Singers and songs provide the inspiration for many of this spring’s most promising classical concerts. The Santa Barbara Master Chorale has a major performance coming up, as does the Santa Barbara Choral Society, which will join the Westmont College Choir and the Santa Barbara Symphony for Brahms’s majestic Requiem.
Marc Swanson grew up in New Hampshire, where his father was a Marine, an Eagle Scout, and a hunter. Among many other things, Swanson’s artwork is an elaborate and gay fantasy about his relationship to his father’s deer hunting.
What do 32 massed Russian violinists sound like? The National Philharmonic of Russia (NPR) roared into town last week, courtesy of Community Arts Music Association, to answer that question, and much, much more.
S.B. Opera’s Verdi Festival got off to a spectacular start on Saturday with a splendid performance of Rigoletto directed by the distinguished soprano Stephanie Sundine. It was, among other things, a great night for the sopranos, as both Hanan Alattar as Gilda and Tihana Herceg as Maddalena delivered stellar performances.
The Opera Festival continues this week with A Masked Ball, considered to be one of Giuseppe Verdi’s masterpieces and contains some of his most elegant and powerful romantic duets. Yefim Maizel returns to Santa Barbara to direct A Masked Ball.
On February 5, 26-year-old Caitrin McKiernan made two remarkable public appearances in Santa Barbara: a chancellor’s reception for approximately 60 people at UCSB, and an assembly at San Marcos High School for 1,300 students.
This concert was part of the Pearl Chase Society Music Series, a collaboration with UCSB Arts & Lectures that puts on chamber music recitals in historic places.
Shelagh Stephenson’s The Memory of Water is a difficult play that offers multiple opportunities for actors to shine. The show, which won the Olivier Award for best new comedy in 2000, has since gone on to attract attention for its strong, character-driven exploration of three sisters’ feelings at the death of their mother.
The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet (LAGQ) performed two outstanding concerts here last week as the anchoring element in the symphony’s new International Guitar Festival.
This weekend, the second annual Santa Barbara Opera Festival, Giuseppe Verdi edition, presents Rigoletto at the Lobero Theatre on Saturday night. Next week, the festival will continue with Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera, or “The Masked Ball.”
