Tag archives: State Street Ballet
Oakland’s Ensemble Mik Nawooj is an innovative 10-piece ensemble featuring winds, strings, piano, drums, and a lyric soprano – plus two MCs, the kind you find at a hip hop concert. That’s because EMN founder and composer JooWan Kim, who was classically trained in composition at Berklee College of Music and San Francisco Conservatory, also […]
Two of the Granada Theatre’s resident companies, the State Street Ballet, celebrating its 25th anniversary, and the 72-year-old Santa Barbara Choral Society, combined their abundant talents in American Masters. The enticing program featured masterworks from Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, and Morten Lauridsen, and choreography ranging from neoclassical to the avant garde combined in an endeavor […]
Julia Louis-Dreyfus is no stranger to the camera as the actress has starred as Elaine in the iconic sitcom Seinfeld and the title character in the just-concluded HBO hit VEEP, as well as several feature films. She’s collected 11 Emmy Awards, a SAG prize and a Golden Globe. But perhaps her most personal work appears […]
Montecito über philanthropist Sara Miller McCune was honored when the State Street Ballet hosted its 25th anniversary gala for 150 guests in the Biltmore’s Loggia Ballroom, raising around $125,000 for the popular local dance company, which has 20 dancers representing six countries. The room was decorated in myriad shades of blue, Sara’s favorite color, while […]
At the Granada it was time for the tony triumvirate of violinist Joshua Bell, cellist Steven Isserlis, and pianist Jeremy Denk to shine, part of the popular UCSB Arts & Lectures program. The talented threesome were in glorious harmony playing works by Mendelssohn, Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff and Ravel. A blockbuster show… Like Father, Like Daughter CAMA […]
For more than four decades, the Isla Vista Juggling Festival has had to – pardon the expression – keep a lot of balls in the air in order to produce the annual event that began in 1977. Rumor has it that the IV weekend extravaganza is the longest running jugglers festival held at a single […]
Multi-talented Scottish actor and performer Alan Cumming brought his highly entertaining show Legal Immigrant to the sold-out Granada, part of the popular UCSB Arts & Lectures program. The almost two-hour intermission-free performance, with a four-member backup band, was a meditation on his ten years as an American citizen and the experiences and change has witnessed […]
Social gridlock reigned when developer John Price and wife, Janna, and business partners Tod and Audrey Berlinger, opened The Villas at Olive Mill, nearly 15 years after first submitting their building application and going through 28 hearings between 2004 and 2017. The Spanish colonial-style, three-story mixed-use property on the corner of Coast Village Road and […]
As part of their Advanced Placement English studies, the students in Laguna Blanca English teacher Charles Donelan‘s class integrate the art of dance into their study of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in an annual program titled, Library Dances. The students study with the State Street Ballet, various musicians, and newly added this year, artist-practitioner from Shakespeare’s […]
Something about the original score by Czech composer and conductor Milan Svoboda for a theatrical production of The Jungle Book drew State Street Ballet Artistic Director Rodney Gustafson’s attention when it arrived unsolicited more than a decade ago with a proposal to use it to create an original full-length work based on the beloved Rudyard […]
State Street Ballet hosted its annual Evenings event at the Gail Towbes Center for Dance giving the company’s talented dancers the opportunity to create their own dance works and experiment with new movement, themes, music, and styles. This year’s event featured eight short world premieres performed in the rehearsal space followed by a question and […]
Like the proverbial phoenix, the Montecito bling emporium, Silverhorn, which closed its doors after 30 years at 1155 Coast Village Road, has returned to the ritzy rue at 1235 Coast Village Road. The new 1,100 sq ft store, which complements owners Michael and Carole Ridding‘s boutique at the Biltmore, enables customers to see the company’s […]
Last year, Isabel “Izzy” Fuentes achieved what is just about every teenage ballerina’s dream – getting cast as Clara, the girl who gets to go on a fairy tale journey with the come-to-life title character of The Nutcracker, Tchaikovsky’s famed Christmastime ballet, danced every December by Santa Barbara’s State Street Ballet. Then came the Thomas […]
A few months before the fires and the terrible mud slides in Montecito, I wrote to Santa Barbara County South Coast Maintenance Superintendent Randy Carnahan and attached a picture of the cracked asphalts on the surface of Channel Drive and asked that it be repaired. He responded that he would place it on the repair […]
A tony triumvirate of talent came together as one for the Santa Barbara Symphony’s back-to-back Igor Stravinsky fest at the Granada, with the performers including the State Street Ballet and members of the Ensemble Theatre. Montecito Emmy-winning actor Christopher Lloyd narrated the Faustian story of The Soldier’s Tale with Ensemble regular Jamie Torcellini as the […]
A large tent had been erected to protect the 420 guests at the sold-out 16th Gold Ribbon lunch for the Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation at the Biltmore from the blazing sun, but it served an entirely different purpose when the heavens opened, deluging the tony beachside hostelry in a rare rainstorm. Silent auction items had […]
Herb Kendall and Sara Jane Lind have been recognized by Opera Santa Barbara and officially installed as honorary board members at the start of the 25th anniversary season. Herb, a successful builder and community developer in Princeton, New Jersey, joined the organization’s board in 2011 until his retirement last year. He served on CAMA’s board […]
It was all tu-tu much when the State Street Ballet threw its 24th anniversary gala for a record 184 guests in the Biltmore’s Loggia Ballroom, raising around $140,000 for the popular local dance company. The fab fete, which honored avid supporter Arlyn Goldsby, longtime board member and patron, was emceed by Jonatha King, with dance […]
The choreographers behind State Street Ballet’s season-opening world premiere, Chaplin, had no idea that Charlie Chaplin had a major Montecito and Santa Barbara connection, the silent-film icon having had a hand in the building of the Montecito Inn in 1928, and marrying Oona O’Neill here in 1943. All they knew was that not only did […]
Santa Barbara Symphony’s 65th anniversary season, which kicks off at the Granada on October 20, promises to be a real humdinger. It includes a Stravinsky double bill, including The Rite of Spring, directed by the Ensemble Theatre Company’s Jonathan Fox with the State Street Ballet, and, for the first time on November 24, a Thanksgiving […]
