Tag archives: Q&A

The 120th Annual Christmas Bird Count
By Joanne A Calitri   |   March 19, 2020

The Christmas Bird Count (CBC) is the longest running citizen science survey in the world, with origins dating to December 1900 when ornithologist Frank Chapman asked people to count birds not hunt them for sport at Christmas time. This shift began an international bird species count to help birds repopulate that had begun to decline […]

Improv for the Ages
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 12, 2020

The current cast members of the long-running TV improv show Whose Line Is It Anyway? are bringing the touring version, dubbed “Whose Live Anyway?”, back to town for a single show at the Lobero Theatre. Cast members Ryan Stiles, Greg Proops, Jeff B. Davis, and Joel Murray will put together a 90-minute set of comedy […]

Classical Music Confronts Conflict via Collaboration
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 5, 2020

The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra was founded by renowned conductor-pianist Daniel Barenboim and the late Palestinian scholar/author Edward Said 20 years ago to bring together outstanding young Palestinian and Israeli musicians in a collaboration superseding national and cultural boundaries. The group, Barenboim has said, was conceived as a project against ignorance and aims to promote understanding […]

Musicology Benefit Concert
By Joanne A Calitri   |   February 27, 2020

Montecito’s Erland Wanberg, Director of Musicology SB located at the Music Academy of the West (MAW), and John Lucchetti, CEO of Green Room Strategy, are producing a benefit concert with 100% of the proceeds going toward the Musicology’s free one-on-one music lessons to low income youth at the Santa Barbara Police Activities League teen center. […]

5Qs with Keaton Eckhoff
By Steven Libowitz   |   February 27, 2020

Buddy Holly died more than 60 years ago in a famous plane crash that also killed Richie Valens and The Big Bopper. But it seems the early rock star just won’t stop touring. And the ongoing Holly performances aren’t even in the guise of tribute bands. Unlike Elvis and the Beatles, say, Holly hasn’t attracted […]

MAW Piano Winner
By Steven Libowitz   |   February 27, 2020

Elliot Wuu doesn’t have a direct memory of the first time he slept next to the bench while his older sister Rebecca practiced on the family’s piano, something his parents told him he started doing as a baby barely one year old. But he does recall frequently taking naps as a toddler while Rebecca, who […]

5Qs with Joshua Radin
By Steven Libowitz   |   February 20, 2020

Fifteen-year veteran singer-songwriter Joshua Radin, who counts more than 1,500 placements of his music on TV shows, movies, commercials and other soundtracks dating back to his first song, comes to the Lobero Theatre on February 22 for a special acoustic show with friends Ben Kweller and William Fitzsimmons. We checked in over the phone earlier […]

Santa Barbara Fiduciary Celebrates 11 Years in Business
By Kelly Mahan Herrick   |   February 13, 2020

Santa Barbara Fiduciary ­– which is based in Montecito ­– recently marked 11 years in business. Owner Lindsay Leonard says the idea for starting the company arose from her experience helping her grandmother navigate Alzheimer’s; Leonard says she struggled to meet the demands of rapid changes in her grandmother’s health and needs, and wanted to […]

ALO gets Zen about Venn for Valentine’s Day
By Steven Libowitz   |   February 13, 2020

Animal Liberation Orchestra guitarist/singer-songwriter Dan Lebowitz was thrilled to be interviewed by someone with the same last name, albeit spelled differently, for the first time in his two-decades long career. Perhaps even more than talking about the music itself – we learned that both of us can trace our roots through Ellis Island, pronounce our […]

Snow Job: 3Qs with FLIP Fabrique’s Strap-man
By Steven Libowitz   |   February 6, 2020

Canadian cirque troupe FLIP Fabrique’s brand new show, Blizzard, takes the stage by, ahem, storm, as the small but exciting troupe of circus performers invites the audience to lose yourself in wonder in the middle of a winter storm amid artists who juggle, tumble, flip and spring around the snowflakes surrounded by the poetic beauty […]

Sitting Down with Salud
By Gwyn Lurie   |   February 6, 2020

I asked Salud Carbajal, our Congressman from the 24th district, if he would sit with me for an interview. Three plus years into his job in Washington, he is playing a far different role from the role he played for 12 years as our 1st district County Supervisor. These are challenging times for anyone in […]

Changing Sprockets: 3 Qs with Glen Phillips
By Steven Libowitz   |   January 30, 2020

We caught up with Glen Phillips, the lead singer-songwriter of Toad the Wet Sprocket, coincidentally just a few days after the death of Terry Jones, one of the stars of the seminal comedy group Monty Python. The Santa Barbara-born alternative rock band took its name from one of the troupe’s skits back when Phillips was […]

Exploring the Process of Music with Joshua Roman
By Joanne A Calitri   |   January 30, 2020

World-renowned cellist, composer, and curator Joshua Roman is an alumnus of the Music Academy of the West (MAW) since 2002. He sent out letters of inquiry around the U.S. to secure a space undisturbed for composing a 16-minute piece for the Cleveland Orchestra. Scott Reed, President and CEO of MAW, reached out to Ashley Woods […]

Back in the Briere Patch
By Steven Libowitz   |   January 23, 2020

Way back in the spring of 2016, we wrote about the upcoming release of Songs in the Key of Double Bass, an exciting album debut from local singer-songwriter Danny Briere’s new acoustic project featuring two brilliant bassists who call Santa Barbara home: the decades-long veteran James Connolly, who has had a hand in innumerable musical […]

In the Key of Joy
By Steven Libowitz   |   January 16, 2020

Sérgio Mendes just performed in Santa Barbara at Campbell Hall for UCSB A&L. Normally, we wouldn’t see someone of his stature – a three-time Grammy-winner whose nearly six-decades long career as a producer, composer, keyboardist and vocalist places him among the most internationally successful Brazilian artists in history – back in town just two scant […]

Gospels and Gabbing with a ‘Genius’ in Spirituality
By Steven Libowitz   |   January 9, 2020

Elaine Pagels won the National Book Award for her groundbreaking work The Gnostic Gospels and has also penned the best-sellers Beyond Belief; Adam, Eve and the Serpent; and Revelations. The Princeton University professor was awarded the Rockefeller, Guggenheim, and MacArthur Fellowships in three consecutive years for her incisive historical research and writing. Her recent work […]

Tuning In on Tunstall
By Steven Libowitz   |   January 2, 2020

Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall scored with her first album back in 2004, which earned her a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and spawned a worldwide hit with “Suddenly I See.” But the last half decade has seen a sea change for the already critically acclaimed artist who relocated in 2014 to Venice Beach and […]

Quire Composer’s Set and Setting
By Steven Libowitz   |   December 19, 2019

Stephen Dombek had the unusual experience of hearing one of his compositions from the audience when the Quire of Voyces performed his setting of “Hodie – Christus Natus Est (Today Christ is Born)” at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art at December’s 1st Thursday art walk. Normally, Dombek would have been among the baritone section […]

Toys for Tots at Richie’s
By Joanne A Calitri   |   December 12, 2019

Join Richie Ramirez and his team in donating a toy of your choice for a child from toddler to teen. Just drop off the unwrapped toy at his barber shop on Coast Village Road during regular business hours starting now through Tuesday, December 17. Richie shared a few details about the toy drive in an […]

End of an Era: Nack Reins in the Reindeer
By Steven Libowitz   |   December 12, 2019

Brad Nack has been creating whimsical mini abstract oil paintings of reindeer for more than two decades, working on capturing the critters in a variety of expressions, colors, and angles that come from his unconscious mind – he’s said that what ends up on the canvas often represents the opposite emotion to what’s going on […]