This edition of Pano was originally emailed to subscribers on March 16, 2022. To receive Charles Donelan’s arts newsletter in your inbox each Wednesday, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.
ULTRA CULTURE
Congratulations to our fearless film critic Josef Woodard on completing his Santa Barbara International Film Festival ironman filmathlon. We hope you all enjoyed his daily reports, which you can still access here.
The end of the film festival can’t slow the pace of culture in our city, so don’t take your shoes off yet. There’s still plenty to see and do in just the next week.
If you have not yet seen Through Vincent’s Eyes at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, this would be a great weekend to go. For extra incentive and insight, consider attending the show on Sunday, March 20, when you can also see Vincent, a one-person show written by no less than Leonard Nimoy. Actor Charles Pasternak will play Van Gogh at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. in this co-production of SBMA with Ensemble Theatre Company. The show is in the museum’s Mary Craig Auditorium, and tickets are available at sbma.net.
Several other art exhibits worth seeing have opened in recent weeks, including What Is America? at SBCC’s Atkinson Gallery and This Basic Asymmetry at the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara. Read Halim Madi’s review of What Is America? here.
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CLASSICAL BOOM
The rest of March will be exceptionally rich in opportunities to experience world-class classical music in person. On Friday, March 18, British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor comes to the Lobero as part of CAMA’s Masterseries. Grosvenor was a child prodigy; now, he’s a full-blown phenomenon, producing a half-dozen of the most highly rated classical piano albums of the last decade. He has a reputation for dazzling recitals; this is his Santa Barbara debut.
If keyboard fireworks are your thing, you are in luck. On Saturday and Sunday, March 19 and 20, Cameron Carpenter comes to town for a “Sonic Boom” with the Santa Barbara Symphony. If somehow you have missed out on Carpenter’s unique showmanship and organ power, now is the time to catch up with this outstanding musical talent.
Finally, if you have ears left on Tuesday, head over to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, where their excellent series of chamber music recitals resumes on March 22 with the fresh young fellows of Arod Quartet playing works by Mozart, Bartók, and Ravel. That’s at 7:30 p.m. in the Mary Craig Auditorium.
MURDER AND OTHER CASES REVIEWED
Murder on the Orient Express continues this weekend at SBCC’s Garvin Theater. Read Maggie Yates’s review here. Yates has also reviewed Lillian, which closed last weekend at ETC, and The Miser at Westmont College. Other recent reviews include Jordi Savall, Fruit Bats, and Sleeping Beauty.
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