Andrew Lipke makes his Santa Barbara Symphony debut Sunday night as guest conductor for the annual New Year’s Eve concert, but he’ll be doing much more than waving the baton around to close out 2023. The composer, arranger, conductor, guitarist, and vocalist will actually display all of those talents at the Granada in a program […]
This past year has seen the revival of Santa Barbara Comedy Hideaway, the erstwhile series that imported comics from major venues and streaming services on a weekly basis at several different locations in town. While weekly shows are at 1203 State Street, the Hideaway steps it up to hang out at the New Vic Theatre […]
It was shortly after the dawning of the new millennium that Santa Barbara Unified School District and a new nonprofit got together to upgrade the auditorium at Santa Barbara Junior High that had gone dark and fallen into disrepair. What started as a cleanup turned into a full-blown renovation of the historic Spanish colonial revival […]
Seniors experiencing depression or related mental health challenges have a new resource to help them retain their independence and improve quality of life thanks to a recently-launched program from Family Service Agency (FSA). PEARLS – an acronym for the Program to Encourage Active, Rewarding Lives – utilizes an evidence-based approach to reduce symptoms of depression […]
Guitarist Chris Shiflett grew up on Santa Barbara’s Eastside just a short walk from the Santa Barbara Bowl, the local amphitheater he would eventually play with as the lead guitarist in Foo Fighters. But back in the ‘70s and ‘80s it was the bar scene and house parties for Shiflett, who went to the junior […]
Anthony Kearns, Ronan Tynan, and Declan Kelly, better known as the Irish Tenors, are all well on in years and miles on the road, but have piled into one hotel room in Plymouth, Massachusetts, like a band out on its first tour. The Tenors have a history of hits with classics from the Emerald Isle […]
Whether you’re needing a bit of exercise to work off the Christmas feast, seeking some family fun time with lots of other folks, or merely looking for a way out of the house after a weekend with relatives, the Santa Barbara Country Dance Society might have the answer. They’re throwing open their doors to everyone […]
With its 2024 annual Christmastime show, Santa Barbara Revels becomes the first of the regional Revels companies to present the organization’s newest endeavor: The Revels: A Winter Solstice Celebration – Tales from Ellis Island. Inaugurated in Cambridge just last year, the story finds a Mexican medical supervisor informing the newly-arrived immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and […]
There’s something quite magical and yet weighty in the way in which Lights Up! Theatre Company has taken a firm toehold in the Santa Barbara youth theater scene – one that has never been sorely lacking in the first place. Theater stage and screen veteran Amy Love has parlayed her professional and teaching background into […]
Choral concerts don’t come much more compelling than the Quire of Voyces, which Nathan Kreitzer founded at SBCC back in 1993 and still enthusiastically leads 30 years later. The a cappella sacred music ensemble has a remarkably crystalline sound cultivated by both Kreitzer’s exacting ear and regular rehearsals. There are but two full weekend programs […]
Ensemble’s Johnny Cash tribute/story-through-song musical revue winds up its run at the New Vic with a final extended weekend through December 17. The Alcazar Theatre in Carpinteria has a second and final weekend helping of its homegrown adaptation of Miracle on 34th Street featuring an all-local cast and production crew, also closing December 17, the […]
The Montecito Journal’s 2024 Giving List book for Santa Barbara was just published last month in time for Giving Tuesday, but already the two-page spread about Sansum Clinic is out of date. Not the part that takes note of the fact that Sansum’s breadth of services are so pervasive in the area that it’s likely […]
In a strange coincidence, three Broadway music revues have arrived on our shores in sequence, and, as it turns out, you have your choice to see any of them for one night on Thursday, December 7. The Cher Show winds up its two-day run at the Granada, Ensemble’s Ring of Fire: The Music of Johnny […]
The holiday shopping season is as good a time as any to open your doors, and the monthly art and culture walk on lower State Street and environs known as 1st Thursday has a few new folks participating for the December 7 event. Broc Ellinger Gallery (931 State) features artwork by the surfer and photographer… […]
Most folks in town are familiar with Grace Fisher, the Santa Barbara native who contracted a virus that spread to her spine and left her paralyzed from the neck down in her senior year in high school in 2014. The story bears repeating, especially at this time of year, as Fisher quickly turned her tragedy […]
Even more locals know about Unity Shoppe’s annual holiday telethon, which was co-founded by Montecito’s own Kenny Loggins during the heyday of his career back in the mid-1980s. That was also when the nonprofit opened its first store after six decades of moving around, engendering the idea of maintaining dignity and autonomy for low-income residents […]
Choir lovers rejoice: It’s the most wonderful time of year as several of the city’s classical vocal groups perform holiday concerts this week. Sing! – the Music Academy’s free community youth choral program – gets things going at 6 pm December 7 with a free one-hour concert featuring Christmas carols and holiday songs from across […]
The pandemic-propelled State Street parklets are still preventing the return of the Santa Barbara Downtown Holiday Parade, but neighbors just a bit east and south are both staging their marching extravaganzas on Saturday, December 9. Carpinteria’s Holiday Spirit Parade begins at 3 pm on Linden Avenue, the seaside city’s main drag, with floats, marching bands, […]
Chaucer’s Books closes out its impressive year of in-store events on December 12 with husband-and-wife authors Neal Allen and Anne Lamott surrounding Allen’s latest, Better Days: Tame Your Inner Critic. The new book finds the former journalist and corporate executive turned writer and spiritual coach diving into how our own internal critical voice gets in […]
It might seem disingenuous to employ the expression “a blessing in disguise” when it comes to Covid. But the truth is, were it not for the pandemic, Amada Cruz would probably not be gracing our little burg as Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s brand-new Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Director and CEO. After all, who suddenly […]
Morgan Scott was understandably excited Monday morning over the phone from the Coachella Valley, where The Cher Show had just wound up five performances over the weekend in Palm Desert. The area is home not only to one of Cher’s famed exes, Sonny Bono, who was both mayor of Palm Springs and a U.S. representative […]
Artist Symeon Shimin’s name may not be a household word, but his most famous work might be one of the better-known images in American history: the original poster for Gone with the Wind. But Shimin, who died in 1984, not only painted such promotional images for Hollywood films but was also an award-winning illustrator of […]
SBIFF’s private preview series with post-screening talent Q&A sessions – which is not exclusively private these days – heats up mightily in the waning weeks before winter as the Oscar hopefuls queue up for attention. Screenings at the Riviera Theatre this week start (Friday, December 1, at 7 pm) with Armenia’s Oscar Submission Amerikatsi – […]
The annual invasion of local productions of The Nutcracker doesn’t begin until mid-December, as Festival Ballet and then the State Street Ballet roll out their full-fledged renditions of Tchaikovsky’s Christmas classic. But this weekend brings a tasty holiday appetizer, especially for the tots and teens, as State Street Ballet Academy presents Rudolph, the charming holiday […]
Christmas with The Petersens stars the pure-bred American roots music family band who have turned music of the Ozarks into a veritable family business. The bluegrass-based septet consists of four siblings (Katie, Ellen, Matt, and Julianne), their mom Karen and honorary Petersen and dear friend, Emmett Franz, who collectively play guitar, dobro, fiddle, mandolin, banjo, […]
Montecito Journal Media Group launched The Giving List back in November of 2020 as a way to connect two very important communities in the region: the thousands of nonprofit organizations, totally perhaps more per capita than any other county in the country, and the vast and deep philanthropic community, which supports the organizations working hard […]
Maria Bermudez has a metaphor she likes to employ to describe flamenco – what for her has been a lifelong passion and something hard to describe. “The beauty of flamenco is that it’s like a very big fan,” she said. “When you open a fan, it’s got all those ridges that are all equal. And […]
Back in 1961, Johnny Cash and his then-wife Vivian hired contractors to build them a home in the hills of Casitas Springs, the small town near Ojai in Ventura County. Custom designed to fit the singer’s specifications, the home even featured a wall-mounted turntable and a writing room for Cash. The country singer was going […]
Back in 2018, when the Montecito debris flows left huge swaths of the village buried under hundreds of tons of mud and other detritus, the Santa Barbara Bucket Brigade (SBBB) was all over the news. The first responders had moved on, and the job of digging out was just beginning. Nearly every outlet around ran […]
Singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn has released some 35 albums over his half-century career, enjoying enough success stateside to sustain making music, but also falling far short of the household name recognition of fellow Canadians like Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, or even Gordon Lightfoot. Now at 78, Cockburn – whose catalog includes such transcendent love songs as […]
Year four of Ready to Hang, a one-day pop-up show open to all local artists to display and sell their one-foot-square creations, takes place 6-9 pm this Saturday, November 18, at the Community Arts Workshop downtown. The free exhibition, which serves as an opportunity to see new works by a wide swath of the artistic […]
Organizational psychologist and best-selling author Adam Grant’s new book Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things, explores a new framework for raising aspirations and exceeding expectations, including how to build the skills and structures for success and create opportunities for those who have been overlooked. Grant will share his concepts in a paradigm-shifting conversation […]
The SBCC Foundation has posted a job opening for the position of Chief Executive Officer of California’s top community college foundation, one with assets of $85 million and a full-time staff of 15. The announcement explains how the new CEO will “build on the SBCC Foundation’s longstanding success in ensuring that Santa Barbara City College […]
Out of the Box Theatre (OOB) has specialized in selecting off-beat, often off-Broadway contemporary musicals to mount in town in the intimate space of Center Stage Theater ever since its founding by Samantha Eve. The latest example in the universe of alternative conversation-inspiring shows is OOB’s first production of the new season, Alice by Heart, […]
The entire opera world and other cultural institutions are all taking note of Maria Callas again as the 100th birthday of the soprano who was one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century approaches on December 2. That includes both Angelina Jolie, who will star in an upcoming biopic, and […]
When the home-grown classic rock band Doublewide Kings plays the Granada Theatre on November 11, it will mark a lot of firsts for the group. It will be the debut at Santa Barbara’s grandest venue for the band founded by Montecito’s Palmer Jackson, Jr., who also happens to be the Executive Chairman and Chairman of […]
Illuminate Film Festival (IFF) is celebrating its 10th anniversary by moving from Sedona, Arizona, to another somewhat spiritually-elevated community much closer to the sea. A leading festival for evolutionary/conscious cinema – focusing on films that uplift, elevate, and inspire lasting personal and social transformation – the IFF is hosting a benefit reception at the Music […]
White Buffalo Land Trust (WBLT) is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year, a journey that began in 2018 with a small, 12-acre flagship farm in Summerland that was among the pioneers of bringing regenerative agriculture to the South Coast. The system of farming principles and practices that rehabilitates the land by focusing on biodiversity, soil […]
Both the #MeToo movement and The Crucible, Arthur Miller’s allegory about the Salem Witch Trials to examine the McCarthy-Era Red Scare of his time,inspired playwright Kimberly Belflower to come up with John Proctor Is the Villain. “What would it be like to be a teenager in rural America at that moment, feeling the world shift […]
The longtime Santa Barbara-based singer-songwriter/rockstar Kenny Loggins retiring from the road is like the pop music equivalent of final go-rounds of baseball stars like Miguel Cabrera or Albert Pujols, except by a factor of more than two as Loggins’ touring career is more than twice as long as any baseball player. Plus, rather than receiving […]