley also represents in midtown Santa Barbara […]
VADA Talks is an ongoing series of events featuring renowned guests from varied professions as they discuss how art has inspired the work they do. The series was created to support The Visual Art & Design Academy at Santa Barbara High School, which integrates rigorous academic coursework with project-based, career-focused art and design instruction in […]
The Santa Barbara Bodhi Path Buddhist Center has been offering a high-quality curriculum of instruction in Buddhist meditation practice and philosophy ever since its founding in 1997 at the direction of Shamar Rinpoche. Generations of students have come to learn and practice in a modern, non-sectarian environment focused on authentic Buddhist teachings taught and practiced […]
State Street Ballet closes out its 30th season with The Brilliance Program: Balanchine, Arpino, and Beyond, a title meant to characterize the works featured on the May 9-10 performances at the Lobero Theatre – but also apropos for the company’s spectacular season, the first full one under the leadership of Artistic Director Megan Phillips and […]
In a strange situation for an often ballet-starved town, the Arlington Theatre is also hosting a prime example of the art form this week – for the first time since the local Festival Ballet’s annual performances of The Nutcracker last December – as the State Ballet Theatre of Ukraine presents Sleeping Beauty on May 13. […]
Think of the Young Playwrights Festival as a reverse Launch Pad. The springtime program at Ensemble Theatre Company’s New Vic Theater gives aspiring playwrights ages 14-19 the opportunity to create a play that is produced and staged with professional directors and actors, and then presented as a staged reading at the theater. The Young Playwrights […]
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 […]
Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights, UCSB Reads’ 2025 selection, is a New York Times bestselling collection of essays – written daily over the course of a year – celebrating small, ordinary wonders. Gay’s humorous, poetic and philosophical essays cover a wide range of topics, with vignettes that include such luminous oddities as sharing a […]
The Music Academy of the West season is still a solid six weeks away when 150 fellows will arrive on the Miraflores campus in Montecito and, alongside 60 faculty members, collaborate in creating a truly astonishing slate of events over the otherwise fallow months on the classical calendar. There are nearly 125 in-person opportunities in […]
Fans of talented teens singing and dancing in school versions of Broadway musicals rejoice this time of spring, as each of the major public high schools mounts their big musicals of the year. Hadestown, which winds up its run at Santa Barbara High May 1-3, has already had two productions by teen companies in town […]
The Marjorie Luke Theatre is reaching out with an urgent request as they seek to replace its outdated lighting system with energy-efficient LED fixtures. A new system would not only enhance the theatrical experience but also serve as a key part of the Luke’s commitment to sustainability and long-term cost savings, as LED fixtures would […]
The Illuminate Film Festival’s second year in town takes place May 1-4 at various venues all within a two-block radius downtown, where the fest will screen 20 films that are all about raising awareness to explore human potential, spiritual growth and social change. There are 14 feature-length documentaries and a series of micro-shorts that touch […]
Recently retired-from-the-road Kenny Loggins and his new wife Lisa are hosting the 1st Annual “Pickleball in the Danger Zone” tournament, with proceeds benefiting Santa Barbara’s Unity Shoppe. Registration for players at the event that takes place at the Santa Barbara Municipal Pickleball Courts near off Old Coast Road May 2-5 is sold out, but a […]
For an organization that’s been around for more than three-quarters of a century, the Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse (CADA) sure doesn’t act like a typical senior citizen. Since 1949, CADA has delivered programs and services focused on the education, prevention and treatment of substance abuse and co-occurring mental health conditions affecting youth, adults […]
In a town rife with special film events seemingly every fortnight if not more often, it wouldn’t be wrong to think of the Illuminate Film Festival as a series of gatherings where film is, in many ways, only incidental to the mission. Billing itself as the world’s leading showcase for conscious cinema, Illuminate launches its […]
Third-generation Montecito resident Taran Collis’ passion for wellness and spiritual education runs deep in her family. Her grandmother, June Christensen, taught “Moving Consciously” at Adult Ed and Santa Barbara High School. Her grandfather, Mervin Lane, was an English professor who taught yoga and tai chi at SBCC. Before 2018, Collis, a certified Yoga Therapist and […]
Famed Santa Barbara architect Robin Donaldson has traveled the world with the recent pair of documentary films – The House: 6 Points of Departure and This Is Not a House – that chronicle his immersive work on two important homes in the Montecito foothills; the Crawford House and Hill House. Donaldson, who studied painting and […]
The Santa Barbara Fair & Expo goes totally tubular for two weekends of wonder. The annual springtime event will be bursting with entertainment, a full carnival of 30-plus rides and games, fun fair food (funnel cakes!), exhibits and other favorite traditions while embracing ‘80s Flashback as its theme for 2025. Accordingly, the stages have been […]
The annual community-organized gathering to give thanks to Gaia gets going (as always) the last weekend of the month (April 26-27) at Alameda Park, marking its 55th year as one of the longest-running Earth Day celebrations in the country and largest on the West Coast. Presented by the Community Environmental Council and geared toward environmental […]
This weekend also marks the launch of the months-long marking of the day when the Earth wasn’t so friendly for locals – a commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake, an historic disaster that intrinsically changed the city. EQ25.org gets going with the Roaring ‘20s Speakeasy Soireé on April 25 at […]
Donavon Frankenreiter headlines the Saturday afternoon new GauchoFest at the annual All Gaucho Reunion at UCSB. Frankenreiter, a longtime associate of UCSB grad Jack (“Bubble Toes”) Johnson and a regular at SOhO over the years, will close out the 2-6 pm concert on April 26 at the UCSB Campus Green that also features DJ Orbs […]
Fictional detective Harry Bosch, the star of more than a dozen best-selling books by Michael Connelly and two TV series on Amazon Prime, operates with a credo he adopted early in his career: “Everybody counts, or nobody counts.” That’s basically the same philosophy behind Savie Health, the nonprofit free clinic in downtown Lompoc. It’s the […]
Meditation is marvelous and yoga is yummy, but a new method of coping and connecting can be welcome during particularly challenging times. “Singing the Bones” features a musical collaboration with the audience that weaves together diasporic traditions through story and song from the three song leaders. Lydia Violet Harutoonian, a Persian American Bay Area violinist […]
After years of periodic collaborations with Santa Barbara choirs alone or in various combinations, the Santa Barbara Symphony Chorus makes its debut with the orchestra’s April 25-26 pair of concerts. The ensemble was assembled as something akin to an all-star choir, comprised of community choral singers from many other organizations, including Adelfos Ensemble, Santa Barbara […]
In other symphony notes, the Doublewide Kings have just premiered their video presentation of Moondance, its groundbreaking celebration of the music of Van Morrison in collaboration with the Santa Barbara Symphony that was performed at the Granada Theatre in November 2023. The show represented the classical ensemble’s first project with a rock band (they’ve done […]
Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen, the playwrights who took a bite out of a famous Transylvanian count in Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors – which opened Ensemble Theatre’s current season – have also set their mandibles on digging into Dostoevsky with Crime and Punishment, a Comedy, which makes its local debut at the Jurkowitz Theatre […]
When State Street Ballet founding artistic/executive director Rodney Gustafson fully retired at the end of 2023, the destiny of the company – founded by the former American Ballet Theatre dancer some three decades earlier – was something of an unknown. Things seemed to be in good hands with the twin appointments of Megan Philipp as […]
REACH is a small local organization that provides comprehensive transformative support and development opportunities to first-generation college-bound students as they navigate the transition from high school to postsecondary education. The name is an acronym that stands for Resilience, Education, Adventure, Community and Health, but the word itself perfectly describes what the organization does, which is […]
Around these parts, George Frideric Handel’s Messiah generally gets performed only in December, in advance of Christmas, frequently as a sing-along or featuring just the famous “Hallelujah” chorus, and always as it was written in English. This weekend, the Santa Barbara Choral Society is rolling out the beloved oratorio. This most familiar of choral pieces […]
Given its members’ history and the quartet’s “inverted” composition, it’s no surprise that Owls has been called “a dream group” by The New York Times. Featuring a distinctive instrumentation variation of the traditional string quartet that trades the second violinist for an additional cellist, the individual Owls are also no strangers to our area. Cellist […]