Tag archives: symphony
The Music Academy of the West transforms the Granada Theatre into Mission Control for a special London Symphony Orchestra space-themed family concert next Friday, July 12, kicking off three straight days of different programs with the esteemed British orchestra in the second year of its partnership with MAW. The Voyager program, which incorporates excerpts from […]
Veteran maestro Nir Kabaretti has signed a multi-year extension as conductor of the Santa Barbara Symphony, which is celebrating its 66th season. Nir has been with the orchestra since 2006, when he was chosen from a pool of 300 candidates for the position. Since then he has used his considerable experience and talent in symphonic […]
There’s just one piece on the program for Santa Barbara Symphony’s pair of concerts this weekend, but it’s a big one: Mahler’s monumental Symphony No. 6 (“Tragic”). The 112-year-old, nearly 90-minute work scored for more than 100 musicians is finally making its debut with the Symphony 64 years after the ensemble was founded and a […]
The Granada stage was positively heaving when the Santa Barbara Symphony, accompanied by 150 singers from local choirs, performed a rousing concert of Verdi’s Requiem under conductor Nir Kabaretti. Featuring the Santa Barbara Choral Society, City College choirs, and the North County Chorus, I sat in at a rehearsal earlier in the week at the […]
Santa Barbara Symphony was in fine form at the Granada when it presented Amadeus Live, with the talented musicians under Belgian conductor Dirk Brosse, music director of the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra; the symphony chorus; and pianist Natasha Kislenko, a Music Academy of the West faculty member. The film about Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, based […]
Four years and at least seven of his own scores ago, the distinguished conductor-composer Dirk Brossé made his debut with the Santa Barbara Symphony with the Granada’s first live-to-screening synchronized musical performance since the installation of the theater’s state-of-the-art rear-projection film system. Brossé and the members of the orchestra who often also frequently freelance on […]
Grammy Award nominees the Danish String Quartet, visiting our Eden by the Beach for the fourth time, gave two very different performances for their UCSB Arts & Lectures appearances. The fab four – violinists Frederik Oland and Rune Tonsgaard Sorensen, cellist Fredrik Schoyen Sjolin and violist Asbjorn Norgaard – kicked off their latest visit at […]
A tony triumvirate – Montecito Bank & Trust chairman Janet Garufis, former chairman of Raytheon Dan Burnham, and Sarah Chrisman, a co-founder of a Silicon Valley telecommunications company – has joined the board of the Santa Barbara Symphony. “Their experience and commitment to the arts in Santa Barbara is unparalleled,” says executive director Kevin Marvin. […]
A Soul Train of Motown music steamed on to the Granada stage when the Santa Barbara Symphony, under energized maestro Bob Bernhardt, staged its annual New Year’s Eve Pops concert, Dancing in the Streets. The highly entertaining show featuring American Idol finalist Michael Lynche, alongside Broadway stars Shayna Steele, who appeared in Rent, Jesus Christ […]
Eight decades or so into the Great American Songbook, it would seem to be near impossible for artists to find a new way of taking on the classic show tunes and pop hits of a couple of generations of songwriters. There have been straight-ahead vocal stylists bebop jazz interpretations, soul-shaking R&B rounds, and even a […]
Fresh off a season opening concert of audience-pleasing music by Gershwin and others, the Santa Barbara Symphony next takes on two famously adventurous works by Igor Stravinsky, including his ballet score The Rite of Spring, which had a “scandalous” premiere 105 years ago in Paris, when the bizarre story of pagan sacrifice and the composer’s […]
The Santa Barbara Symphony (SBS) took us back to the era of Supper Clubs in a sea of sapphire. The rotunda at the Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort never looked more beautiful. It was totally draped in royal-blue curtains. The ceiling turned magical as the sun set, the tiny lights looking like we were sitting […]
Santa Barbara Symphony, under veteran maestro Nir Kabaretti, kicked offs its 65th season in fine style at the Granada with an intoxicating Rhapsody in Blue concert, featuring pianist Jeffrey Biegel, playing George Gershwin’s 1924 classic. The entertaining show kicked off with Hungarian Ernst von Dohnanyi’s folk and gospel-infused American Rhapsody, wrapping with Hector Berlioz’s epic […]
Santa Barbara Symphony, celebrating its 65th anniversary, is having a ball! To mark the occasion, the magical music makers held a glittering sold-out fête for 250 guests in the Hilton rotunda, creatively decorated by local event designer Percy Sales. The boffo bash, co-chaired by Anne Towbes and Janet Garufis, featured the Youth Symphony Chamber Orchestra, […]
If the Santa Barbara Symphony were an individual, it would have just qualified to start collecting Social Security. But instead of kicking back and resting on its laurels at age 65, hunkering down reminiscing over good times from a rocking chair, the orchestral organization is instead amping up its ambitions in just about every way, […]
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 […]
The concept of the Granada Theatre as the acoustic jewel that the city of Santa Barbara deserves gets no argument from Kevin A. Marvin, the executive director of the Santa Barbara Symphony, which is also receiving a Granada Legend Award at this year’s gala. Marvin took over the orchestra’s reins in December 2016 after an […]
How do you top a 70th anniversary season that featured the culmination of a four-year partnership with the venerable New York Philharmonic featuring music director Alan Gilbert leading the orchestra for the final time in a monumental concert at La Playa Stadium, in what was Santa Barbara biggest single classical musical event in its history? […]
PATH – People Assisting the Homeless – hit a definite home run with its second Making It Home tour, a sell-out event with 260 supporters taking a tour in eight trolleys – two more than last year – of four of our rarefied enclave’s toniest properties and raising around $75,000 for the nonprofit formed three […]
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 […]
