Tag archives: Camerata Pacifica

Camerata Pacifica, the Santa Barbara-based chamber music collective founded more than 35 years ago by Artistic Director Adrian Spence, had a pretty terrific off-season this summer. Cam Pac was named 2026 Ensemble of the Year by Chamber Music America in recognition of its considerable history of commissioning new works and creating innovative programs.  “I was […]

Camerata Pacifica Principal Percussionist Ji Hye Jung has been a part of the Santa Barbara-based, internationally praised chamber music ensemble for more than 15 years. She’s held the position of associate professor of percussion at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music for more than a decade. Since she began performing in her native Korea at […]

Camerata Pacifica’s concert this Friday night at Hahn Hall boasts the world premiere of Natural Light, the ensemble’s latest commissioned work by David Bruce, and a sizable one for wind quintet. Bruce, a prolific contemporary classical music composer, has created imaginative works in both the opera and chamber music idioms. He’s received previous commissions from […]

Camerata Pacifica, the Santa Barbara-based chamber music collective, has an international reputation for both exceptional artistry and laudable century-spanning repertoire. Camerata Pacifica continues to grow apace and now launches its 36th season with eight programs performed at four different venues across Southern California. It’s a fascinating season as it includes the launch of “Beethoven 32,” […]

Music Academy of the West’s summer festival and its 100-something event season has moved to the rear-view mirror after last weekend’s triumphant performance of Mahler’s Third at the final Academy Festival Orchestra symphony concert, complete with the MAW women’s chorus (which sprinkled in eight LVI fellows) and the Sing! Children’s Choir. But there’s only a […]

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 […]

Camerata Pacifica was going for baroque at the Music Academy of the West’s Hahn Hall in its first concert of the New Year, curated by acclaimed flutist Emi Ferguson with celebrated French American jazz and classical keyboardist Dan Tepfer on the clavichord, an instrument that would have been used by J.S. Bach in his heyday. […]

The life of Donald McInnes, Camerata Pacifica’s first principal violist, was celebrated at the Music Academy of the West’s Lehmann Hall. McInnes, who studied at the academy from 1954 to 1956 and was a member of the faculty from 1982 to 2012, died in October at his home in Rancho Mirage aged 85. The UCSB […]

Baroque lovers have an earlier chance to hear even more surprising music from the era as Camerata Pacifica launches its third mini-series of Baroque concerts with Friday’s concert at Hahn Hall featuring series music director-curator and flutist Emi Ferguson, a 2023 recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, and jazz/Baroque keyboard specialist Dan Tepfer, who […]

Camerata Pacifica’s latest show at the Music Academy of the West’s Hahn Hall was an absolute gem with works by Fukushima, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg. Flutist Yoobin Son playing “Mei, for Solo Flute” opened the concert with Rachmaninoff’s “Moments Musicaux.” Stravinsky’s “Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet” with Jose Franch-Ballester was the penultimate performance, with Schoenberg’s […]

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 […]

Camerata Pacifica’s season closer was a blending of Phillip Glass’s repetitive structures in composition with classical artist Frank Zappa’s use of sampling music as background topped by key instruments in a composition. A few works had audible hints of a Lydian diminished scale combined with an auxiliary blues diminished mode in a contemporary classical resolve […]

Camerata Pacifica’s 2023-24 season continues at Hahn Hall on March 15 with a trio of seminal chamber works that evince the link between composers Brahms, Schoenberg and Pärt. Violinist Abigél Králik, who one critic praises as “a shooting star in the truest sense of the word,” makes her Camerata Pacifica debut on the program, which […]

Camerata Pacifica debuted its latest import-flutist Sébastian Jacot in a most impressive concert at the Music Academy’s Hahn Hall, with a program including music by Bach, Haydn, and Jolivet. Geneva-born Jacot, who began studying music at the age of six, also holds the position as principal flute at the prestigious Berliner Philharmoniker. He plays a […]

Magnificent classical music reigned supreme with three impressive concerts in our Eden by the Beach, two at the venerable Granada and one at the Music Academy’s Hahn Hall. Kicking off the week was the Community Arts Music Association’s first concert of the new year with London’s 79-year-old Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Russian conductor Vasily Petrenko, […]

Old and New Worlds were in the spotlight when Camerata Pacifica continued its 34th season with From Bach to Bolivia, the first of the programs in its Baroque series at the Music Academy’s Hahn Hall. Featuring period instruments and curated by acclaimed flutist Emi Ferguson, the repertoire included five seminal Bach chamber works. They were […]

Chamber music is alive and well in Santa Barbara, if having three qualifying, locally-generated concerts in a single week is any indication. Camerata Pacifica, the ensemble series founded originally as Bach Camerata by flutist Adrian Spence in 1990 that has become widely respected and revered for the virtuosity exhibited by its world-class musicians and the […]

Camerata Pacifica launched its 34th season in fine style at the Music Academy’s Hahn Hall with works by Beethoven, Mozart, and Elgar. Musical lovers turned out in force to see the chamber music group founded by Irishman Adrian Spence at the age of 25, with an inaugural performance at the Lobero as the Bach Camerata. […]

The 34th season for Camerata Pacifica was celebrated with a Director’s Cut event at a private club in Goleta on Monday, September 11. The focus was the formal introduction of its new Executive Director Ana Papakhian by its founder and Artistic Director Adrian Spence. There was also a lovely meet and greet with four of […]

In announcing its 2023-24 and 34th season programming, Camerata Pacifica’s founder and Artistic Director Adrian Spence delightedly shared the appointment of Ana Papakhian as its new executive director.  Papakhian is well-known in the classical music world here, and I would add nationally as well, with 27 years of experience in the field, most recently as […]