Chamber Music Highs, Duly and Officially Noted

Santa Barbara can take ownership pride in the ongoing and ascending story of Camerata Pacifica, whose latest prestigious extra-local kudo came with a “2026 Ensemble of the Year” plaudit from Chamber Music America. We knew them when, going back to when founding flutist/bon vivant Adrian Spence embarked on the organization’s salad days under its seminal name, Bach Camerata, up through its well-established concert series, now in the Music Academy of the West’s pristine Hahn Hall, and points south, in Thousand Oaks’ Scherr Forum, San Marino’s Huntington Library and Los Angeles’ Zipper Hall.

CamPac’s 2026-27 season launches next week, on October 15 at the Music Academy, with a meat-and-potatoes offering of Schumann (Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat Major, D. 898) and cozy old Rachmaninoff (Variations on a Theme of Chopin, Op. 22), featuring pianist Irina Zahharenkova. Then continuing with another healthy clutch of programming over eight concerts, through May. 

If the opening program leans into the midriff of classical repertoire, things get more adventurous and well-balanced as the season progresses, in keeping with Spence’s presiding concept of finding that delicate programming balance of things old, familiar, fresh, and new — and brand new, as in newly commissioned by the Camerata. The November 15 program, in fact, leaps into a mostly contemporary music mode, featuring music of noted living composers Michael Daugherty, Niloufar Nourbakhsh, Missy Mazzoli, and the late Sarah Gibson (who was too briefly head of UCSB’s Ensemble for Contemporary Music before her passing, at age 38), with a cherry of Mozart on top.

One of those commissions, John Harbison’s String Trio — dating back to 2013 — makes a reprise on the February 19 concert, sandwiched by the welcome continuation of Beethoven-specializing pianist Gilles Vonsattel’s cycle of complete Beethoven piano sonatas, a series dubbed “Beethoven 32.” Vonsattel returns with two special and entirely sonata-focused concerts, on December 7 and March 26. Vonsattel’s Beethoven-iana series also makes an appearance in the season closer, May 14, alongside Samuel Barber and Shostakovich.

Other season highlights and detours from norms included a rare all-harp concert, on April 16, featuring guest artists Emmanuel Ceysson, L.A. Phil Principal Harpist, and Cristina Montes Mateo — Valencia Opera House Principal Harpist and Royal Harpist to the King and Queen of Spain. 

On January 15, the program spotlights a world premiere work by Howard Frazin, The Distant Chirping of Birds, for mixed sextet, as well as the Camerata debut of in-house principal violist Che-Yen Chen and flutist Sébastian Jacot.

 

Leading the way and lining the experience with his charismatic presence, at concerts and behind the curtains and organizational scenes, is founder Spence. As he comments, the coming season “invites audiences to experience music that illuminates, amuses, challenges and inspires brought to life by some of the world’s most talented and characterful chamber musicians. They bridge beloved foundational touchstones and never-before-heard works on a season-long journey fueled by boundless creativity and striking virtuosity. It’s music at its most intimate and uplifting.”