Tag archives: Nir Kabaretti

The musician was shredding on his solos, fingers flying all over the instrument as the notes emerged with spectacularly blazing speed. The player’s face contorted and his body bent and swayed as he soared up to high notes that seem to defy the instrument’s capabilities. A rock guitarist raging at a local club? No. It […]

Santa Barbara Symphony maestro Nir Kabaretti hosted a Jazz & Juice party at the Montecito aerie of Chuck and Merryl Zegar. The sunset soirée featured New York-based singer Kristen Lee Sergeant, a certified sommelier working in Manhattan’s top eateries who founded a wine label with Grammy Award winning saxophonist Ted Nash, called Two Notes, now […]

It was the musical version of pouring a gallon into a pint pot when Santa Barbara Symphony under maestro Nir Kabaretti performed “Serenade for Romance” at the 604-seat Lobero, having moved the show from the 1,553-seat Granada after a sprinkler mishap soaked the capacious stage. The decidedly cozy concert featured violinist Sirena Huang, artist-in-residence for […]

For the Santa Barbara Symphony, the 2023-24 season expresses a number of the outreach efforts in its mission: to enrich residents’ lives by producing and presenting the highest quality musical experiences, performed with artistic excellence and accessible to the entire community – as well as inspire a passion for symphonic music in the next generation […]

Magnificent classical music reigned supreme with three impressive concerts in our Eden by the Beach, two at the venerable Granada and one at the Music Academy’s Hahn Hall. Kicking off the week was the Community Arts Music Association’s first concert of the new year with London’s 79-year-old Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Russian conductor Vasily Petrenko, […]

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 […]

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 […]

If anybody isn’t clear about the direction the Santa Barbara Symphony has undertaken, let’s dispel any doubts: This is not your grandfather’s symphony. Not anymore. As in recent years, programs have become progressive, as a wide variety of musical genres, unusual instrumentation, and frequent collaborations are pushing up hard against the old-school focus on classical […]

Veteran maestro Nir Kabaretti, who has conducted the Santa Barbara Symphony for 18 years, took center stage at the Lobero when promoting the orchestra’s 71st season for more than 600 guests, who quaffed champagne and noshed on canapés on the Lovelace Esplanade outside the theater beforehand. The new season, which kicks off at the Granada […]

Santa Barbara Symphony, under dashingly attired veteran maestro Nir Kabaretti, concluded its 70th anniversary season at the Granada with An Evening with Sinatra with Tony DeSare singing not only the music of Ol’ Blue Eyes, but a medley of favorites by Cole Porter, and wrapping up the highly entertaining show with the 1957 hit, “Great […]

Former Santa Barbara Symphony concertmaster Gilles Apap was back in our tony town when the orchestra hosted its penultimate Concert Apéritif event to celebrate its 70th anniversary. The world-famous Algerian violinist, a good friend of the late Yehudi Menuhin, was joined by Chris Judge on guitar and Brendon Staton on bass at the Carpinteria aerie […]

The programming for the Santa Barbara Symphony’s milestone 70th anniversary has resulted in a sensational and supremely successful season, a nine-month musical journey that has weaved together a variety of collaborative explored genres and cultural traditions. Concerts have cut a wide swath across and beyond what is traditionally considered classical music, including such uniquely Santa […]

Santa Barbara Symphony’s 2023-24 season promises to be an absolute cracker! Veteran maestro Nir Kabaretti has enlisted a record-breaking 23 guest artists, including eight vocal soloists, four choral groups, two trios, and a guest conductor to perform at the venerable Granada. “They cost a lot, but enrich the community,” he told VIP donors at a […]

Ted Nash, a regular figure of Jazz at Lincoln Center led by Wynton Marsalis, made his debut with the Santa Barbara Symphony, under conductor Nir Kabaretti, premiering a new orchestral expansion of his work Transformation at the Granada. Nash also performed with a trio led by Los Angeles-based pianist Josh Nelson. A short film also […]

Santa Barbara Symphony was clearly on the right track with its first 70th anniversary concert of the New Year! Plains, Trains, & Violins at the Granada under maestro Nir Kabaretti was a celebration of the influence of music of the Americas with local ties to our Eden by the Beach. The entertaining performance included Uruguayan-born […]

Back in 2020, the Santa Barbara Symphony canceled its annual New Year’s Eve pop concert due to the pandemic in its pre-vaccine stage. But everyone got to return to the Granada last December 31 to hear the orchestra play movie themes, pop songs, celebratory symphonic favorites and, of course, join in on the sing-along of […]

Italian pianist Alessio Bax, a frequent visitor to our Eden by the Beach, who performed with the Santa Barbara Symphony at the Granada playing Schumann’s “Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54,” gave a private concert 48 hours earlier for VIP supporters in the second of its Concert Aperitif series at the historic APS aerie […]

The threat of imminent development of the western parcel of the San Marcos Foothills Preserve 18 months ago not only triggered an astonishingly speedy and successful campaign to purchase the land as a nature preserve in perpetuity, it also synchronistically spawned a sensational new piece of music from a Santa Barbara native: Cody Westheimer’s Wisdom […]

Santa Barbara Choral Society, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary and the 30th anniversary of its artistic director and conductor Jo Anne Wasserman, hosted a donor appreciation and season kickoff bash in the Lobero Theatre Courtyard. On Saturday the choir will be joining 150 other performers, including Quire of Voyces, the State Street Ballet, and […]

The Santa Barbara Symphony last presented Carmina Burana just seven years ago, but, says music and artistic director Nir Kabaretti, the time is ripe to launch its new season with an even bigger community cultural collaborative effort in presenting the Carl Orff classic cantata composed in the mid-1930s based on 24 poems drawn from a […]