With the beginning of a new year Camerata Pacifica stepped even further into the vanguard of contemporary chamber music performance by presenting a concert blending the old (two pieces by Mozart), the new (a piano quintet by John Harbison), and the now, with Adrian Spence and Warren Jones giving the world premiere of Ian Wilson’s Heft.
There were birdcalls on the sound system as the audience filed in for Bill Frisell and Joey Baron’s outstanding Jazz at the Lobero show on Saturday night, and the birds filled the hall with just the right ambience of natural beauty to prepare everyone for what was to come.
The Monterey Jazz Festival 50th Anniversary Tour comes to town on Monday, January 14.
Caring for an elderly parent with dementia reveals a lot about a family, and not all of it is nice. Wendy (Laura Linney) and Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman) Savage have not received much love or support from their parents, and as the story begins, they face their forties with diminishing expectations.
A loose hybrid of revue and staged recital, this production had just enough exposition-and flying-to qualify as a real Peter Pan.
Colter Frazier’s Experimental Music Nights continued this month with a visit from free improvisational guitarist, avant-garde comedian, and all-around musical archivist/political activist Eugene Chadbourne.
Although he pushed back the start time of this set until 9:30 p.m. because he plays so softly that he didn’t want to compete with even the minimal distraction of diners eating, Jonathan Richman nevertheless came through with one of the year’s most memorable performances on Wednesday night.
The holidays are a great time to revisit the music of Mozart, and Camerata Pacifica took a distinctly adventurous path in this all-Mozart program, yet never strayed far from the sound of the viola. First up was the Duo No. 1 in G Major for Violin and Viola, K. 423, played by Catherine Leonard and Richard O’Neill.
Larry Feinberg is named the the new director of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
What will it take to bring classical music to the forefront of American culture? Recent business decisions at major record labels have left hundreds of established performers without current recording contracts, and the excitement of new venues like Disney Hall in Los Angeles or our very own soon-to-be-open Granada Theatre can only do so much to offset the aging of classical music’s core audience.
