Musical Women Ruling
Taking stock of the thicket of concerts descending on the Santa Barbara scene thus far in the fall, some of the most memorable nights out have featured celebrated and seasoned women, still making waves and owning stages.
Last week, the great fado heroine Mariza bedazzled the Lobero Theatre crowd with one of this year’s finest outings on the heels of 85-year-old gospel-soul queen Mavis Staples at the Arlington. (To this list we can add the inimitable Lucinda Williams at the Arlington the week prior: sadly, I was out of town for that one).
And on Sunday night, the Arlington was packed with super fans of another super diva, the great “Queen of Mariachi” Aida Cuevas, who held the crowd in thrall for two hours of greatest hits of mariachi, ranchera, and other stops on the regional Mexican music map. Many in the predominantly Hispanic crowd, an all-ages and wholly engaged gathering, seemed to know most of the lyrics and happily sang along, whether invited by Cuevas or otherwise.
Cuevas, backed by a sharp — and sharply dressed — 12-piece mariachi band, spanned a range of songs from her nearly 50-year career, along with a tribute to the bestselling Mexican artist of all time, Juan Gabriel, who died in 2016. At one point, Cuevas engaged in a semi-posthumous “duet” with Gabriel, shown singing his parts on screen. A highlight of the night came with the mini-set of songs sung by her fetching and talented daughter Valeria Cuevas.
While marquee Mexican music concerts make their way through town, at the Chumash Casino and occasionally at Santa Barbara Bowl (including the Mariachi Festival), this was a special occasion when a presenter such as UCSB Arts & Lectures paid due respects to the obviously eager Mexican music audience in the area.
Symphonic Opening Night Moves
Warhorses need love, too. And polish. And maybe sometimes a bit of back story.
All those attributes were in the big house of The Granada Theatre, when the Santa Barbara Symphony (SBS) opened its concert season last weekend, with a program propped up by the ear-friendly old shoe favorites of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4. Maestro Nir Kabaretti and his orchestra did not disappoint in cleanly and expressively delivering what we want from these conventionally wise symphonic staples.
Déjà vu wafted through the house with the return of the virtuosic Spanish guitarist Pablo Sáinz-Villegas, who performed the ever-popular Rodrigo concerto with this orchestra in 2017 and also performed Elmer Bernstein’s Guitar Concerto here. Although he has no doubt played this piece countless times (it comes with the territory in the lean territory of classical guitar/orchestra literature), his performance here was rich with measured intensity and open-eared dialogue with the orchestra.
After intermission, Kabaretti opted to break with tradition of “don’t ask/don’t tell” protocol during a classical concert and offered a kind of pre-concert lecture/demo/short tour through Tchaikovsky’s Fourth before launching into the piece. He had the benefit of live musicians to perform snippets and themes from the score.
Local orchestra concert aficionados had just heard this very piece on this stage a week prior, in an almost impeccable performance by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and wondered how our Symphony’s reading would rate, comparatively. In all, the SBS reading was strong and admirable, if lacking the harnessed precision of the music’s visit a week earlier. Kabaretti and company brought nuance and force to the mercurial emotional contours of the Symphony, bringing the music to life, in all its grand, varied glory.
Off to the left of oft-traveled repertoire were two small gems on the program. As part of the SBS marketing hook of a “Tchaikovsky Immersion” going on, the late and beloved Santa Barbara–based composer Emma Lou Diemer’s brief concert-opening appetizer Homage to Tchaikovsky (commissioned by the orchestra in 2001) treated us with her luminous orchestration touch and a melodic agenda owing as much to the influence of Copland as Tchaikovsky. It was a wistfully tinged pleasure to hear her music alive and well, around the time of Sunday afternoon’s memorial at the First Presbyterian Church (where she was the organist for many years).
As a surprise encore, Sáinz-Villegas and the orchestra called on the elegant “nuevo tango” business of Astor Piazzolla’s famed “Libertango.” The moment reminded some of us of the SBS era led by maestro Gisele Ben-Dor, an inspired Uruguayan musician who ushered many intriguing musical sounds from Latin America — including a tango festival — during her tenure here.
Next up in the SBS’ seven-concert 2024-25 season, guest conductor/pianist David Greilsammer leads a “French Connections” program (Sunday afternoon, November 17), with Rameau, Ravel, Milhaud and token non-Frenchman Haydn on the menu.
TO-DOINGS:
This week, two very fine singers will alight the Lobero stage, from different stylistic camps and home bases. On Saturday, the beloved part-time Santa Barbaran Tina Schlieske, generally a part of the rock/Americana orbit, brings her Minneapolis-based band and slips into the loosely-defined “Jazz at the Lobero” series, celebrating the jazz chanteuse side of her music, as heard on her new album The Good Life. On Wednesday, October 30, the always magnetic and just-left-of-center Aimee Mann returns to town.
Also at the Lobero, Los Lobos returns, on Friday, October 25, in what is becoming a most happy act-venue relationship.
At Campbell Hall on Wednesday, the acclaimed Malian veteran artist Habib Koite (see story here) brings his unique sound, rooted in his West African heritage, but flecked with American blues (itself with a root system in West Africa) and even sprinklings of classical guitar influence. It’s a rare instance of high-profiled African music in the 805 this year, live and alluring.
For deeper blues variant action, popular blues-rock guitarist-singer Joe Bonamassa makes one of his rare appearances in Santa Barbara on Monday night, in the grand palatial digs of the Granada.
