ON the Beat | Big Week at the MAW, Sierra Goes Bowling

Sierra Ferrell | Credit: Courtesy

One of the stunning shows in town two years back came in the delightfully mutant form of left-of-bluegrass star (and upstart) Sierra Ferrell, who turned the classroom/concert hall of UCSB’s Campbell Hall into an earthy-magical music palace for a night. That night, there was buzz about her hasty return to our town, and at the properly larger venue of the Arlington Theatre.

The anticipated return wasn’t so hasty, and the venue bumped up in size, in accordance with her ascending star in the music world: catch her at the Santa Barbara Bowl on Thursday, August 6, as part of her Heavy Petal Tour. If that punning and cheeky tour name seems like a gimmick, it should come as no great surprise, given her gamey sense of humor and ability to leap across genres — and fashion stances — without breaking the taste bank.

Yes, bluegrass and the post-bluegrass mode is her essential home base, but Ferrell also drifts over, naturally, into so-called “gypsy jazz” (vs. the more PC term “Roma Jazz”) and other genre side trips. Her musical journey continues boldly, with her latest album Trail of Flowers (hear it here). People and those in taste-making places approved, and she nabbed a few Grammy awards, including “Best Americana album.”

The motivation behind her latest album — and, by extension, her musical output to date — is to make people “feel nostalgic for the past, but excited about the future of music.”

ON the MAW Beat

Perhaps the densest concentration of action in this summer’s edition of the Music Academy of the West (MAW) season kept Academy aficionados hopping last week. The centerpiece of the week was the academy’s always eagerly anticipated fully produced opera — being Kevin Puts’s tuneful and provocative Elizabeth Cree — taking over The Granada Theatre (watch the Independent for a proper review).

Gloria Lee and Joohyun Patrick Baek at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art | Photo: Josef Woodard

Another high point of the program this year was the return engagement of violinist Jennifer Koh and her famed “Bach and Beyond” concept, which she has brought to Santa Barbara a few times before. What she brought to the Lobero Theatre on Saturday night was a tightly knit selection of two major solo violin Bach works — the Sonata No. 2 in A minor and the iconic Partita No. 2 in D minor — as pillars, and related commissioned pieces by Phillip Glass and Missy Mazzoli (one of the guest composers at MAW this summer). Koh is a masterful violinist, whose especially deep — and deepening — appreciation of Bach makes her a lifelong seeker of the light he brings. She avidly advocates for bringing that music into broader public light, while also emphasizing that Bach has influenced and continues to color music, serious and otherwise.

Chamber music of a mostly living-composer-fueled sort took over Hahn Hall last Thursday, via the winkingly titled “x @Series: Trains, Lies & Romance.” The train reference came from Steve Reich’s great conceptual piece Different Trains, juxtaposing his memories of cross-country rail travel as a child in the 1930s and the trains headed to Holocaust horrors; “Lies” relates to Missy Mazzoli’s Lies You Can Believe In, an emotional rollercoaster piece featuring Koh along with violist Hideaki Shiotsu and cellist Elliott Kim; “Romance” belonged to Shostakovich’s Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok, featuring sopranos Jordan Twadell and Tracy Lin Waagner.

In his own corner and without a stake in the concert’s title, opening the concert, was the fascinating two-piano work Uncanny Valleys, by Christopher Cerrone, a guest composer at MAW this year, along with Mazzoli. Pianists Conor Hanick and faculty member and fellow Chih-Yun Hsiao navigated the minimalist-adjacent score, with its intentionally fuzzy relationship between parts, and suddenly landed on an emphatic fundamental tone at the end, stopping on a dime.

Raquel Nisi and Jade Xijin Chen at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art | Photo: Josef Woodard

Meanwhile, the action headed downtown to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA) on Friday at noon, for a short but satisfying “small plate” show of chamber music making in the series Beyond Conversation: Dialogues in Music through Art. A brief and moveable mini-feast took us between different galleries, circulating within the museum’s current exhibition As if in a Dream: History, Fantasy, Future. Framing the performance were sensuous art songs by Gabriel Fauré (nicely realized by soprano Jade Xijin Chen and harpist Raquel Nisi), with the tougher, less strictly tonal stuff of Katherine Balch’s Iaspis (violinist Megan Lin, sounding strong) and the romantic bent of double cello music by David Popper (with cellists Gloria Lee and Joohyun Patrick Baek).

The next MAW-meets-SBMA events take place on Thursday, July 30 and Tuesday, August 4. Do pop by for a taste.

Speaking of and about Music …

This Monday afternoon, the spotlight turned from actual music to a music-maker of note, when Cerrone — whose intriguing piano work we heard last Thursday — offered a Q&A session at Weinman Hall on the Miraflores campus. Cerrone was interviewed by Hanick, who has performed his music, including last Thursday, and who plays on Cerrone’s 2025 album Don’t Look Down, which was Grammy-nominated in multiple categories.

Hanick spoke of the minimal-leaning composer as a master of atmosphere and ambiance, yet meticulous in his conceptual and technical processes. Cerrone explained that, for him, “rhythm, harmony, color, and orchestration are all important parts of the whole. (Composer) Morton Feldman said that music is just about pitch and time, but I’m not so sure about that.” He later offered that, for a composer, “the goal is to make the audience feel smart.”

During the audience Q&A portion of the session, important local music patron Bob Weinman — after whom this very room is named — said he liked some new music, if it went somewhere. “Does your music travel or does it just sit there?” he asked the composer. Cerrone retorted half-jokingly, saying “it goes nowhere fast.” But nowhere can be a beautiful place and pace.

Hear what Cerrone is all about — or at least one slice thereof — when his brand new work, The Only Way is Through, gets its West Coast premiere in a special, free (and short) concert at Anne’s Garden on the Miraflores campus on Friday, July 31 at 1:30 p.m. The half-hour-ish piece is scored for percussion and children’s choir — being the gifted Sing! choir, led by Erin McKibben. It promises to be a contemporary music encounter for all comers, including the contemporary music-phobic.

As for what else is coming up at MAW, in these waning two weeks of the festival, check out the chamber music slate for tonight (Thursday, July 30) at Hahn Hall, with the program x2 Series: Mirrors, Mars & Eternity link, featuring more music by Cerrone, Ian Venables, Joel Thompson, and some guy named Brahms. Most significantly, the next Granada concert by the Academy Festival Orchestras, on Saturday, August 1, promises to be a festival treasure: when Hanick performs Samuel Adams’s very young piano concert No Such Spring, alongside Sibelius’s first symphony, conducted by another Finn, Hannu Lintu (see Independent story here).

On Sunday at noon, families and other types should hasten to Plaza del Mar Bandshell for the second annual “Brass at the Bandshell” concert, an all-American tradition in the local remaking. Food vendors (including free McConnell’s ice cream!) will be on site and instruments available for child’s play, adding to the fun and frolic, with some serious music in the mix.

TO-DOINGS:

Exciting jazz news in town continues, down at Grand on State. Last week, their newly launched “visiting artist” series officially kicked off (although an earlier Tom Scott/Roger Kellaway show was a precursor) with the wondrous, Ella-esque jazz vocalist Roberta Gambarini, accompanied by longtime pianist partner Tamir Hendelman. Brains and ears in the packed house are still ringing.

Calendar-marking shows are popping up on the schedule, including esteemed and hip saxist Ernie Watts (Quartet West, Carson’s Tonight Show Band, etc.) on Saturday, August 8 and the formidable drummer Peter Erskine and trio (pianist Alan Pasqua and bassist Darek Oleszkiewicz) on Saturday, August 29. Also in the plans is a Miles Davis tribute show by Hendelman. Stay tuned.

Guilty popcorn pleasure time: I’m excited to head over the hill to the Chumash Casino to hear Rick Springfield, whose signature hit “Jessie’s Girl” is a near-perfect piece of pop songcraft. Call me/us crazy. Those of us who know, just know.