Music Academy’s Mariposa Games Begin

Once upon a time — for many decades, in fact — the Music Academy of the West (MAW) was strictly a summertime enticement for classical music lovers in town. Its dense summertime schedule remains the centerpiece and heart of this internationally respected and almost 80-year-old institution, but its tentacles have been spreading into the off season in recent years.

Welcome to MAW’s Mariposa concert series, a handful of concerts throughout the year, spotlighting illustrious alums from the Music Academy who have gone onto established positions in the classical music world at large. 

For the kickoff of this season’s roster, on Thursday, October 8, in the Music Academy’s pristine Hahn Hall, the focus is on a musician very familiar to local audiences, violist Richard O’Neill. O’Neill was part of the Camerata Pacifica stable of fine musicians, performing on many occasions in this very Hall. Since that time, O’Neill has risen in the music world ranks, joining the esteemed Takács String Quartet (which we heard at the Lobero in June) along with other notable credits.

For this concert, he will be joined by pianist August Baik, and the program is a provocative one, off to the side of conventionality. Aside from the usual business of Rachmaninoff, the program also includes Frederic Rzewski, Benjamin Britten, and the world premiere of cycle, a new work adapting Korean folk songs, by Baik.

Mariposa will get the 2026-27 classical calendar a few more times before this summer season begins. On November 10 at Hahn Hall, the spotlight expands beyond just live performance, to the Canellakis-Brown Duo, being cellist, filmmaker, and MAW alum Nicholas Canellakis and pianist-composer Stephen Brown, presenting chamber music, comedy and Canellakis’s short film My New Cello.

An Academy alum club convenes at Hahn Hall on January 14, 2027, with Maple Quartet (the Music Academy’s Emerging Artists String Quartet this summer), and alum sisters Julie Albers and Rebecca Albers. Their balanced program sports Haydn’s “Sun” string quartet, a world premiere new work (as yet unnamed) by John Crowley and Schoenberg’s “accessible Schoenberg” piece “Verklärte Nacht(Transfigured Night).”

Finally, in this round of Mariposa, February 12, 2027, at Hahn Hall brings along flutist and “storyteller” Annie Wu. She is offering a program she calls Not Too Sweet, with music of Fauré, Sibelius, and Dvořák on a menu also including her own wistful observations and actual sweet stuff, courtesy of chocolate pairings by Santa Barbara chocolatier Chocolate Maya. 

A few months later, MAW, proper, launches its summer spectacular, in its milestone 80th anniversary season. 

For information about the series, see musicacademy.org/mariposa.