Tag archives: music
Ed Lister, who is known in both Los Angeles and Santa Barbara as a skilled scenic artist with credits in the theater credits and mural making, has created a series of vibrant abstract silk screen prints, or serigraphs. They were made starting in the early 1970s while he was teaching printmaking at the Chelsea School […]
The Santa Barbara City College Foundation has received a major gift of $375,000 from anonymous donors to support the college’s music department’s jazz and symphony programs. The funds will provide the department’s faculty and staff with the necessary resources to initiate and fund special projects and intermittently critical needs of the programs. “This generous gift […]
Brayell is a multi-instrumentalist, recording artist, and music producer in the genres of rap, hip-hop, and alternative. He has recently explored a version of indie pop music in his just-released single titled, “Made Her Feel Good,” a heartfelt song reminiscent of a breakup. He began recording at age 15 and, in 2017, started releasing his […]
More Mozart is headed our way this weekend as UCSB Opera Theatre and the Department of Music present an abridged two-act virtual video version of Don Giovanni on Friday, February 26. The production is helmed by Associate Professor Dr. Isabel Bayrakdarian, the star soprano who sang the love interest role of Zerlina in multiple productions […]
There’s plenty to celebrate in Santa Barbara these days, and not just the spurt of greenery and wildflowers poking up from the earth in the sunshine following last month’s rains or the fact that the number of daily COVID-19 cases has dropped down to double digits for the first time in nearly two months. Joy […]
Watch an engaging video of The Elixir of Love, a two-act opera by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti, on Friday, February 19, at 7 pm at westmont.edu/music. After months of socially distant rehearsals and three days of challenging but safe videotaping, the Westmont Music Department presents its latest opera. Alumna Christina (Farris) Jensen ’09 returned to […]
The ongoing pandemic has certainly posed a plethora of problems for productions in the arts world. But some have been able to persevere, albeit with plenty of proper planning. Such is the case with Westmont Music Department, which employed dogged determination to transcend the COVID compliance restrictions to produce a full-scale opera this year. The […]
NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) held its annual Los Angeles trade show online this year January 18 through 22, along with the annual She Rocks Awards. The NAMM Foundation’s Believe in Music bravely took to the virtual platform to bring all its usual content to its members across all time zones, using the Swapcard […]
You could say that Robin Gerber has had a backwards career. After working as a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and then serving as a well-paid Congressional lobbyist for trade unions for 15 years, Gerber, experiencing self-described burnout, junked it all for a life as a writer for newspapers and magazines. Then her mentor suggested she […]
Most of what the students in the Visual Arts & Design Academy (VADA) at Santa Barbara High create is seen on the school’s near-downtown campus. But the program has made a lot of efforts to exhibit the students’ artwork in public places, including showcases as part of the monthly First Thursday gallery walk. But with […]
Three of the key leaders of the Santa Barbara Symphony, president and CEO Kathryn Martin, artistic director Nir Kabaretti, and board president Janet Garufis, have committed to advancing the organization over the next half decade. It will build upon the 67-year-old organization’s programming innovation, leveraging the symphony’s new momentum and growth to look toward the […]
I don’t know if it means anything that my phone went dead just after I asked Allison Janney about White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. There was a long pause. Some laughter. Then she said, “Oh boy, oh dear. I don’t know how anyone could want to be …” Janney, of course, is the […]
Apparently Music Academy of the West personnel aren’t just nerdy (er, well-versed) in classical music. At least that’s the conclusion one must draw from the fact that a MAW staffer, Henry Michaels, will be appearing on an episode of Jeopardy! airing on NBC on February 2. Michaels is the Music Academy’s Director of Audience Experience […]
Music Academy of the West (MAW) has always been a decidedly different sort of summer music festival for both the young fellows who hone their classical music skills and repertoire over an eight-week period from mid-June to mid-August each year. That’s because in addition to the academic offerings of its program – which is very […]
As you are reading this, it’s the anniversary of Elvis Presley’s birthday (January 8) and I’ve been talking to Steve Binder, an American producer and director born in Los Angeles. Steve, who just celebrated his 88th birthday last month, is currently working as a creative consultant on Baz Luhrmann’s film Elvis, where Dacre Montgomery is […]
Sure, Christmas is almost a month in the rear-view mirror. Yes, Estella Scrooge, which takes place on a present-day December 24-25, is absolutely meant to be a Yuletide holiday story. But if you have yet to see this clever mashup of A Christmas Carol with several of Charles Dickens’ other books, now would be a […]
Montecito singer-songwriter Brad Paisley, who was generous with his music and contributions during the 2018 mudslides disaster, as well as being a major supporter of the Unity Shoppe along with fellow musician Kenny Loggins, brought major help to Nashville, Tennessee, after the Christmas bombing, I learn. Brad, 48, who has sold 11 million albums and […]
All of the UCSB Arts & Lectures House Calls and Race to Justice virtual events have been recorded specifically for the Santa Barbara community and every program concludes with a live Q&A session with one of the A&L staff or a member of the local area arts or education community. But perhaps none of the […]
Santa Barbara stockbroker and former TV executive Howard Jay Smith is facing the music again! Howard, a member of the board of the Santa Barbara Symphony, wrote his third book, Beethoven in Love; Opus 139: Concerto Quasi Una Fantasia, five years ago, and has now penned a suitable follow-up, Meeting Mozart: From the Secret Diaries […]
Following the imposition of stricter protocols to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the area’s only planned live performance of The Nutcracker, a Concerts in Your Car production from Ventura Ballet, was canceled. Musician and theater impresario Hershey Felder, though, performs a pandemic pivot to point his next streaming production, Hershey Felder, TCHAIKOVSKY, toward the composer’s score […]
