In the online realm, the MAW fellows hit the ball out of the park in this year’s Fast Pitch Awards, the academy’s second-year Shark Tank-style competition for the fellows to propose innovative ideas for products, services, or performances related to new approaches to classical music. Nearly all the eight hopefuls who made it onto the […]
Longtime Santa Barbara-based multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter Zach Gill has led a multi-dimensional musical life even before meeting soon-to-be surf singer-songwriter superstar Jack Johnson in Isla Vista and then forming the Animal Liberation Orchestra (now ALO) with childhood friends. Over 20-plus years of moving between ALO’s annual “Tour D’Amours,” band recordings, sitting in and going on the […]
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Juggling all the tasks and opportunities a fellow faces at the Music Academy of the West is a stiff if rewarding challenge in a normal summer, what with private lessons and sectional coaching, studying new pieces of repertoire, practicing as an individual and rehearsing for chamber, orchestra, and duo concerts, performing in master classes and […]
Although even its outdoor theater in Solvang was dark all last year, PCPA Theaterfest took to virtual programming right away after COVID hit, offering weekly conversations with alumni around the country along with Zoom readings of works new to the area, then upped the ante with produced longer-form videos, including cabarets over the holiday season […]
Life since March 2020 has been a whirlwind of activity and emotion for violist Richard O’Neill. Like everyone else, he was deeply affected by the pandemic, as precautions shut down all the arts worldwide — “All my concerts, solo projects, summer festivals, and everything I was involved in just disappeared, like they’d been written on […]
Imagine stepping in to lead a fully established orchestra with your wits and a baton your only weapons to mold the symphony musicians into at least a shared vision for a performance. That’s the job of most visiting conductors who travel the world for one-off concerts. Now imagine coming to an organization where the players […]
Jamie Broumas, the Music Academy of the West’s second year chief artistic officer, had the unenviable task of trying to program a performance-packed summer music festival during the ups and downs of the pandemic and the ever-changing protocols. “It was very, very, very challenging,” she admitted over the phone the other day. “Were we going […]
For Ensemble Theatre Company’s education director Brian McDonald, the theme for this year’s fundraiser for the ETC’s education and outreach programs was a bit of a no-brainer: “Come Together.” After all, the title of the Beatles song from their penultimate album provides the perfect prescription for emerging from a pandemic that has kept people apart […]
San Francisco-based photographer Jay Blakesberg is a self-confessed Deadhead whose work has appeared everywhere from Rolling Stone, Guitar Player, Relix to Time, and Vanity Fair. Over a 40-plus-year career he has taken pictures of innumerable rock legends, including the Grateful Dead, Phish, Radiohead, Tom Petty, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, The Rolling Stones, and Tom Waits, to […]
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Meredith Cabaniss-Ventura, the Selah Dance Collective founder and artistic director, doesn’t remember where she first found the main word of her dance company other than remembering it’s featured heavily in the Bible in the Book of Psalms. But while she liked that the word isn’t directly translatable to English, one of the meanings struck her […]
With the continued easing of pandemic restrictions, PCPA is returning after two summers to the Solvang Festival Theater, the charming outdoor amphitheater in the heart of the Santa Ynez Valley village. The stars will be live on stage as well as visible in the sky above starting in mid-July, when PCPA debuts an original production […]
Last October, Santa Barbara City College’s Jim Mooy used the Jamulus audio platform and live-streamed videos of each performer generated via Zoom to direct a synchronous audio and video stream of a university ensemble performance of SBCC’s Lunch Break Jazz Ensemble concert. This week, Mooy lends his expertise to his counterparts at UCSB’s Music Department, […]
During a year when the performing arts faced challenges beyond measure, the Santa Barbara Youth Symphony held its Concerto Competition virtually, featuring some of the county’s finest young musicians. Participation allows students to showcase their best efforts and hard work in performances scheduled for next season, with one lucky musician winning the opportunity to perform […]
Back in the virtual world, the Marjorie Luke Theatre this weekend unveils its eighth video presentation in its virtual concert series spotlighting local musicians and others in highly produced digital productions shot with multiple cameras and professional sound on the stage of the historic venue. All In For Love represents the live concert full-set debut […]
