Jason Libs didn’t migrate to Los Angeles and Santa Barbara from the Midwest via Miami, Nashville, and Barbados to play six nights a week in a piano bar. It just kind of worked out that way. “I came out here to be a songwriter and to sell my songs to, and produce for, other artists,” […]
Hollywood has never had a more decorated composer than John Williams. The now 91-year-old music maker has composed the music and served as music director for more than 100 films including all nine Star Wars movies, the first three Harry Potter films, Superman, Jaws, Home Alone, Schindler’s List, E.T. The ExtraTerrestrial, Jurassic Park and all […]
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The Glenn Miller Orchestra’s bus was rolling through the Arizona desert when music director Erik Stabnau answered the phone last week, but it could have been anywhere from California to Kalamazoo, as the big-band jazz outfit pretty much lives on the road, performing 200 dates a year. What makes that remarkable is that the band […]
Dishing with Diltz: Henry Diltz has shot some of the iconic photographs in rock music history – his famous images include the Crosby, Stills & Nash “On the Couch,” The Doors’ Morrison Hotel, and James Taylor Sweet Baby James album covers, as well as treasures photos of Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Jimi Hendrix, […]
Charles Lloyd reported that he wasn’t in good shape when we connected by phone last week. But it wasn’t a physical issue ailing the octogenarian saxophonist-composer who back in the late 1960s enjoyed one of the first million-selling jazz albums. It was a spiritual sadness after hearing that Wayne Shorter had died overnight. “We were […]
UCSB Dance Company’s 2023 company consists entirely of female or non-binary dancers, which wasn’t a conscious choice but simply the result of having no male senior dance majors on campus this year. But rather than fighting against what is, Artistic Director Delila Moseley decided to double down. “I just decided to go with it, and […]
The classical 1877 Tchaikovsky ballet Swan Lake took on a whole new complexion when France’s 27-year-old Ballet Preljocaj, based in the charming university city of Aix-en-Provence, performed at the Granada, part of the popular UCSB Arts & Lectures program. With extremely creative video and lighting design by Boris Labbé and Eric Soyer, the 110-minute work […]
Santa Barbara Choral Society, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary, put on a heavenly concert at Trinity Episcopal Church under veteran conductor JoAnne Wasserman, herself celebrating 30 years at the helm. The performance, For the Love of Music, with Music Academy graduate David Potter on piano, featured works by Pachelbel, Byrd, Bradbury, and Morten Lauridsen’s […]
In the early days of the pandemic, Angelin Preljocaj, the French choreographer famed for creating contemporary classics, dove into developing his distinctive version of Swan Lake, perhaps the most iconic ballet in the canon. Transforming the timeless tale of love, seduction, betrayal, and remorse into a modern cautionary story of ecological tragedy and societal failure, […]
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Due for a day trip but desiring to hear chamber music at your destination? Here are a couple of concerts to consider. Over in Ojai, the Chamber On The Mountain presents the Neave Piano Trio, featuring violinist Anna Williams, cellist Mikhail Veselov, and pianist Eri Nakamura, who have been praised for “eloquent phrasing and deft […]
In a season that has seen premieres of two locally generated works in Cody Westheimer’s San Marcos Preserve-inspired Wisdom of the Water, Earth, and Sky and Peter Bernstein’s arrangement of his father Elmer’s Toccata for Toy Trains, the Santa Barbara Symphony’s third successive concert centered on a new work might produce the most profound piece […]
An American Dream represents mezzo-soprano Nina Yoshida Nelsen’s 10th production with Opera Santa Barbara over two decades, but there’s no doubt that the California debut of the 2015 opera represents a milestone for the Montecito native. Nelsen, who has sung in the world premieres of seven new operas, had a hand in shaping the role […]
The Westmont Orchestra performs at several locations as part of a Presidents’ Day weekend tour, Feb. 16-18. These concerts are open to the public and free. The orchestra will perform “Amazing Grace,” Bizet’s “Carmen Suite” and Franck’s “Symphony in D minor” at 7 pm Thursday in San Marcos High School (4750 Hollister Ave., Santa Barbara); […]
The culmination of jazz saxophonist/composer/educator Ted Nash’s expansive winter residency in town and over Zoom this year comes next weekend (Feb. 18-19) when the Santa Barbara Symphony premieres his Transformation – a rethinking and newly arranged for orchestra take on a segment of his 2021 collaboration with Glenn Close, Transformation: Personal Stories of Change, Acceptance, […]
