Author: Charles Donelan

Call Your Ma

Camerata Pacifica February Concert. At Temple
Beth Torah in Ventura, Sunday, February 11.

Camerata Pacifica continues to follow its formula of juxtaposing “difficult” modern compositions with the more adventurous aspects of the standard repertoire. Typically, the first half of the program offers the avant-garde fireworks, while the second soothes with virtuosity in the service of the old masters. This time out the newer works were by Takemitsu, Crumb, and Turnage, while the older pieces were by Beethoven and Debussy.

And Then There Were Nuns

Nunsense

At Timbers Supper Club, Saturday,
February 10. Shows through March 18.
The 1980s saw a proliferation of cabaret-scale satires of the Broadway musical. Viewed through the irreverent camp culture lens of the piano bar, musical comedy was a perfect point of departure for all kinds of madcap entertainments.

Somewhere There’s Music

UCSB’s Arts & Lectures rewarded the faithful on Tuesday evening with a return concert by Bobby McFerrin, this time leading his extraordinary 12-voice choir, Voicestra. McFerrin is moving so fast right now that it’s hard to keep up with him. Of all the wonderful concerts I have attended in Santa Barbara in recent months, this one provoked the most outright disbelief from the audience. People left the theater actually asking each other, “How did they do that?” It was like a magic act.

Cajun Son

BeauSoleil Celebrates the Sounds of Louisiana

Michael Doucet has experienced a great journey of discovery of the history of American roots music. Born and raised in French-speaking Louisiana, Doucet, like many other young people, embraced rock early on and paradoxically did not discover his Cajun heritage until he left the country. As an American in England and Ireland in the early 1970s, Doucet met and played with such great neo-traditionalists as guitarist Richard Thompson and Scots fiddler Barry Dransfield. Their motivation sent him back home to Louisiana, where he began to form Cajun-influenced groups and research the early history of the music.

Con Brio

Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra. At the Lobero Theatre, Tuesday, January 23.

This all-Beethoven program featured Akira Eguchi, a young pianist trained at Juilliard, for the Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 19, and offered the orchestra an opportunity to show what it can do with the more Mozartean side of the world’s best-known classical composer. The opening piece was the Coriolan Overture, a fascinating and idiosyncratic work that juggles keys and tempos with abandon. The orchestra and Maestro Heiichiro Ohyama made the most of its buzzing pizzicatos and startling rests.