Tag archives: music
Andrew Lipke makes his Santa Barbara Symphony debut Sunday night as guest conductor for the annual New Year’s Eve concert, but he’ll be doing much more than waving the baton around to close out 2023. The composer, arranger, conductor, guitarist, and vocalist will actually display all of those talents at the Granada in a program […]
For two decades, Siegwart ‘Zig’ Reichwald, Westmont’s Adams professor of music and worship, engrossed himself in the sacred music of German composer and performer Felix Mendelssohn. But when he came to his works written for the Berlin Cathedral in 1843-44, he was struck by how unusual they were compared to the rest of Mendelssohn’s musical […]
Anthony Kearns, Ronan Tynan, and Declan Kelly, better known as the Irish Tenors, are all well on in years and miles on the road, but have piled into one hotel room in Plymouth, Massachusetts, like a band out on its first tour. The Tenors have a history of hits with classics from the Emerald Isle […]
Choral concerts don’t come much more compelling than the Quire of Voyces, which Nathan Kreitzer founded at SBCC back in 1993 and still enthusiastically leads 30 years later. The a cappella sacred music ensemble has a remarkably crystalline sound cultivated by both Kreitzer’s exacting ear and regular rehearsals. There are but two full weekend programs […]
Most folks in town are familiar with Grace Fisher, the Santa Barbara native who contracted a virus that spread to her spine and left her paralyzed from the neck down in her senior year in high school in 2014. The story bears repeating, especially at this time of year, as Fisher quickly turned her tragedy […]
Choir lovers rejoice: It’s the most wonderful time of year as several of the city’s classical vocal groups perform holiday concerts this week. Sing! – the Music Academy’s free community youth choral program – gets things going at 6 pm December 7 with a free one-hour concert featuring Christmas carols and holiday songs from across […]
Morgan Scott was understandably excited Monday morning over the phone from the Coachella Valley, where The Cher Show had just wound up five performances over the weekend in Palm Desert. The area is home not only to one of Cher’s famed exes, Sonny Bono, who was both mayor of Palm Springs and a U.S. representative […]
Christmas with The Petersens stars the pure-bred American roots music family band who have turned music of the Ozarks into a veritable family business. The bluegrass-based septet consists of four siblings (Katie, Ellen, Matt, and Julianne), their mom Karen and honorary Petersen and dear friend, Emmett Franz, who collectively play guitar, dobro, fiddle, mandolin, banjo, […]
The Music Academy staged its third and final performance of its Mariposa series at Hahn Hall with two former alumnae, Frank Huang, concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, who attended the Miraflores campus in 1998, and Natasha Kislenko, who was at the academy in 2001 and has also served as a teaching artist since 2004. […]
Dynamic duo Rick Oshay and Teresa Kuskey, in collaboration with the Santa Barbara Symphony, hosted Joy, a private concert with the Grammy Award and Emmy-winning trio Time for Three in the historic Presidio Chapel, after dinner for more than 100 guests in the tented front courtyard. The talented triumvirate – violinists Nicolas Kendall and Charles […]
British pianist Stephen Hough, making his fifth appearance with the Community Arts Music Association, mesmerized in a Masterseries concert at the Lobero. Hough, 61, who was recently knighted by King Charles, received a Master’s Degree at the Juilliard School in New York, was clearly at the top of his game with his Yamaha grand piano […]
Maria Bermudez has a metaphor she likes to employ to describe flamenco – what for her has been a lifelong passion and something hard to describe. “The beauty of flamenco is that it’s like a very big fan,” she said. “When you open a fan, it’s got all those ridges that are all equal. And […]
Back in 1961, Johnny Cash and his then-wife Vivian hired contractors to build them a home in the hills of Casitas Springs, the small town near Ojai in Ventura County. Custom designed to fit the singer’s specifications, the home even featured a wall-mounted turntable and a writing room for Cash. The country singer was going […]
Growing up, moving out, heartache, and more. To quote singer-songwriter Dawson Fuss in his 2023 release: “When will these growing pains give my bones a break?” We last spoke to Dawson in April of 2021 about his musical beginnings. Two years later, the Teen Star and Cate School alum is now a sophomore at the […]
The beloved Music Academy’s (MA) Auxiliary held its 2nd Annual Sip and Swap Fundraiser at the MA’s Marilyn Horne Main House on Thursday, November 9. The event saw both its members and their friends joining for a lovely evening of libations and top tier swapping of one or more treasured items from one’s closet to […]
Singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn has released some 35 albums over his half-century career, enjoying enough success stateside to sustain making music, but also falling far short of the household name recognition of fellow Canadians like Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, or even Gordon Lightfoot. Now at 78, Cockburn – whose catalog includes such transcendent love songs as […]
Bubbly show woman and former Broadway actress Janet Adderley’s students from four of her five school’s locations – Santa Barbara, Pacific Palisades, Austin, and New Orleans – were front and center when local rock icon Kenny Loggins, 75, performed the sold-out final show of his “This Is It!” tour at the 4,500-seat Santa Barbara Bowl. […]
New York Philharmonic principal clarinet Anthony McGill and Taiwanese pianist Gloria Chien were quite the dynamic duo when they performed in the second concert of the Mariposa series at the Music Academy’s Hahn Hall. The tony twosome performed works by Telemann, Jessie Montgomery, Brahms, Teng Yu-hsien, Lee, and Von Weber for the sold-out audience. McGill […]
Kristin Chenoweth had one of the hottest concerts of her career at the Granada when the theater’s fire alarms went off three times during her highly entertaining, 90-minute show! Fortunately, they were all false alarms, allowing the 4’11” dynamo from Oklahoma – dressed in a silver pantsuit even more sparkling than her personality – to […]
The entire opera world and other cultural institutions are all taking note of Maria Callas again as the 100th birthday of the soprano who was one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century approaches on December 2. That includes both Angelina Jolie, who will star in an upcoming biopic, and […]
