Tag archives: music
Bubbly show woman and former Broadway actress Janet Adderley’s students from four of her five school’s locations – Santa Barbara, Pacific Palisades, Austin, and New Orleans – were front and center when local rock icon Kenny Loggins, 75, performed the sold-out final show of his “This Is It!” tour at the 4,500-seat Santa Barbara Bowl. […]
New York Philharmonic principal clarinet Anthony McGill and Taiwanese pianist Gloria Chien were quite the dynamic duo when they performed in the second concert of the Mariposa series at the Music Academy’s Hahn Hall. The tony twosome performed works by Telemann, Jessie Montgomery, Brahms, Teng Yu-hsien, Lee, and Von Weber for the sold-out audience. McGill […]
Kristin Chenoweth had one of the hottest concerts of her career at the Granada when the theater’s fire alarms went off three times during her highly entertaining, 90-minute show! Fortunately, they were all false alarms, allowing the 4’11” dynamo from Oklahoma – dressed in a silver pantsuit even more sparkling than her personality – to […]
The entire opera world and other cultural institutions are all taking note of Maria Callas again as the 100th birthday of the soprano who was one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century approaches on December 2. That includes both Angelina Jolie, who will star in an upcoming biopic, and […]
When the home-grown classic rock band Doublewide Kings plays the Granada Theatre on November 11, it will mark a lot of firsts for the group. It will be the debut at Santa Barbara’s grandest venue for the band founded by Montecito’s Palmer Jackson, Jr., who also happens to be the Executive Chairman and Chairman of […]
When an object or a collection is welcomed into a museum, values are raised for objects with similar provenance; a MJ reader’s Bob Dylan collectible vinyl album is a great example of this phenomena, albeit on a celebrity scale. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, there is now a museum dedicated to the life and works of Bob […]
It was all two grand for words when the Music Academy launched the first of its Mariposa Series concerts at Hahn Hall with the extraordinary keyboard duo of Anderson and Roe with academy alum Elizabeth Joy Roe and Greg Anderson playing back-to-back Steinway pianos. Since forming their dynamic musical partnership in 2002 as students at […]
The longtime Santa Barbara-based singer-songwriter/rockstar Kenny Loggins retiring from the road is like the pop music equivalent of final go-rounds of baseball stars like Miguel Cabrera or Albert Pujols, except by a factor of more than two as Loggins’ touring career is more than twice as long as any baseball player. Plus, rather than receiving […]
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 […]
More than 250 musicians and singers packed the sprawling stage of the venerable Granada when the Santa Barbara Symphony, under veteran maestro Nir Kabaretti, kicked off its 71st season with An Ode to Joy, Hope and Community. It was the symphony’s first performance of Beethoven’s 9th – marking the 200th anniversary of the German composer’s […]
A tony triumvirate of award-winning classical musicians wowed at the Granada. French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, 62, joined countryman Gautier Capuçon, 42, playing a 1701 Matteo Goffriller cello, and Georgia, Russian-born Lisa Batiashvili, 44, playing a 1739 Guarneri del Gesu violin, kicked off UCSB Arts & Lectures’ Great Performances series for a hugely entertaining evening of […]
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 […]
You can’t fault Elizabeth Roe for expressing unbridled enthusiasm for returning to the Music Academy for her first purely public performance in town since spending the summer of 2001 as a fellow at the institute. Jerry Lowenthal was her mentor and Michael Towbes her compeer during the idyllic eight weeks, and now she’s heading back […]
CAMA Masterseries’ 40th anniversary season opens with a recital by a somewhat left-of-center duo, at least by instruments, as mandolinist Avi Avital and accordionist Hanzhi Wang team up to perform at the Lobero Theatre. The two are veritable virtuosos – Avital’s skill has been compared to Jascha Heifetz while Wang is the only accordionist ever […]
José Limón – or at least the dance company founded by the famed dancer and choreographer from Mexico who developed a technique that employs visceral gestures to communicate emotions – runs deeply through the new season from Santa Barbara Dance Theater (SBDT), the professional dance company in residence at UCSB. Which is not surprising, given […]
Neither Santa Barbara-raised electronic-pop-music pioneer Jimmy Tamborello nor Ben Gibbard, singer-songwriter-guitarist of the pop band Death Cab for Cutie, imagined that their collaboration 20 years ago would be anything more than an enjoyable one-off. But suddenly The Postal Service – so named because the pair put the project together by the U.S. mail, with Tamborello […]
Retired lawyer Robert (Bob) Montgomery, probably the longest serving president in the Community Arts Music Association’s 106-year history, received the organization’s top Bravo! Award for his extraordinary service at a packed dinner of 70 guests at the Birnam Wood clubhouse. Fittingly enough, it was presented by former award winner Deborah Bertling, immediate past president of […]
Siegwart ‘Zig’ Reichwald was officially installed as Adams chair of music and worship at Westmont in a day that featured chamber musicians, the college choir, orchestra and chapel band performing music from the Psalms, Felix Mendelssohn, and rock band U2. As part of the formal installation ceremony, President Gayle D. Beebe urged Reichwald to bring […]
Opera Santa Barbara kicked off its 30th season on a particularly high note at the Granada when it staged Bizet’s 1875 masterpiece Carmen, the first time in seven years. The hugely entertaining three-hour, four-act show with Kostis Protopapas, general director, conducting, featured mezzo-soprano Sarah Saturnino, a Grand Finalist in the Metropolitan Opera’s Laffont Competition, in […]
Charley Crockett, a Texas original who draws from traditional hillbilly music, vintage soul, and R&B to give his old-school country twang an extra earthy feel, opened UCSB A&L’s season at the Arlington almost exactly a year ago. The Americana Music Awards’ Emerging Artist of the Year for 2021 heads back to the venue on Friday, […]
