Winter Arts Preview: Classical

This weekend, CAMA’s Masterseries brings pianist Garrick Ohlsson to the Lobero on Saturday, January 16, for an all-Chopin program. Also this weekend, UCSB’s music program presents violist Helen Callus and pianist Timothy Lovelace on Sunday, January 17, at the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara. On Saturday and Sunday, January 23 and 24, the Santa Barbara Symphony will perform works by French-Canadian composer André Mathieu and César Franck with guest artist Alain Lefèvre on piano. All Santa Barbara Symphony performances take place at the Granada. January’s classical calendar concludes with a recital at the Music Academy’s Hahn Hall, presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures, featuring pianist Vladimir Feltsman on Saturday, January 30.

On Tuesday, February 2, CAMA’s Masterseries presents the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra at the Lobero. On Friday, February 5, the virtuoso clarinetist José Franch-Ballester will join the principals of Camerata Pacifica for an evening of music by Mozart and Brahms at Hahn Hall. It’s back to the Lobero on Wednesday, February 17, for a CAMA Masterseries presentation of cellist Carter Brey and pianist Christopher O’Riley performing works by Strauss, Poulenc, and Chopin. The Santa Barbara Symphony will play Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1043 and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, the “Eroica,” on Saturday and Sunday, February 20 and 21. The amazing violinist Sarah Chang returns to Santa Barbara courtesy UCSB’s Arts & Lectures for a recital at Campbell Hall on Friday, February 26.

The Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra welcomes pianist Adam Neiman on Tuesday, March 2, for an all-Beethoven program at the Lobero. On Friday, March 5, and Sunday, March 7, UCSB’s Chamber Choir, conducted by Michel Marc Gervais, will present a program that includes Frank Martin’s a cappella Mass for Double Choir. The Friday concert is at Trinity Episcopal Church, and the Sunday performance will be at Solvang’s Old Mission Santa Inés. CAMA’s International Series returns to the Granada on Tuesday, March 9, with a very special event, an all-Ravel program offered by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Superstar conductor Myung-Whun Chung and his group will be joined by the Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter. Irish pianist Hugh Tinney appears with Camerata Pacifica on Friday, March 12, in a program that will include works by Beethoven, Zemlinsky, and Brahms. Early music fans from all over the West Coast will make a pilgrimage to the Lobero on Thursday, March 18, when Jordi Savall’s ensemble Hespérion XXI returns to the CAMA Masterseries. This performance, Lux Feminae: 900-1600, features the soprano Montserrat Figueras in a sequence of seven portraits of the women of ancient Hesperia.

That same week, UCSB’s Corwin Chair and CREATE programs will present what is sure to be the most unusual musical event of the season when Berlin-based sound artist Kirsten Reese installs 60 small speakers on the grounds of Lotusland for something called Lotussound. Stay tuned to music.ucsb.edu for more details on this path-breaking event, which runs March 17-20. Back in the cozy confines of the Granada, the Santa Barbara Symphony will take its own steps into the world of 21st-century music on Saturday and Sunday, March 20 and 21, with a program that includes the 2006 work Ausencia by Osvaldo Golijov.

Finally, courtesy of the Music Academy of the West’s generous use of Hahn Hall, the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series is available here in optimum viewing conditions. Check out musicacademy.org for the full schedule.