ON the Beat | Americana and Celtic-ana, Church-Bound

Folk Orchestra of Santa Barbara | Photo: Josef Woodard

The Pluck (and Bow) of the Irish

The unique and inspiring local musical phenom that is the Folk Orchestra of Santa Barbara (FOSB) closed out its current season last weekend on a Celtic note (or 5,000 such notes). Founder/arranger/multi-instrumentalist Adam Phillips led his 28-musician troupe on a quick, three-stop Santa Barbara County “tour,” through Goleta’s Live Oak Unitarian Universalist church, the downtown Trinity Episcopal Church, and Los Olivos’s St. Mark’s in the Valley, riding a theme and cultural world which is perhaps closest to the heart of this organism.

I caught Friday’s set in the inviting environs of the Unitarian Universalist church — a choice music venue which once hosted the memorable “Song Tree” series. Opening with the moody mood of “O’Carolan’s Dream,” with Laurie Rasmussen’s harp swaddled in droning orchestral chords, upped its energy ante with “St. Patrick’s An Dro” and a later punchy “Irish Jig Set” and “The Sligo Maid.”

Folk Orchestra of Santa Barbara | Photo: Josef Woodard

Breakout small groups are always part of a FOSB program, and this model spotlighted a spirited medley of Celtic tunes from the gifted collection of Josh Jenkins, fiddlers Devin Williams and Devynn Quarles (also kicking up a rhythmic storm with her Irish step-dancing), along with percussionist Dave Garsek, and accordionist-on-the-go Brian Mann. In the second set, we got a traditional Breton side dish, with Suite De Loudeac (a rare occasion with an outside arranger, UCSB Jazz Ensemble head/drummer Jon Nathan). Flutist Sherylle Englander, fiddler Laura Nelson, and Phillips and Todd Hartwig did the collective honors.

Phillips himself put different tools to good use, from his ample bagpipe collection to his impressive tenor vocal stylings in the form of “My Lagan Love,” his impassioned voice was abetted by lush orchestra textures, and U2’s “MLK.” Why? Phillips reasoned, “When you’re doing an Irish concert with bagpipes, how could you not do a U2 song?” A good question, and a good Bono-channeling interpretation.

That’s all she wrote for FOSB’s 2025-26 season, but the welcome mat is always open for what Phillips and co. will cook up next.

Americana, Revoiced

SB Choral Society | Photo: Josef Woodard

In other spiritual-and-otherwise music in churches news, the Santa Barbara Choral Society (SBCS) returned to its latest performance home, Trinity Lutheran Church, last weekend to lay out the intelligently themed “Red White and Blues II” program. To its credit, SBCS went beyond the call of merely assembling a random tapestry of American music, here in the long foreshadowing of our country’s 250th birthday. Instead, the program told an American story through song, starting with native American music and giving due emphasis to the powerful impact of various Black music through the centuries.

A piecemeal mosaic of a concert was given valuable context and narrative form through an eloquent text narrated by Daniel Eades and written by his wife/choir soprano Mary Dan Eades. SBCS, led for 30-plus years by director JoAnne Wasserman, the program was fittingly framed by music from L.A.-based composer Shawn Kirchner, from the Lakota chant basis of “O Great Spirit” to the gospel heat of “Cornerstone” to close.

The “jazz and blues” category was represented by the one non-choral piece, in-house pianist Kevin Su Fukagawa’s fluid take on Oscar Peterson’s “Blues Etude,” while the Broadway section was a warm gush of a medley from Oklahoma. (Suddenly, since the release of the remarkable film Blue Moon, we are offered a different view of Oscar Hammerstein’s shamelessly populist hit musical through the perspective of bitter former collaborator Lorenz Hart — played brilliantly by Ethan Hawke).

Morten Lauridsen, a contemporary master of American choral music, made his logical way into the mix, with “Dirait-On,” and there were stops at the barbershop harmony tradition and Black spiritual arranger Undine Smith Moore’s “Daniel, Daniel, Servant of the Lord.”

Generally speaking, attention was duly paid to the strong element of church music — a foundational fount of choral music going back to Gregorian chant. In this American song saga, the story took us from shape-note hymns to William Billings’ 1770 “Chester” to spirituals/gospel music, and to the foundational influence of Minneapolis’s St. Olaf College Choir — founded by Norwegian immigrant Paul Christiansen — on the rich tradition of American choral music.

Resident note: Santa Barbara is fairly well steeped in that tradition, with a list of choral groups including this one, Quire of Voyces, the Santa Barbara Master Chorale, Adelfos Ensemble, and the baby on the block, the Santa Barbara Symphony Chorus.

To borrow a quote from the Deadheads’ vocabulary: There’s nothing like a good choral concert, and here was yet another one in the 805.

On the Bach/Organ Beat

Bach-heads and organ-heads be alerted: Get thee to FUMC (First United Methodist Church). The church’s resident organist, Thomas Mellan, the commanding force behind the controls of the church’s impressive instrument, returns on Sunday at 1 p.m. for the last of three Lent-period mini-recitals, and Bach is on tap. Again. Who’s complaining?

Last Sunday, Mellan called upon Bach’s radiant O Mensch, bewein’ dein’ Sünde groß (O man, bewail thy sin so great) during the postlude in the service and then reprised the baroque master during his following recital in the sanctuary. A three-piece program featuring Mellan’s own adventurous, multi-tonal, and decidedly organistic composition Nocturne (Homage to Lyatoshynsky) — dedicated to formative Ukrainian modernist Borys Lyatoshynsky (hear here) and a sandwiching dose of Bach — a choral prelude and his elaborate Fantasy and Fugue.

The Bach organ repertoire factor continues this Sunday, a program with Bach flanking German composer Max Reger, another composer Mellan loves and shows his considerable stuff upon.

TO-DOINGS:

For anyone who has yet to experience the special magic of the ¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara! series, this week’s edition is a ripe chance to catch the buzz in progress. The veteran hybridizing L.A. Chicano group Las Cafeteras — whose 21-year life span nearly matches this series’ 20 years so far — pays another welcome visit, striking out on its own Santa Barbara County tour in Carpinteria tonight, March 19, Isla Vista on Friday, Guadalupe on Saturday, and the grand finale at the Marjorie Luke Theatre on Sunday. The cost? None. Be there. (See Independent story here).

Over at SOhO, the upcoming line-up includes progressive pulsations from The Moon and Broken Glass on Tuesday, the veteran Colorado-based groove unit The Motet with Michael Wilbur on Wednesday, and Kimberly Ford’s fine, necessarily cross-genre “Dreamland” tribute to Joni Mitchel show on Thursday, March 25.