Tag archives: Granada Theatre

CAMA Concert
By Richard Mineards   |   April 11, 2019

CAMA – Community Arts Music Association – hosted a centennial season subscriber dinner at Opal just before the last performance of this season’s international series with the debut of the 128-year-old Royal Scottish National Orchestra under Danish music director Thomas Sondergard at the Granada. Kicking off with Symphony No.7 in C major by Finnish composer […]

Magnificent Mozart
By Richard Mineards   |   March 28, 2019

Santa Barbara Symphony was in fine form at the Granada when it presented Amadeus Live, with the talented musicians under Belgian conductor Dirk Brosse, music director of the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra; the symphony chorus; and pianist Natasha Kislenko, a Music Academy of the West faculty member. The film about Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, based […]

Art Hacks
By Richard Mineards   |   March 28, 2019

Montecito attorney David Gersh has just published his sixth book, How to Collect Great Art on a Shoestring. David, who studied at UCLA and Harvard, says his latest work talks about how to acquire paintings by artists who are in the Guggenheim, the Whitney, and MoMA for just a few thousand dollars, not tens or […]

Into the Fold
By Richard Mineards   |   March 14, 2019

Lotusland hosted a fabulous feast of folded artwork with its new opening representing the work of 12 renowned origami artists throughout the U.S. The overflow crowd for Lotusland in Origami: Flora, Fauna, and Ganna included Asian art historian Meher McArthur and Montecito’s own artist Holly Sherwin, co-curators. Origami is no longer limited to Japan, with […]

Making the Rounds
By Richard Mineards   |   March 14, 2019

The mad social whirl was at full throttle when UCSB Arts & Lectures hosted parties for guest speakers at the Granada and Campbell Hall. The first was held at the charming Montecito residence of Audrey and Tim Fisher, the former home of actor James Brolin, for global photographer James Balog, who spoke about his new […]

En Pointe
By Richard Mineards   |   March 14, 2019

A mandatory evacuation scuppered my chances of watching the first show of Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet at the Granada, which featured George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments, but I was able to catch the second day’s three-part performance under Scottish artistic director Ashley Wheater. The show kicked off impressively with Justin Peck‘s In Creases featuring two grand […]

Brossé & Mozart: Great Minds Sync Alike
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 14, 2019

Four years and at least seven of his own scores ago, the distinguished conductor-composer Dirk Brossé made his debut with the Santa Barbara Symphony with the Granada’s first live-to-screening synchronized musical performance since the installation of the theater’s state-of-the-art rear-projection film system. Brossé and the members of the orchestra who often also frequently freelance on […]

Microbubbling: A Fate Worse Than Death
By Mitchell Kriegman   |   March 14, 2019

“Quod, ut dicitur, si est homo bulla, eo magis senex” the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro (116 BC – 27 BC) wrote in the first historical references to bubbles which means “If man is a microbubble, all the more so is an old man…” Ok I’ve translated “bulla” into its micro form. Perhaps that wasn’t […]

Dance Beyond Description as Joffrey Returns
By Steven Libowitz   |   February 28, 2019

Local dance lovers are in for a treat this week when the Joffrey Ballet, the veteran company considered among America’s elite, returns to the Granada for the first time in more than half a decade for two different programs spanning seven works. That’s a tall order even for one of the country’s most revered troupe […]

Leadership in Turbulent Times
By Richard Mineards   |   February 28, 2019

World-renowned presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times bestselling author Doris Kearns Goodwin packed the Granada when she spoke about Leadership in Turbulent Times, the title of her seventh book published last year. The tome is a culmination of Goodwin’s five-decade career of studying American presidents focusing on Abraham Lincoln, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, […]

Trocks en Pointe
By Richard Mineards   |   February 7, 2019

It was a delightful night of high camp when Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo performed a hilarious program at the packed Granada, part of the of the popular UCSB Arts & Lectures series. Music by Chopin, Verdi, Glazunov accompanied the balletic high jinx. Having seen the 45-year-old company a number of times in New […]

An Evening with Albright
By Lynda Millner   |   January 31, 2019

UCSB Arts & Lectures presented “An Evening with Madeleine Albright” to a packed house at the Granada Theatre. In case you don’t remember, she was the first woman Secretary of State and the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government in 1997. Currently she is chair of Albright Stonebridge Group, which is a […]

Albright, Albright, Albright
By Richard Mineards   |   January 31, 2019

It was Albright on the night when America’s first female U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright spoke to a sold-out Granada audience as part of the popular UCSB Arts & Lectures series. Albright, 81, who became a U.S. citizen in 1957 after leaving her native Czechoslovakia, served in the White House from 1997 to 2001 […]

Get the Picture
By Richard Mineards   |   January 24, 2019

Music lovers packed the Granada for the Santa Barbara Symphony’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” concert featuring works by Johannes Brahms and Modest Mussorgsky. The first half of the performance, conducted by veteran maestro Nir Kabaretti, was an all-Brahms affair with his Tragic Overture and Concerto in A minor, featuring the symphony’s principal cellist Trevor Handy […]

Inspired by Itzhak
By Richard Mineards   |   January 24, 2019

Legendary New York-based violinist Itzhak Perlman mesmerized the sold-out audience at the Granada when he appeared in CAMA’s – Community Arts Music Association – first concert of the New Year. It was his sixth appearance for the century-old organization going back more than 50 years, having first appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1967 […]

All We Need is Music
By Richard Mineards   |   January 10, 2019

A Soul Train of Motown music steamed on to the Granada stage when the Santa Barbara Symphony, under energized maestro Bob Bernhardt, staged its annual New Year’s Eve Pops concert, Dancing in the Streets. The highly entertaining show featuring American Idol finalist Michael Lynche, alongside Broadway stars Shayna Steele, who appeared in Rent, Jesus Christ […]

Silverhorn’s Back
By Richard Mineards   |   December 20, 2018

Like the proverbial phoenix, the Montecito bling emporium, Silverhorn, which closed its doors after 30 years at 1155 Coast Village Road, has returned to the ritzy rue at 1235 Coast Village Road. The new 1,100 sq ft store, which complements owners Michael and Carole Ridding‘s boutique at the Biltmore, enables customers to see the company’s […]

Seeing through the Glass Slipper
By Steven Libowitz   |   November 22, 2018

Even in today’s post-#MeToo/women’s movement era, just about every little girl in America still dreams about being a princess. Witness the number of Cinderella dresses out on the streets and trick-or-treaters just three weeks ago on Halloween. On the other hand, not too many harbor a desire to wind up as a wicked stepsister, but […]

Opera-tunity
By Richard Mineards   |   November 15, 2018

Opera Santa Barbara, celebrating its 25th anniversary, launched its latest season in cracking style with Puccini’s classic work La Boheme at the Granada. Director Omer Ben Seadia, who made her local debut three years ago with A Streetcar Named Desire and L’Italiana in Algeri, has done an artfully crafted four-act show with opera director Kostis […]

Grand Granada
By Richard Mineards   |   November 8, 2018

CAMA – the Community Arts Music Association – kicked off the first concert of its centennial series at the Granada in grand style when the 1,500 music lovers were treated to a bounteous champagne reception an hour before the performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which is also celebrating its centenary. The talented L.A. musicians […]