Arts & Entertainment

A Winter Arts of Epic Proportions

From Sonny Rollins to Madeleine Peyroux,
from Summerdance to Off-Axis, and from the Opera Festival to the
Lit Moon Shakespeare Festival, in 2006 Santa Barbara was blessed
with an abundance of arts legends either well-established or in the
making. Saying goodbye to so much greatness should be hard, but
then 2007 promises even more. UCSB has scheduled two months’ worth
of exciting programming in every medium on the subject of the Silk
Road, culminating in a concert by the project’s guiding spirit, the
great Yo-Yo Ma. World-class writers such as Garrison Keillor will
be coming to speak, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art will mount
a major traveling retrospective of pioneering artist Rufino Tamayo.
There’s so much art on tap this winter season that The Independent
is publishing our 2007 winter arts preview in two parts. This
week’s issue features upcoming events in film, dance, pop, rock,
jazz, books and lectures, and classical music. Next week, we will
follow up with guides to the winter season in visual arts and
theater. Keep these calendars handy — before another year of
glorious art events becomes the stuff of legend.