Santa Barbara Music Club Concert February 11, 2023

“MUSIC SPARKLING AND PROFOUND”

The Santa Barbara Music Club continues its 2022-2023 season of beautiful classical music on Saturday, February 11, 3 PM, at First United Methodist Church, 305 E. Anapamu.  Admission is free.

Violinist Nicole McKenzie, clarinetist David Singer, and pianist Betty Oberacker will present a concert featuring exquisite works by composers from the Baroque, Romantic, Impressionist, and contemporary musical periods.

The concert includes the audaciously adventurous Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, BWV 903 for piano of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), the intensely passionate Fantasiestücke (Fantasy Pieces), Op. 73 for clarinet and piano of Robert Schumann (1810-1856), the vividly imaginative Sonate for violin and piano of Claude Debussy (1862-1918), and the playfully forthright Suite, Op. 157b for violin, clarinet and piano of Darius Milhaud (1892-1974).

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Nicole McKenzie, violinist, has concertized widely as soloist and chamber musician, and her performances of classical, contemporary, and ethnic repertoire (the latter including the Klezmer/Jazz group Kalinka) have earned her lavish critical praise.  The Santa Barbara Independent noted, “McKenzie made a splash in the luscious and exciting music – she performed with gorgeous musicality.” Winner of the Sutton Chamber Music Award, she graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy, earned her BM Degree from Oberlin Conservatory, her MM Degree from Florida State University, and studied with Dr. Gary Kosloski at the Music Academy of the West.  With a background in dance, she teaches the course, Music for Dancers, as a UCSB faculty member, and was founding member of the Nicole McKenzie Improv Group, an improvising group of dancers and musicians.  Concertmaster of the Folk Orchestra of Santa Barbara, she coaches chamber music for Santa Barbara Strings, co-directs and teaches for Sandcastle Music together, and maintains a private violin studio. Ms. McKenzie’s violin was created for her by Michel Eggimann of Rome, Italy.

Betty Oberacker, pianist, has toured throughout Europe, Israel, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and the U.S., including performances at Carnegie Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Berlin Philharmonic Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, and the Vienna Musikverein.  Berlin’s Der Tagesspiegel observed, “She performs with profound comprehension of the music’s essence and with intuitive certainty of its effect, with conquering energy and sensuously sonorous interpretations” and The New York Times declared, “Her intelligence and warmth not only showed us the design of Bach’s intricate inner workings, but it also allowed us to feel them in sensuous ways.” UCSB Professor Emeritus, her discography includes Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (Clavier Records), A Bach Commemorative Recital (MIT Great Performances Archives), Chamber Music of Emma Lou Diemer (Orion), Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (Century), John Biggs’ concerto, Variations on a Theme of Shostakovich (VMM), and Emma Lou Diemer’s Piano Concerto (MMC), with the latter two composed for her. Her appearance with the National Symphony Orchestra in the East Coast Premiere of the Diemer Concerto elicited a standing ovation from the Kennedy Center audience.

David Singer, clarinetist, enjoys a career as one of the most highly respected clarinetists in the United States. The New York Times proclaimed, “David Singer has impressed as an exceptionally gifted clarinetist” and “To describe Singer’s playing would be to enumerate a catalogue of virtues.” Principal clarinetist, Emeritus, of the Grammy Award-winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, his performances include the White House for Presidents Carter and Clinton, guest artist with the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, and chamber music concerts with Yehudi Menuhin, Yo Yo Ma, Rudolf Serkin, and members of the Emerson and Guarneri String Quartets. Gramophone Magazine affirmed, “His playing is exceptional … sensitive and expressive, technically brilliant.”  “Singer’s Copland performance is one of the finest accounts around.”  Of his West Coast premiere of the Aldridge Concerto with the L.A. Chamber Orchestra, the Los Angeles Times noted, “… teeming with energy, rowdy, ethnic and fun.”  The Max Reger Institute in Karlsruhe, Germany selected Singer’s recording with Rudolf Serkin of Reger’s Clarinet Sonata Op. 107 to be reissued internationally in 2023, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

Santa Barbara Music Club concerts display a wonderful diversity of historical musical periods and compositional styles, including beloved masterworks and exciting new and seldom-heard repertoire.

Of the series, the Santa Barbara Independent exclaimed:  “A beautiful day, a beautiful room, beautiful music … who could ask for more?” and Gerald Carpenter in Noozhawk.com declared, “Every Santa Barbara Music Club concert that I have ever attended has been a sensory joy as well as a consciousness expansion.”

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A valued cultural resource in the community since 1969, the Music Club’s mission is threefold:

(1) Presentation of an annual series of concerts, free to the public.

(2) Aiding and encouraging musical education by the disbursement of scholarships to talented local music students.

(3) Presentation of community outreach activities, including bringing great music to residents of area retirement homes.

For information on this or other Santa Barbara Music Club programs and performing artists, visit SBMusicClub.org.

For the health and safety of our audience and performers:

Masks are required and must cover both nose and mouth.  Social distancing is required.