Tag archives: concert

A Talented Tandem
By Richard Mineards   |   December 3, 2020

UCSB’s popular Arts & Lectures series has obviously been scrambling during the pandemic lockdown to present its normal program of international acts and artists. I took the opportunity at the weekend to watch 21-year-old cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and his pianist sister, Isata, play a virtual concert from their home in Nottingham, England, and couldn’t fail […]

Music and Much More with Marsalis
By Steven Libowitz   |   November 12, 2020

The election will be three days in the rear-view mirror when The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra Septet with Wynton Marsalis performing “The Sounds of Democracy” streams for free as part of UCSB Arts & Lectures’ Thematic Learning Initiative, its community conversation arm in conjunction with events. Led by trumpeter-composer Wynton Marsalis and featuring seven […]

Girl Power
By Richard Mineards   |   November 12, 2020

The venerable Granada was socially gridlocked when the popular Danish String Quartet returned to Santa Barbara with the Danish National Girls’ Choir, under conductor Phillip Faber, putting on an entertaining UCSB Arts & Lectures concert. The Fab Four – violinists Rune Tonsgaard Sorensen and Frederik Oland, violist Asbjørn Norgaard, and cellist Fredrik Schoyen Sjolin – […]

Pop Notes: Rock and Wheels
By Steven Libowitz   |   October 29, 2020

The Beach Boys, straight off a controversial performance at President Trump’s fundraising concert in Orange County last weekend that had founders Brian Wilson and Al Jardine disavowing the appearance by the touring outfit led by former Santa Barbara resident Mike Love, return to a favorite stomping ground at the Ventura Fairgrounds on Friday, October 23. […]

Friday Night Alumni Concert
By Scott Craig   |   October 13, 2020

Soprano Megan (Silberstein) Billings will perform as part of the music department’s Alumni Spotlight on Friday, October 9 at 7 pm. Listen to the free concert at vimeo.com/showcase/westmontmusic. Billings, a 2014 Westmont graduate, will sing recognizable tunes from Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals as well as productions of Bridges of Madison County and Frozen. She earned […]

Lyle Lovett in Concert
By Joanne A Calitri   |   September 16, 2020

Gracing our town with five-part harmonies from heaven, four-time Grammy winner Lyle Lovett made a serious stop here with his all-strings acoustic band called Lyle Lovett and his Acoustic Group, presented by Arts & Lectures UCSB at Campbell Hall. One of 46 tour dates in a five-month spread across the country, he uses buses and […]

Venturing to Ventura: Concerts in Your Car
By Steven Libowitz   |   July 16, 2020

This innovative concept to keep live music happening during the COVID-19 crisis has turned the massive parking lot at the Ventura County Fairgrounds into a site for “pop”-up entertainment. The Concerts in Your Car drive-in series features two or three live performances each week that people can enjoy from the comfort and safety of their […]

Sing! Sing! Sing! — Music Academy Hits High Note with Kids Choir Performance
By Steven Libowitz   |   July 16, 2020

Music Academy of the West’s Sing! program – a free, after-school choral initiative that, in normal times, takes place at six elementary schools for Santa Barbara County kids age 7-12 – was only in its second year when the coronavirus pandemic forced schools to close back in March, obviously also ending any possibilities for the […]

Takin’ it to Zoom
By Steven Libowitz   |   June 25, 2020

If the novel coronavirus hadn’t brought the world to a halt this spring, Michael McDonald wouldn’t have been available to participate in the concert for the Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse (CADA) taking place this Thursday evening, June 25. That’s because the longtime Santa Barbara resident would have been out on the road as […]

Blues Legends in Concert
By Joanne A Calitri   |   April 2, 2020

Tipping the charts at a double sold out concert, UCSB Arts & Lectures knocked it out of the ballpark in early March with a triple-header of blues legends at the Arlington Theatre, presented with additional support from Sharon and Bill Rich. The blues is America’s heartland music, one that is respected worldwide as our country’s contribution […]

Lyle Lovett in Concert
By Joanne A Calitri   |   March 12, 2020

Gracing our town with five-part harmonies from heaven, four-time Grammy winner Lyle Lovett made a serious stop here with his all-strings acoustic band called Lyle Lovett and his Acoustic Group, presented by Arts & Lectures UCSB at Campbell Hall. One of 46 tour dates in a five-month spread across the country, he uses buses and […]

All That Jazz
By Richard Mineards   |   February 20, 2020

The World War II years of the ‘40s was wonderfully evoked when Montecito resident Christie Jenkins organized the Mercury Ballroom Supper Club for a six-day run at the Rockwood Woman’s Club to “bring happiness to the community.” Elegantly garbed guests were welcomed with Bees Knee’s cocktails, a heady mix of gin and honey, and other […]

Music Faculty to Perform House Concerts
By Scott Craig   |   February 20, 2020

Westmont music professors have brought back the popular Select House Concert Series, performing four chamber concerts on Saturdays, March 21, April 25, May 30 and June 20; all at 3 pm in homes to be announced once tickets have been purchased. Individual concert tickets, which go on sale beginning March 1 at westmont.edu/music, cost $50 […]

CAMA Pulls Out all the Stops
By Richard Mineards   |   February 6, 2020

CAMA, now celebrating its 101st year, is having to face the music! The popular organization is justifiably renowned for bringing the world’s top orchestras as part of its International Series to the venerable Granada, with the musicians often booked more than a year in advance to ensure their availability. But sometimes even the best laid […]

Back in the Chamber
By Steven Libowitz   |   February 6, 2020

The Lobero Theatre Chamber Music Project, which had a sneak preview concert early last month, mounts the first of a planned annual festival this weekend by pairing Artistic and Music Director Heiichiro Ohyama, the violist who previously helmed the now defunct Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, and violinist Benjamin Beilman, who Ohyama selected as Musical Advisor […]

Celebrating Perlman
By Richard Mineards   |   January 30, 2020

Legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman, who has appeared in Santa Barbara many times over the years for CAMA and UCSB Arts & Lectures, celebrated this 75th birthday at the sold-out Granada for Stories of His Life and Career, accompanied by pianist Rohan de Silva. The charming two-hour A&L retrospective, which traced his career from a 13-year-old […]

Bach, Busoni, Grieg
By Steven Libowitz   |   January 2, 2020

Violinist Benjamin Beilman was slated to make his debut with the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra in the 2017-18 season, but then the venerable ensemble closed operations after nearly 40 years. Now, barely more than two years later, Beilman has been booked for an even bigger role in the Lobero Theatre Chamber Music Project, a new collaboration with […]

Trees a Crowd
By Richard Mineards   |   November 21, 2019

Caroline Doiron, owner of the Village Gardener, is going to have her hands full over the next few weeks. Caroline, who regularly decorates the Christmas tree at the Four Seasons Biltmore with thousands of ornaments, has also taken on the daunting task, along with her team of eight designers, of installing and decorating Yuletide trees […]

Festa Italiana!
By Richard Mineards   |   October 24, 2019

Santa Barbara Symphony kicked off its 66th season with Festa Italiana! at the Granada featuring works by Verdi, Paganini, Mendelssohn’s Italiana symphony and Tschaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien under the baton of Nir Kabaretti. International Italian violinist Francesca Dego was at the top of her game playing Paganini’s fiendishly complicated Concerto No.1 in D Major, and then […]

Chenoweth at the Granada
By Lynda Millner   |   October 24, 2019

I may be prejudice since Broadway is my favorite thing, but I think the best concert I’ve ever seen for UCSB Arts & Lectures was Kristin Chenoweth. She’s a teeny tiny thing (4’ 11”) with a mighty voice that reaches the rafters. And she thinks we Santa Barbarians are so lucky to have Hidden Valley […]