Tag archives: music

Westmont presents Aaron Copland’s great 20th century American opera The Tender Land January 28 and 30 at 7 pm at Center Stage Theater in Paseo Nuevo. Purchase tickets, which cost $15 for general admission, $10 for seniors or military, at the Center Stage box office at centerstagetheater.org. Please visit the Center Stage website to view […]

The Music Academy of the West has added seven new members to its board as it launches its 75th anniversary. The new community leaders encompass a broad profile, representing well-known corporations and nonprofit entities nationwide. The new names comprise MAW Women’s Auxiliary chair Judy Astbury, attorney and entrepreneur Mally Chakola, arts curator and nonprofit executive […]

After a couple of months’ hiatus due to the calendar and concerns about COVID, UCSB Arts & Lectures’ 2021-22 Creating Hope series resumes next Thursday, February 3, with a recital from violinist Joshua Bell, one of the most celebrated artists of his era. The recipient of a number of enviable accolades from the coveted Avery […]

One can hear it in the streets from Atlanta to L.A.: We miss NAMM, the National Association of Music Merchants’ annual event held every January in Anaheim.  Fret not guitar freaks, Lugwig lovers, jamming DJs, audiophiles, technos, and recording rascals, for Shure due to an abundance of caution,the NAMM show moved to June 2022, with […]

American composer Aaron Copland was inspired to write his opera The Tender Land when he saw Walker Evans’ famed Depression-era photographs and read James Agee’s “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.” Now, Westmont Opera is presenting the rarely seen 1954 work as its 2022 production at the Center Stage Theater, representing the school’s return to […]

CAMA – Community Arts Music Association – kicked off its 103rd season with its first performance in 22 months at the Granada with one of the world’s leading orchestras, the 75-year-old Royal Philharmonic from London under the trusty baton of Russian music director Vasily Petrenko, who took charge less than a year ago. Our tony […]

Kulāiwi has only been together for less than two years, but the three Hawaiian musicians that make up the group – Lehua Kalima, Shawn Pimental, and Kawika Kahiapo – have been making music of the islands for decades. Between them they have claimed dozens of Na Hoku Hanohano Awards, which is considered Hawaii’s equivalent of […]

The COVID pandemic has been an ongoing career if not a personal crisis for a lot of musicians around the world. But for Drew McManus, the shutdown actually afforded him a chance to slow down, regroup and, most importantly, reconnect with his roots in the mountains of Montana. Although he was born in the western […]

Opera Santa Barbara was again in fine form when it presented Handel’s Semele at the Lobero, which was first performed in 1744 at London’s Covent Garden. A fusion of elements of opera, drama, and oratorio, the popular work is taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses with Semele, the mother of the god Bacchus, superbly played by soprano […]

The Sound of Silence pervaded the venerable 1,500 seat Granada Theatre when the Theatre Guild staged the highly entertaining Simon & Garfunkel Story. Creatively staged with videos and photographic backdrops from the 1950s to the 1980s, two talented doppelgängers, Taylor Bloom as Paul Simon and Ben Cooley as Garfunkel, played the dynamic musical duo, who […]

In 1886, the Santa Barbara waterfront was connected to three, often odiferous, esteros and littered with dilapidated shacks and the detritus of the hide and tallow industry. Despite the fact that there were several crude wooden bathhouses, the area was generally a “wild waste of sand, tin cans, and dead animals,” according to historian C.W. […]

Tickets for the unprecedented and thrilling three-concert residency of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) with the Music Academy of the West this March go on sale Monday, January 18. The divergent programs under the leadership of LSO Music Director Sir Simon Rattle culminates on March 27 with a community concert featuring 39 MAW alumni playing […]

All of the five virtuoso string musicians who comprise the Grammy-winning folk-grass band Punch Brothers were fervent fans of Tony Rice. The Brothers – who are led by the MacArthur “Genius Grant’ Award fellow Chris Thile on mandolin and includes bassist Paul Kowert, guitarist Chris Eldridge, banjoist Noam Pikelny, and violinist Gabe Witcher – have […]

Opera soprano Jana McIntyre’s first public performance as a singer came at age five right here in Montecito. Except she wasn’t supposed to be singing.  “We had to recite poems at our graduation at Crane,” said McIntyre, recalling her first year at Crane Country Day School, the K-8 school where academic challenge is balanced with […]

Santa Barbara Symphony returned to its popular New Year’s Eve tradition at the Granada to dazzle the audience with the music of Gershwin, movie classics, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Motown, Broadway, and other celebratory symphonic favorites while donning party hats and quaffing champagne. Regular Pops conductor Bob Bernhardt, celebrating his 40th anniversary with the Louisville Orchestra, […]

Sin City has never seen anything like it! Santa Barbara warbler Katy Perry unleashed her considerable talents with the debut of her three-month residency at the Conrad, a 59-story red 1,496-room monolith, part of the new Resorts World $4.3 billion complex of three tony hostelries with a total of 3,506 rooms and a 117,000-square-foot casino […]

There’s a plethora of a cappella singing groups at Yale, the Ivy League School known for theater and music as much as the liberal arts. “I think there’s 16, including four all-male,” said Jacob Wu, the current tour manager and a bass singer for Baker’s Dozen (BD), which despite its name actually boasts 16 singers. […]

The popularity of Simon & Garfunkel, the most famous duo in folk music history, remains unabated more than a half-century since the pair first broke up over artistic differences and personal issues following the release of the groundbreaking album Bridge Over Troubled Water. Problems persisted each time Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel contemplated reuniting after […]

Prior to November, you’d be hard-pressed to recall the last time John Jorgenson played in town. Best known for his inventive guitar work in Desert Rose, the mid-1980s California country-rock band he co-founded with former Byrd/Flying Burrito Brother Chris Hillman and country-bluegrass stalwart Herb Pedersen, Jorgenson also played in the guitar trio Hellecasters, toured for […]

One of the reasons Bob Bernhardt has secured several long-term gigs as Principal Pops Conductor at several symphonies simultaneously — including the Louisville Orchestra (where his tenure spans four decades), the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera (19 seasons), and the Grand Rapids Symphony (seven years) — is his versatility and adaptability in leading an ensemble and […]