Gavin Gamboa is a student, so any technical review in terms of craft will be left up to his mentor, but he has the makings of a star. His playing is polished and engaging, and he is tall, slim, and dramatically good-looking, with a very personal approach to the four composers whose works he performed last Saturday.
Camerata Pacifica’s February programs-1 and 8 p.m. Friday, February 17, in Victoria Hall-will feature the luminous talents of pianist Warren Jones and violinist Catherine Leonard, plus the flute-playing of Adrian Spence and new-comer Colin Fleming.
It was a day to remember, January 24, 1836. That morning, one of the most prominent Americans in Alta California was wed to a daughter of one of the grandest of the California rancheros. It happened in Santa Barbara and the joyous occasion was immortalized in a best-seller of the period, Richard Henry Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast.
For any professionally driven and/or neurotically habitual visitor to the NAMM show at the Anaheim Convention Center each January, the meaning of the term “too long at the fair” is bound to strike. It might be two days or two hours into the sprawling music merchants and instrument expo (NAMM = National Association of Music Merchants). You reach a point where the sheer muchness of the experience wears on your mental receptors.
Like adult fiction, children’s books divide nicely into two groups: the books we read to stimulate our brains, and those that help us go to sleep at night. The biggest mistake made with this film is trying to bring a bedtime story to life.
In a strange case of Hollywood pre-release hype gone wrong, Steve Martin’s anxiously awaited role as the loveably bumbling Inspector Clouseau first appeared lamely, in that annoying “turn off your cell phones” trailer featuring the nouveau Clouseau as a disruptive, joy-buzzered moviegoer. Happily, early fears are unfounded, and Martin’s Clouseau bumbles beautifully in the fairly laugh-riotous 21st version of The Pink Panther.
Are we good or evil? Do we go through life as sinners or as saints? Whether we personally are one or the other, we all seem to need to identify and categorize our icons according to this dichotomy. Every day, the news bombards us with characters to revile or heroes to emulate, and very little exists in between.
Thu., Feb. 16
Larry Crandell Roast: The Public Education Foundation hosts dinner and cocktails to salute and roast “Mr. Santa Barbara.” $45/person. 5-7:30pm. Cabrillo Arts Center. Call 963-4331.
Dems Under 35: Inaugural meeting of the S.B. County Young Democrats. 6:30-8:30pm. MLK Room, Eastside Library. Email dsc@sbdsc.org.
“Marriage. True love. : That blessed arrangement, that dream within a dream :,” lisps Impressive Clergyman in the film The Princess Bride. All weddings have that sentiment at their core even though the details vary. Inside is a collection of stories that reflect a variety of Big Day celebrations. Georgia Freedman discovers that it takes a village to create the perfect hometown wedding; Molly Freedenberg learns what a wedding shouldn’t be about by attending 25 ceremonies in two years; Tyler Blue sees beauty in his rabbi brother’s orthodox nuptials-complete with matchmaker; and Josh Brayer finds bliss in a marriage that makes him a stepdad. Also find out how one couple got sponsors to help defray the costs of their wedding, and what Queen Victoria has to do with why brides wear white.
At the Corridan Gallery, through February 26. It’s unlikely that the photographers of the late-19th-century American West, who braved uncharted
