Tag archives: music

Pioneering winemaker Fred Brander was honored as Vintner of the Year at a socially gridlocked gala in aid of Direct Relief at the Ritz-Carlton Bacara. The biennial oenophile bash and wine auction, which attracted 600 guests and was emceed by The Bachelor host Chris Harrison, raised a hefty $1.2 million, with a third of the […]

For Santa Barbara’s first PuppetPalooza, creator Mitchell Kriegman has come up with a festival so vast and imaginatively populated with puppets, marionettes, and just about every other possible permutation of the genre giant and small, including literally the hand and glove, even his own character Clarissa might have a hard time explaining it all to […]

In an effort to boost shopping and dining in Montecito’s upper village, a group of volunteers and neighbors have planned a special shopping, music, and food event at various locations in the upper village on Saturday, February 24, from 2 to 6 pm.  Dubbed “Celebrate Montecito’s Upper Village,” the event will be a family-friendly way […]

“Eye in the Sky” was a big hit for The Alan Parsons Project, reaching No. 3 on Billboard’s chart back in 1982. Thirty-five years later, drones – something the British rocker and producer famed for his early work with The Beatles and Pink Floyd hinted at but probably didn’t fully anticipate – proved especially helpful […]

Berlin-based organist Cameron Carpenter, who I first saw two years ago, was back in our Eden by the Beach for another UCSB Arts & Lectures Granada show. The maverick showman, the first organist nominated for a Grammy Award for a solo album, continues to smash the stereotypes of organists, organ, and classical music as a […]

Zhu Wang, a Chinese pianist currently studying at Juilliard, won The Music Academy of the West/Steinway & Sons inaugural Solo Piano Competition at last summer’s festival, taking home the $5,000 prize, and earning a recital tour that includes performances in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. The tour also features a return to Hahn Hall, […]

Montecito nun Pauline Krismanich, 88, who has lived at La Casa de Maria for 48 years, is retiring and moving to the Immaculate Heart Community center in Los Angeles. After being displaced by both the Thomas Fire and the mudslides, Pauline saw them as her sign to finally retire. She has been a figure around […]

John Gorka is no stranger to the Santa Barbara music scene. The New Jersey-born, literate-but-fun singer-songwriter who started playing out in the late 1970s before moving to Minnesota in the 1990s has played at SOhO, done the Sings Like Hell thing, and made repeat visits to the Tales from the Tavern series in Santa Ynez, […]

Music Academy of the West staged two concerts for Recovery and Hope at Hahn Hall in the wake of the recent mudslides and flash floods. The hastily organized free events featured soprano Julie Adams, alumnus cellist Joshua Roman, pianists Natsha Kislenko and Margaret McDonald, clarinetist Richie Hawley, alum and faculty member Nico Abondolo, trumpeter Paul […]

Happy Traum is merely the opening act for the next Sings Like Hell show starring Jack Sh*t, the super group comprising sidemen for singer-songwriter legends making at least its third visit to the Lobero. But before guitarist Val McCallum (Jackson Browne), drummer Pete Thomas, and bassist Davey Faragher (both Elvis Costello) hit the stage with […]

State Street Ballet gave a sneak-peek with a wide variety of new dances by its choreographers and dancers at its newly relaunched Evenings at its headquarters, the Gail Towbes Dance Center. The series was launched in 2005 and has evolved into an actual performance series with lighting, live music, and, in the words of Leila […]

As the Santa Barbara International Film Festival celebrated the debut of its 33rd year at the Arlington across the road, the Anti-Defamation League honored First Responders and SB County Search and Rescue with its third annual bash at Villa and Vine across the way. The 130-guest bash, chaired by Beth Katz, raised $10,000 toward the […]

Santa Barbara’s musical youth shone at the First United Methodist Church when the youth opera and youth symphony under Opera SB artistic director Kostis Protpapas performed a creative production of Benjamin Britten’s Noah’s Flood. The 1958 work, based on a 15th-century Chester mystery play, featured bass-baritone Vincent Grana and mezzo soprano Chelsea Melamed as his […]

The NAMM Show (National Association of Music Merchants) jammed Anaheim January 24-28 with 7,000 music brands, 2,000 exhibiting companies, and 116,000 international attendees cruising the 3-story convention center, its new North building, and outdoor Grand Plaza concert stage. The NAMM University Education Center held 500 seminars at the Anaheim Hilton. The major coup this year […]

Anthony Giardina‘s 2010 play The City of Conversation has proven to be even more prophetic than even he might have imagined. Set in Washington, D.C., during three important periods in recent American politics, the play spans nearly 30 years, from Fall of 1979 to January 2009, and traces the evolution of 1960s-raised Hester Ferris from […]

The Dallas Willard Center for Spiritual Formation honored James K.A. “Jamie” Smith, professor of philosophy at Calvin College, with its annual book award for You are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit during chapel January 26 in Murchison Gym. Smith, the Gary and Henrietta Byker professor in applied reformed theology and worldview, has […]

Paul Willis, professor of English at Westmont and former poet laureate of Santa Barbara, hosts the 12th annual community poetry reading to honor the life and work of William Stafford (1914-1993) on Saturday, January 27, at 2 pm at the First Crossing Day Use Area in Los Padres National Forest, across from the Los Prietos […]

Remember December? Or better not. Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church (OLMC) had scheduled a Christmas concert for December but had to cancel it because of the Thomas Fire. So, there was Christmas in January. The church and concert were free and open to the public.  The poinsettias still filled the altar area, and […]

It was child’s play when Kids Helping Kids, the 10-year-old organization launched by students at San Marcos High School, raised a record $501,251 to help local children in need with two sold-out concerts at the Granada. The group, headed by economics teacher James DeVries, has raised more than $2.5 million since it started. Singer-songwriter Andy […]

Santa Barbara Symphony, under conductor Nir Kabaretti, in partnership with Montecito Bank & Trust, held a free concert at the Granada to raise money for disaster relief and recovery efforts in our rarefied enclave. Guitarist and artist in residence Pablo Sainz Villegas, accompanied by a small orchestra, gave an intimate and uplifting performance. “It was […]