It was around 15 years ago that jazz composer/arranger/bandleader Chris Walden brought his big band to SOhO for a third concert, cramming a full ensemble onto the club’s then still-tiny stage — with a couple of the musicians spilling over. That was not long after Walden had left his native Germany – where he’d started […]
Veteran Central Coast songstress Shawn Thies, who has been singing a variety of genres in public since her mid-teen years, makes her debut with the Santa Barbara Jazz Society at the monthly showcase at SOhO Sunday afternoon. Thies will lend her warm and playful voice to selections of jazz standards from the Great American Songbook, […]
The Santa Barbara Acoustic Instrument Celebration launched as an annual guitar convention back in 2016, branched into presenting a series of concerts that included workshops, and arguably peaked with bringing fingerstyle wizard Tommy Emmanuel back to town. But when the pandemic struck in 2020, it was hard to get audiences to return, and after trying […]
Kevin Costner, whose seaside Summerland estate will serve as host of the One805LIVE! benefit concert for the third straight year, will now also be singing for the first time at the star-studded fundraiser. Costner, who missed 2022’s show while away filming, spoke to the crowd at last year’s show but did not perform. The famed […]
This weekend offers an additional opportunity to aid area first responders in their mental/emotional health challenges — which is also a big part of One805’s oeuvre — via a world premiere event of the documentary short film 9-1-1 Project Harmony at the Lobero on September 8. The film covers the program of the same name, […]
Elings Park’s two-production experiment in bringing Shakespeare to its charming Godric Grove amphitheater this summer winds up with a pair of performances of Much Ado About Nothing from UCSB’s Naked Shakes, the Irwin Appel-founded-and-directed company that employs minimal props and costumes to keep the focus on the acting and the Bard’s prose. Ado, which boasts […]
The Alcazar Ensemble is staging a second weekend September 6-8 of the Hanne Pedersen Playwright Competition. That competition features four one-act plays from tri-county authors in honor of its late namesake, one of the co-founders of the Carpinteria Community Theatre. Sophie Goldstein’s This House is Legacy traces a neighborhood that no longer exists but has […]
Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s Free Community Day features a flurry of family activities both participatory and observational in celebration of its continuing exhibit “A Legacy of Giving: The Lady Leslie and Lord Paul Ridley-Tree Collection.” Music on the front terrace comes from the local ensembles Slideways Trombone Quartet, Bottom Line Brass Tuba Quartet, and […]
The next week of Santa Barbara Bowl’s September surge showcases with Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue with Big Boi on September 5, the final date of Isla Vista-born Iration & Pepper’s Daytrippin in Paradise Summer 2024 Tour on September 8, alternative rock trio Wallows on September 9, and Palo Alto singer-songwriter Remi Wolf on September […]
Will any public event in town ever come close to matching the Kick Ash Bash in pure megawatt star power? Back in 2018, over the course of a full day and evening, just about everybody in the entertainment industry with a local connection – rock legends, pop princesses and other celebrities – participated in the […]
You won’t see any water towers rising above buildings in painter Sophie Cooper’s Montecito neighborhood on East Mountain Drive near Westmont College, nor anywhere in Montecito for that matter. But you will find paintings of scores of antiquated wooden tanks – which New York City required of all buildings higher than six stories starting in […]
Pacific Conservatory Theatre’s Solvang Festival Theatre season comes to a close with The Agitators, a powerful two-hander about two titans of America’s troubled history that runs for just 10 days, Aug. 29-Sept. 8. Focusing as much on the friendship between Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony over the course of five decades as their tireless […]
The Music Academy of the West third Mariposa Concert Series, concerts and performances – each with a connection to at least one MAW alum – at Hahn Hall on the Miraflores campus is presenting its most ambitious season yet. The array of visionary artists, with a repertoire that spans more than 700 years, most assuredly […]
Recovery from the pandemic is still a part of our world, and if there’s anything that hasn’t fully come back, it might be our shared experiences of humor and magic. Combining those two for an immersive weekend is the point behind the first annual Comedy & Magic Festival at the Alcazar Theatre in Carpinteria. Fourteen […]
It’s been a couple of years since the local Nebula Dance Lab has produced its HHII Dance Festival, so Selah Dance Collective has stepped up to offer something similar in the same Center Stage Theater space this weekend. While the event won’t be as wide-ranging nor as long in duration as HHII, the vibrant and […]
If Donald Trump can re-post deepfake AI images implying that Taylor Swift has endorsed him in response to her terrorist threat-canceled European shows, there’s certainly no reason that Out of the Box theater company – which is much more politically/socially aligned with Swift’s actual proclivities – can’t co-opt the title of the pop singer’s massive, […]
Violinist Jessica Guideri, concertmaster of the Santa Barbara Symphony, and Amy Tatum, the orchestra’s principal flutist, head half a block south of their normal Granada Theatre venue to play a series of pop-up performances in the galleries of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art on August 25. The pair of musicians will play a combination […]
Missed Robert Zemeckis at the Granada earlier this month when the Montecito moviemaker made it down the mountain to intro Romancing the Stone and launch the four-film retrospective as part of the Home Movies Centennial celebration? No worries. Zemeckis will also be on hand for a pre-screening chat at SBIFF’s Riviera Theatre prior to a […]
It’s been more than a decade since the eloquent words of William Shakespeare have been recited in the all-natural environs of Elings Park, the huge private nonprofit open space high above the Mesa that’s perfect for performances of the Bard’s best. But now late summer is bringing two different productions of Shakespeare plays to Godric […]
There are likely more Elton John tribute acts than Top 10 hits produced by Sir Elton himself over his more than 50-year-career. Page 1 of a Google search yields such bands as Simply Elton, Almost Elton John and Ultimate Elton, as well as Rocket Max, The Rocket Man Show, Crocodile Mock and Elton Jeff & […]
Ensemble Theatre’s Pay It Forward: Legends of Broadway benefit event last weekend was a smashing success, a sold-out soirée of song which even had some special surprises, including an appearance by the Gay Men’s Chorus augmenting the half-dozen veterans of the New York stage, screen and TV as they all celebrated the music of 10 […]
Crossing Encephalartos horridus with Encephalartos woodii might sound like the formula for developing the world’s next deadly disease. But horticulturalists will realize that it’s actually a unique cycad hybrid – one that results in super spiny and glossy green leaves. The Lotusland-created specimen will be among the hundreds of rare and specimen plants available at […]
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, the swing music and jump blues band whose members hail from Ventura and Santa Barbara, got its start in the early 1990s with club gigs that include twice playing the Santa Barbara Independent’s Christmas party at El Paseo Restaurant. As the swing revival hit SoCal, BBVD scored a pivotal on-screen appearance […]
Libbey Bowl lies in an idyllic park setting in the charming mountain village of Ojai, and the amphitheater is finally getting its due as a special summer venue. Acts at Libbey this week include Los Lonely Boys, the veteran trio of Texas born and bred brothers Henry, Jojo and Ringo Garza who play a mix […]
Fret not that the Music Academy summer festival 2024 came to a close last weekend with the triumphant fellows-powered orchestra concert of Mahler’s “Symphony No. 6.” Classical music abounds in the upcoming 2024-25 season, everything from touring major orchestras to intimate recitals at venues all over town. Camerata Pacifica launches its series back at Hahn […]
The 2024-25 classical music season actually gets underway this weekend via an early start for the Santa Barbara Music Club, who are congregating to present a concert in memory of Betty Oberacker. The longtime Santa Barbara-based, internationally-known concert pianist, educator and coach passed away June 28 at the age of 91. “Betty was a tremendous […]
The Santa Barbara International Film Festival is not only adding a 12th day for its 40th incarnation, slated for February 4-15, but is also finally employing the Riviera Theatre, SBIFF’s recently refurbished state-of-the-art year-round home, as a venue for the festival. The Riv will have its own dedicated film pass. All of the 2025 SBIFF […]
It was back in 1974 that Dr. Harry Brown founded SEE International to address the global lack of access to high-quality clinical eyecare. His team soon developed an efficient mobile eye surgery system consisting of intensive, short-term surgical clinics that could travel to medically underserved populations in remote areas worldwide, performing sight-saving surgeries. What began […]
Clarinet fellow Katia Sofia Waxman is winding up her first and likely only summer at the Music Academy of the West after earning a master’s degree from Juilliard while majoring in both music and economics at Oberlin. The Chicago native said she was lucky to get to attend the “pinnacle summer festival” for its faculty […]
PCPA is bringing Cabaret’s Kit Kat Klub to the sleepy Danish village of Solvang, where the denizens of the famous decadent sanctuary – artists and performers, misfits and outsiders – will perform outdoors under the stars at the Solvang Festival Theatre August 2-25. The Kander & Ebb musical is set in 1929-30 Berlin during the […]
Audiences will once again have the chance to witness staged readings of potential future classics at the Ojai Playwrights Conference’s 27th annual New Works Festival from August 1-4. The readings are the culmination of a two-week workshop immersion for the five selected playwrights to develop their creations, with the writers joined by professional actors and […]
There will probably – perhaps hopefully – never be another benefit concert like the Kick Ash Bash, the 2018 extravaganza staged as a thank you for the first responders who dealt with the late 2017 Thomas Fire and the resultant early 2018 Montecito Debris Flows. Just about every musician, actor and other entertainer who ever […]
If you somehow missed Mezcal Martini at their romp through the July calendar of free outdoor concerts – including Music at the Ranch, Concerts in the Park, and Meet Me in Old Town Goleta – you’ve got another chance this week as the Latin jazz band heads to Fiesta’s Mercado De La Guerra for a […]
The Music Academy of the West launched a directing fellow position three years ago, but MAW still doesn’t have something similar for conductor trainees, despite offering five to six orchestral concerts every summer. If they ever decided to create such a position, luring David Robertson to direct it would be a great idea. The Malibu-raised […]
It’s been a landmark year for major anniversaries in Santa Barbara. The Granada Theatre launched its year-long Granada 100 celebration in the spring. The Summer Solstice Parade held its 50th festival on the first day of summer. And Old Spanish Days Fiesta is in the midst of its centennial celebration as this issue hits newsstands. […]
Bill Lanphar wasn’t the best-known singer-songwriter-guitarist who called Santa Barbara home. But he might very well have been the best-loved among his peers. Lanphar, who had a rock band when he lived in L.A. before relocating to Santa Barbara and La Conchita, started playing music during open mic nights at Dargan’s Pub and quickly became […]
Continue motoring down the 101 this weekend for more musical adventures, including the first installment of the 2024 Ventura Music Festival, the seaside city’s long-running boundary-busting fest that extends to various venues and genres. Grammy winner and 12-time IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year Michael Cleveland brings boffo bluegrass to Olivas Adobe Historical Park with […]
There are 19 RiteCare Childhood Language Centers across California, a program of the California Scottish Rite Foundation that provides life-changing speech therapy, language skills, and literacy services to more than 2,300 children at no cost to the families. The highly effective centers in many ways more than fill the gaps between what the public schools […]
Lawrence Brownlee is one of today’s most celebrated bel canto tenors, in demand for opera performances as well as song cycle recitals with major orchestras across the country and around the world. He’s particularly praised for his interpretations of Rossini – his Grammy-nominated album Virtuoso Rossini Arias prompted famed New Yorker critic Alex Ross to […]
Heroes, Tom Stoppard’s loose translation of Gérald Sibleyras’ 2003 French play Le Vent des Peupliers (“The Wind in the Poplars”), won the 2006 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy – the highest honor in British theater, equivalent to Broadway’s Tony Awards. A year later, the funny, heart-warming work – about three aging World War I […]