Tag archives: Classical Music

The buzz of background conversations and tinkling of cups and silverware were the soundtrack when Andy Akiho picked up the phone last Friday at noon. Not surprisingly, the percussionist-composer was in a coffeehouse in Portland – where he lives when he’s not in New York – but he wasn’t just picking up a cup of […]

Violinist Randall Goosby, the first Mosher Guest Artist of the summer, will have already performed his MAW recital by the time this issue hits newsstands, but there’s still an opportunity to hear the 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient – which he was awarded at age 25 – in the June 28 Academy Festival Orchestra […]

Then-Juilliard graduate student violinist Anthony Chan got quite a shock when he opened an email from the Music Academy of the West in spring 2024 to check on his chamber music assignments for the summer festival.  “I was just curious where the other fellows I’d be playing with might be studying, and then I saw […]

Santa Barbara Choral Society marked the conclusion of its 77th season with The Many Shades of Choral under veteran director JoAnne Wasserman with accompaniment by Kevin Su Fukagawa at Trinity Lutheran Church. The entertaining concert featured a wide range of composers beginning with selections from Mozart, including his final work for his hometown Salzburg Cathedral […]

The Music Academy of the West’s Hahn Hall was totally energized when UCSB Arts & Lectures hosted captivating violinist Tessa Lark in her Santa Barbara debut with pianist Amy Yang, director of chamber music and piano studies at the Curtis Institute of Music. Béla Bartók’s “Romanian Folk Dances” kicked off the concert also featuring Eugène […]

Gil Shaham, former concertmaster of the Santa Barbara Symphony, wrapped the current season at the Granada this weekend with works by Brahms, Dvořák’s “Symphony No. 8” and Tchaikovsky’s “Violin Concerto.” The Sunday concert had Shaham duetting with his wife Adele Anthony and the West Coast premiere of Avner Dorman’s “A Time to Mourn and 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

It was clearly worth the wait when the London-based Chineke! Orchestra made its West Coast debut at the Granada, part of CAMA’s 106th season. The talented company’s 2020 tour had been unfortunately cancelled in the wake of the COVID pandemic, just weeks before its scheduled concert. A champion of diversity in classical music, Chineke’s vibrant […]

Hahn Hall at the Music Academy of the West was packed when artists from the visiting London Symphony Orchestra via CAMA performed with academy alumnae, including flute, clarinet and harp, with works by Mozart and Ravel in the latest performance from the Mariposa concert series… The final work, another Mozart piece, “Clarinet Quartet in A […]

The audience for Santa Barbara Symphony’s latest concert at the venerable Granada was certainly ore-struck! The musicians – under Grammy-winning guest conductor Lucas Richman, music director of the Bangor Symphony, and backed by a giant movie screen – played the score from Charlie Chaplin’s 1925 film The Gold Rush, whose story was based on the […]

The London Symphony Orchestra’s initial partnership with the Music Academy of the West officially came to its pandemic-paused close a couple of summers ago. But the relationship between the two classical music institutions continues with a three-event, two-day residency starting on February 17. President’s Day kicks off at 1 pm with a violin master class […]

The Golden Age of Baroque was on full display at the Lobero when Britain’s Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and soprano Julia Bullock performed as part of UCSB’s popular Arts & Lectures program. With works by Handel, Vivaldi, Bach, Purcell, Pachelbel, Strozzi, Telemann, Lully, and Rameau, there was something for everybody with the musicians, […]

Wolfgang Amadeus reigned supreme when the Santa Barbara Symphony staged its first concert of the New Year at the Granada under veteran maestro Nir Kabaretti. It was one weekend, two different concerts and eight masterworks, including the glorious “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” during the Mozart Marathon. The highly entertaining two-part show, spanning Saturday and Sunday, included […]

The Austin-based Miró Quartet, long considered one of America’s most celebrated and dedicated string quartets, marks its 30th anniversary with a return to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s laudable chamber music series on January 19. The Miró, which in 2005 became the first ensemble ever to be awarded the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant, […]

The Santa Barbara Symphony launches into 2025 with yet another first for the increasingly adventurous 72-year-old ensemble: a pair of weekend performances January 18-19 where the program is entirely different on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. The prolific classical composer Mozart is the focus of affection for the weekend of wonder, which highlights four concertos […]