Sacred Renaissance Fairground
Santa Barbara’s Christmas choral music parade began right on schedule last week, with the seasonal wash of carolers on State Street and, more officially, a cappella choir Quire of Voyces warming up the Santa Barbara Museum of Art with a short set as part of the “First Thursday” festivities. Things quickly got deeper, in musical complexity and historical gravitas, when another local a capella mainstay, the Adelfos Ensemble, dug deep into the music of Palestrina, master composer of the Renaissance and music of any age.
Anytime is the right time to bask in the transfixing glories of Palestrina, but this year’s right timing connects with his 500th birthday. Saturday afternoon’s concert found the
Adelfos — led for 15 years by Temmo Korisheli — in its first appearance in the glorious and reverberating sanctum of St. Anthony’s Chapel. (Heads up: Don’t miss the Quire of Voyces’s annual “Mysteries of Christmas” program in this same enchanted space this Saturday and Sunday.)
Saturday night’s choral fare arrived at The Granada Theatre courtesy of the “Westmont Christmas Festival,” in its 21st annual edition. A full, happy house enjoyed a varied evening of choral, orchestral music, with narrative interludes of Biblical texts (one read by campus pastor Scott Lisea and Carissa Gagnon from perches in opera boxes above the state). Among the highlights, to these ears, were the impressive Westmont Chamber Singers’ reading of John Taverner’s The Lamb and the Dixit Maria by Renaissance composer Hans Leo Hassler (also heard on the Adelfos program). Some of the big moment orchestral/choral fare spotlighted Max Bruch’s Gruss an die heilige Nacht (Greeting to the Holy Night) — featuring mezzo Max Potter, heard in Opera Santa Barbara’s recent Marriage of Figaro — and a suitably grand finale of Haydn’s Te Deum.
There is a reason — or reasons — this beloved annual event brings out the crowds to the Granada’s ample room.
Reading the Room
What is the sound of no hands clapping? Although there was no direct Christmas connection to be found last Friday during the unique Meditation & Music program in Music Academy of the West’s intimate Weinman Hall, the event of the day offered much-needed meditative pause that refreshed, in an unorthodox setting. The new concert-meets-contemplation series, combining Jessica Kolbe’s guided meditation and the fine, versatile pianist Antonio Artese’s mini-recital, hinged on the central idea that focused and meditative listening is central to the true appreciation of both the meditation and musical arts.
To that end, Artese introduced the formative event by laying down benevolent ground rules — no applause between pieces and, hopefully, a moratorium on outside-the-room distractions. The sum effect was a collective spirit of what Pauline Oliveros called “deep listening.” Following the rolling and awakening effects of Kolbe’s meditation, the pianist dove — gently — into a program of J.S. Bach, Grieg, Scriabin, and the magical minimalist Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov. If the more romantic inner works, with their dynamic outbursts, threatened to upset the poise in the room, the Bach and Silvestrov felt perfectly suited to the mission of the moment and the series.
It’s a novel but ultimately logical concept, bringing together two modalities of meditative practice. Encore, please.
On the Organ Beat
This is an exciting time for pipe organ culture in Santa Barbara, thanks to two superb works of two instrumentalists named Thomas and two superb organs — at Trinity Episcopal Church and First United Methodist Church. Said Thomases would be T. Joyce and T. Mellan, both of whom have supplied considerable musical inspiration this year. Capping off last Sunday’s service at Trinity, Joyce dove eloquently into the rich opus of influential baroque German composer Dietrich Buxtehude’s Toccata in F as a smart tiny feast of a postlude. Two weeks ago, Mellan performed a chorale variation on the Martin Luther advent hymn Nun Komm, der Heiden Heiland by Baroque organ specialist Nicolaus Bruhns and Bach.
As it turns out, Mellan has been showcasing his considerable gifts — and the in-house FUMC instrument this season — first in two compact recitals and then a full-scaled model a few weeks back, sponsored by the mighty Santa Barbara Music Club. The French-born, Los Angeles–based (and on Sunday mornings, a temporary Santa Barbaran) Mellan displayed his mastery and sense of adventure, in a generous program, opening with pyrotechnics from French composer Charles-Valentin Alkan, Chopin, and invigorating blasts of Liszt — including his tour de force, presciently “orchestral” piece “Fantasy and Fugue” on the choral Ad Nos, Ad Salutarem Undam.
But the real showstoppers and thought-provoking pieces came from his own hand, with the ambitious post-modern outing Symphonic Nocturne (Hommage to Lyatoshynky) (an important and too-obscure Ukrainian modernist composer), and Jean Guillou’s Toccata, Opus 9. Guillou’s piece is a stunner, and a whirlwind-y workout for all limbs on deck (Mellan’s furious pedal work was a wonder unto itself), with rhythmic impulses and staccato phrases not often heard on organ. It evolves into a massive, dense sonic force, then goes sparse, to mystical ends.
On this afternoon, Mellan amply showed us what he, this organ, and organ literature at large, can do.
Coming up on the Music Club’s calendar is a concert on Saturday afternoon, at the Methodist Church, featuring pianists Erin Bonski and Eric Valinsky taking on Respighi’s Ancient Airs and Dances and Greek repertoire celebrating the centennial of Greek composer Yannis Constantinidis.
Choral Double Whammy to Come
But wait, there’s more in this traditional choral music-dense time of year. On Friday night, December 12, the Santa Barbara Master Chorale, led by David Lozano Torres, performs in the Lobero Theatre for the first time in many years, in a program called “The Light so Shines.” Less than 24 hours later, the venerable, JoAnne Wasserman–directed Santa Barbara Choral Society appears at Trinity Lutheran Church on Saturday afternoon, presenting its “An American Holiday” program, a scaling-down from the years-long tradition of its former Lobero variety show, “Hallelujah Project.” The concert features the world premiere of “Winter’s Window,” by American/Hollywood/Santa Barbara composer Julia Marie Newman.
Not to fear: “Hallelujah” choruses and more — in an audience-invited format — show up at the First Presbyterian Church on Tuesday evening for the Phillip McLendon–directed Messiah Singalong 2025 on Tuesday, December 16. Singers among us should come bearing scores and courage, and feel satisfied that the proceeds benefit the Unity Shoppe.
Also on Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m, Greek music with a yuletide spin shows up in the “Sounds and Stories of Greek Christmas” at the Santa Barbara Greek Orthodox Church. For local-global color, the program features locally raised, internationally established opera singer Xeni Tziouvaras, a graduate of both Dos Pueblos High School and the Manhattan School of Music and basing her global career from her present home base of Florence.
SEASONAL TO-DOINGS, CONTINUED
Check out local singer extraordinaire Tina Schlieske tonight, December 11, at the Lobero Theatre. The Minneapolis-turned-Santa-Barbara home girl is bringing her long-standing holiday show, replete with Twin Cities musical allies (see story here).
Sunday night at SOhO belongs to another Christmas-timed tradition, the holiday wingding of famed folk-pop harmony slinging Andrews family-based band Venice.
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