ON the Beat | Tale of Two Premieres, Folk Orchestral Maneuvers Return

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The 805 zone isn’t normally considered a hotbed for world premieres of the classical music sort; and yet, we got an inspiring double dose of premiere action last week, from disparate stylistic corners. Technically, both pieces had their official birthing place in Los Angeles a day or few prior, but the timing was close enough to make our north-of-LA region glow with some implied cosmopolitan cred.

As a rare off-season, one-off event presented by the mighty Ojai Music Festival (OMF), Reena Esmail unveiled her fascinating Hindustani/early music invention Meera Kahe in the idyllic quarters of the Krotona Institute early on Saturday evening. Meanwhile, the night before, Camerata Pacifica rolled out the red carpet for one of its occasional commissioned premieres, David Bruce’s hypnotizing Gregorian chant–channeling wind quintet Natural Light, at Hahn Hall. Bruce’s piece was easily one of the most memorable CamPac premieres in memory.

A unique, East-meets-West-meets-early agenda graced the intimate performance/lecture hall at the Krotona on Saturday. Esmail, who has been artfully weaving strands of her Indian and American heritage in her music for two decades, has arranged a happy marriage of the Tesserae Baroque ensemble and the Hindustani musicians, singer Saili Oak and tabla player Rohit Panchakshari. Surprisingly, these seemingly different worlds got along famously and felicitously in the five-moment work.

Festival Artistic Director Ara Guzelimian, heading into his final year at the helm, explained that the seeds of this evening were sown by the appearance of Esmail’s composition and Oak’s singing at the 2023 off-season concert in Ojai. As if to illustrate the distinct properties of the East and West components of the puzzle, Tessarae opened the concert with works by 18th-century French-composer-deserving-wider-recognition Élizabeth de la Guerre (1665-1729) and Couperin. This was followed by a trip in time and space, as the Indian musicians offered a sublime improvisation on the Raag Yaman.

Meera Kahe follows the text, based on the medieval saint and poet Mirabai, through a day and night. Its lyrics were delivered with an entrancing focus by Oak, a highly controlled vocalist who handily moves between Eastern and Western modalities and between scored and improvisational freedom. The movements vary from the rolling waltz pulse of the opening through the restless melancholy of “Sleep will Not Come” — replete with Indian-flavored descending glissando from the string players — and fast 7/8 sections ratcheting up the energy level. In the final movement, “Awake, My Beloved, Who Plays the Flute,” an infectious, jubilant spirit, leaning more in a Hindustani than baroque direction, radiated in the room.

Speaking of “the room,” the OMF and the Krotona really must go on meeting like this. The enlightened combo of site, sound, and the forward-thinking musical organization feel destined for alliance.

Bruce, whose prior work under the CamPac commissioning umbrella includes the retro-raucous fun Steampunk in 2016 (see/hear here), has created something magical with Natural Light. He has explained that two influences were the modal palette of Gregorian chant and the influence of shifting light through stained glass windows (a facsimile of which was projected onto a sheet behind the musicians). 

Shifting arrays of timbre and harmonic stacking becomes a prominent theme in the piece, in which clarinet (Jose Franch Ballester) may be the semi-soloist of the wind group here, but the conjoined chordal motion of all aboard is even more a salient expressive feature. These chords of refracted light, rendered in sonic terms, lure us into a fresh musical vision. It is a chamber music gem, accessible on impact and yet lined with inventive intentions, in sound and conceptual reach.

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Enter Stage Left

Derek Douget, the fine New Orleans saxophonist/educator, has been a welcome returnee to Santa Barbara for several years now, thanks to the Lobero Theatre’s tradition of bringing his band to town for an intense week of master classes with young area musicians and performance ops. One such op has been taking place at the Lobero — stage side. Last week, a gathering of Brubeck Circle members, patrons (including Santa Barbara Bowl honchos Moss Jacobs and Rick Boller), journalist types, and others came in through the backstage door and settled into the comfortable ambience of a cabaret-like dinner and show on the stage.

On this evening, the “house” was empty and the view of the historic theatre untrammeled, as we munched on po’ boys, imbibed Sazeracs, and savored the sounds.

Douget’s band held forth on a range of tunes, starting with Wayne Shorter’s “One by One” and wending through Clifford Brown’s “Delilah” and “Nostalgic Impression” by Ellis Marsalis (in whose band Douget and trumpeter Ashlin Parker played). Each musician impressed, individually and as team players, but my personal favorite in the band was Parker, who knows how to sculpt a solo, with ideas flowing and evolving in the mix.

Douget’s educational mission came through in the spotlights on the young musicians they had worked with over the previous week, including young players in the inspiring Turner Foundation program, strong players from the Jon Nathan–directed UCSB Jazz Ensemble, and a bright light from Santa Barbara High School, pianist Lucien Dempsey. Aptly, the evening closed out on Crescent City notes, with a run through the classic “Second Line (Joe Avery’s Blues).”

On the Organ Beat

Organ fans alert: Pipe organist sensation Thomas Mellan, who has been serenading locals weekly in his post as the organist at the First United Methodist Church for the past year-and-change, returns in recitalist form. Continuing a practice launched last fall, Mellan is performing short organ recitals in March, starting the first Sunday of the month and continuing this Sunday, March 15, and March 22. Entrance is free, and ears will be treated to items from the baroque (French, German, and more) and a varied plate of goods from the multi-century-deep organ repertoire.

The serial recital party began on March 1 in the church. That day, Mellan performed twice, essentially, playing Bach in prelude and postlude moments during the morning service and then diving into the dizzying and satisfying thicket of Liszt’s Fantasia and Fugue, in tribute to Bach, in the 1 p.m. recital. Over the course of the half-hour opus, a workout for organ and organist, the score veers through an ever-mutating range of emotional and dynamic terrain, befitting its reputation as an “organ opera.” By association, the work also shows off the color palette and majesty of the church’s Aeolian-Skinner organ, and the acoustics of this “room.”

We’ll see what’s in store this Sunday.

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TO-DOINGS:

A good time is par for the course on the occasions when the Folk Orchestra of Santa Barbara (FOSB) convenes. It’s that time again this weekend, as the Adam Philips–founded and directed and arranged ensemble, 28 musicians strong, takes on the timely theme of Irish music — a warm-up for St. Patrick’s Day. Catch FOSB at the Live Oak Unitarian Universalist church in Goleta on Friday, Trinity Episcopal Church on Saturday, and/or St. Marks in the Valley in Los Olivos on Sunday. Yes, there will be bagpipes, along with Philips’s always game folk orchestral notions for an altogether game cohort of gifted local musicians.

When the Santa Barbara Choral Society performs the next item on its 2025-26 season agenda, a very different holiday, Independence Day, may be given a warm-up with extreme notice. Director JoAnne Wasserman leads the choral charges in a concert by the title “Red, White and Blues II,” with music of Morten Lauridsen, spiritual composer William Billings, and others at Trinity Lutheran Church on Sunday afternoon. 

North country goings-on this week includes the next stop in the current “Tales from the Tavern” series, as Vonda Shepard returns to the Maverick Saloon in Santa Ynez on Wednesday night.

A very different genre and reality is on tap in Buellton this weekend, with the return of the Central Coast Jazz Guitar Fest, a performance and education confab from Friday to Sunday. Among the guitarists in the mix are such notables as Bruce Forman, Adam Levy, Larry Koonse, Brad Rabuchin, Craig Sharmat, and Rick Severson. Six (and more) stringed regalia of the jazz kind will be descending on the Marriott.