CAMA Unveils Season 107, with a Change at the Top

Future Promises a Strong Plethora of Orchestral and Chamber Concerts, While Long-Standing Director Mark Trueblood Retires After Nearly Three Decades

London Philharmonia Orchestra | Photo: Felix Broede

The formidable classical music presenter CAMA’s (Community Arts Music Association, founded in 1919) 106th season closes out with much-anticipated concerts by the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Granada on May 9, and pianist Garrick Ohlsson at the Lobero on May 21.

CAMA’s 2025-26 roster has been unveiled, and it’s an embarrassment of riches. The orchestral International Series features the Los Angeles Philharmonic (with outgoing maestro Gustavo Dudamel), London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, a return by the mighty Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. The chamber music Masterseries sports Canadian pianist Louis Lortie, Emanuel Ax, the Venice Baroque Orchestra, and a return from the Sphinx Virtuosi, with violinist Randall Goosby.

Meanwhile, changes are afoot in CAMA’s head office. Long-standing executive-director-turned-president Mark Trueblood has largely been known to the public as the man at the microphone, introducing concerts in his understated way. After 27 years in charge, Trueblood has decided that retirement is nigh. This is his final season at the helm.

I checked in with Trueblood to talk about his role in CAMA, through which he also told the story of a landmark local institution’s evolution and the parties involved.

Mark E. Trueblood | Photo: Monie Photography

After leading CAMA for nearly three decades, is this a bittersweet juncture for you?

It was an incredibly difficult decision for me to make, one that I had been contemplating for at least a decade but always drew back from. It might have been logical to make a graceful exit during the 19-month COVID-enforced hiatus, which began just six days after we had presented the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a concert celebrating the exact hundred years since their first concert in Santa Barbara on March 6, 1920, but I just wanted to do my bit in restoring the momentum of CAMA’s presenting program after the cancelation of the entire 102nd 2020-2021 season.

It took me four more years before I was able to tell myself it was time to go.

Just for a bit of background, can you tell me something about your own history and how you came to be involved in CAMA?

Growing up in the Bay Area, I was exposed to classical music by my parents, played the trombone fairly well, and dabbled with piano and guitar with much less proficiency. At UCSB in the 1960s, I met [music presenter] Steve Cloud and with him explored the rapidly advancing genre of rock music with great pleasure. After graduate studies at Hertford College in Oxford University, I moved back to Santa Barbara, got a job in a community development organization, and began writing articles about the arts, music (Cloud’s concerts) and local history for the News & Review, the predecessor of today’s Independent. This led to a six-year adventure with the S.B. Museum of Art, where I wrote grants, worked with curators on planning and budgeting exhibitions, and helped out with the many events they offered.

One of the board members of the art museum was Herbert Kendall, a retired East Coast homebuilder who had also joined the Board of CAMA in 1995, the year before Steve Cloud joined in 1996. Together, they pulled me aside and told me I was needed at CAMA, where the managing director had declared her intention to leave. So, in December 1997, the CAMA board interviewed me and shortly thereafter offered me the job, which I began in March.

CAMA has such a deep history, as one of the earliest classical music presenters on the West Coast, correct? Is that legacy something you have strived to maintain and deepen during your tenure?

Absolutely, from the moment I stepped into the CAMA office at the Lobero Building on March 3, 1998. I had been a subscriber since the mid-1980s and knew a few things about the history of CAMA, but upon entering the office, on the shelves in front of me were the collected minutes of the two branches which formed the organization all those years ago: the Civic Music Committee from 1919 and the Music Branch of the Community Art Association in 1921. In them were the words of local legends like Pearl Chase, Henry Eichheim, Amy du Pont, and Francis Price.

On another shelf were all the concert programs since the 1920s for concerts by Pablo Casals, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Vladimir Horowitz, Lotte Lehmann, and, of course, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which we have presented since its first year of existence. I felt a special responsibility had been placed on my shoulders as the very first full-time professional executive director in its then 89-year history.

We were informed by a correspondent on the East Coast that we were very likely one of the earliest, if not the earliest purely classical music presenting organizations in the nation. So, to keep CAMA healthy and moving forward through the tech bust of the early 2000s, the financial crisis of 2008, and the pandemic shutdown was a duty that I just had to obey. But I was enjoying myself too.

You have worked closely with Steve Cloud over the years in terms of programming and other aspects of CAMA life, along with Justin Rizzo-Weaver. Are there others behind the scenes who are important figures in the maintenance and evolution of the organization?

Steve Cloud’s extensive contacts in the music industry as a result of his decades of experience as a promoter and artist manager have been instrumental in raising CAMA’s status and reputation as a presenting organization to the “A” level within the industry. And Justin Rizzo-Weaver is without question the most precisely efficient concert organizer in CAMA’s history. Behind the scenes, at the staff level, we have enjoyed very effective fundraisers in Nancy Lynn and Elizabeth Alvarez, and subscriber service managers Linda Proud and Michael Below.

At the board level, Herb Kendall put CAMA into a new orbit when he became president/board chair by bringing in a number of high-profile people onto the CAMA board, including former UCSB Vice Chancellor Ed Birch, Stephen Hahn, Robert Light, Judith Hopkinson, and Bitsy Bacon, to name just a few, and by propelling the creation of a permanent endowment, which CAMA had not had up to that point.

It took a few years, but with Kendall’s encouragement and the successive presidencies of Judith Hopkinson and Bitsy Bacon, the effort succeeded in creating a $5.5 million Endowment Fund (now more than $8 million), which proved more than invaluable in keeping us afloat after the 2008 Great Recession and the COVID shutdown in 2020-21. Local philanthropist Sara Miller McCune gave us the largest donation to the fund.

How would you characterize the changes in CAMA during your time there — both locally and in terms of the international classical realm you are involved in?

As an organization, during my time, the staffing changed from two overworked part-time staffers to a fully professional four full-time staff. We moved from a dusty two-room office in the — at that time — run-down Lobero Building, now freshly remodeled, to a rattly front office of the Santa Barbara Winery storage building in the Funk Zone, and finally to the wonderful Riviera Campus offices newly remodeled by Michael Towbes after filmmaker Andrew Davis left.

Our presenting program expanded significantly in 2000 when we brought Steve Cloud’s Masterseries recital program under the CAMA wing, funded by a substantial gift from Robert Light’s Esperia Foundation. This brought us squarely back to our roots beginning in the 1920s, when the CAA [Creative Artists Agency] Music Branch’s Artist Series presented all those international celebrities like Stravinsky, Heifetz, Darius Milhaud, Martha Graham, Paul Robeson, and Marian Anderson.

In the early 2000s, in response to the decrease in arts education in local schools, we initiated a music appreciation program in local elementary schools for students in grades 4 through 6, guided by local educator Dr. David Malvinni with the aid of volunteer docents.

One notable factor faced by every presenting organization now is the decreasing availability of touring orchestras — not only American, and especially European. When I first began, we would have page after page of available orchestras being offered by numerous artist management companies, most of which were offered at affordable fees.

Over the years, and particularly after the pandemic, the offerings have declined substantially, as the costs of touring, and therefore fees, of the orchestras have increased enormously. So now we face the dual challenge of reduced availability and increased cost.

The pandemic years were very tough for all cultural organizations, including CAMA. But I had also heard that the generosity of patrons helped to ease the pain and concert vacuum of that transition. Does that speak to the dedication of your audience?

When we were forced to halt the remaining concerts of our 2019-2020 season, we had to cancel four orchestras at The Granada Theatre and one recital at the Lobero Theatre. We gave our subscribers and ticket buyers the option to get refunds for the value of their tickets or to donate the value of their remaining tickets in return for tax donation receipts. The overwhelming majority of patrons chose to donate the value of their tickets back to CAMA, by a margin of over three to one.

For patrons who had committed sponsorships for our concerts, we gave them the choice of returning their sponsorship gifts, donating them to CAMA or transferring them to a future concert. Again, the vast majority told us to keep the money as a gift.

And during the 19-month hiatus when we were unable to present any concerts, the CAMA board chose to keep staff employed at current salary levels for the duration, and our main International Circle patron group maintained their contribution level as if nothing had changed. Altogether, it was a touching and deeply rewarding demonstration of support for CAMA from the community that allowed us to step right back into our presenting mode when the shutdown finally ended in fall 2021.

Do you have any particular takeaways from your long association with CAMA?

For me, I’m just thankful I had so many incredible experiences in meeting so many fabulously gifted and interesting musicians and industry professionals who keep the art alive and healthy. For the community, I hope that they will continue to appreciate the legacy of great music and value it for its uniqueness. An organization with a program like CAMA’s simply could not be started from scratch in a community as small as Santa Barbara — it’s a big-city program in a medium-size town.

What’s next for you?

I have made it clear that I will remain available to help out in any way needed to things running smoothly and efficiently at CAMA in the coming years. Personally, my wife, Beatrice Appay, and I have a young business called “Younger by the Days,” which takes advantage of her many years of training in yoga, Chinese medicine, and qigong, and her academic credentials in psychology and pedagogy in offering individual wellness therapy sessions and classes at Yoga Soup and the Santa Barbara Yoga Center. I’m sort of the business guy in the venture.

We also will spend much more time in France — she is a native Parisian — where we have a couple of places acquired over the years.

Anything else you would like to add?

To all those who have attended our concerts over the years and donated to CAMA, I would simply like to say “thank you.” You have been and remain the lifeblood of our organization, for the benefit of our community. You have kept the 106-year legacy alive with your support.

And to all those who may not yet have attended a CAMA concert at the Granada or Lobero theaters, I would urge you to give it a try: The experience of great acoustic music performed by great orchestras and soloists in a beautiful hall along with hundreds or thousands of other spellbound audience members is powerful and uplifting in an incredibly satisfying way.

See camasb.org for full schedule and ticket information.