Santa Barbara Symphony performs Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony, accompanied by the Santa Barbara Choral Society and Quire of Voyces

To kick off the milestone 60th-anniversary season of the Santa Barbara Symphony, last fall the orchestra led by Maestro Nir Kabaretti, started off with a fanfare by Santa Barbara-based composer Emma Lou Diemer, followed by a double-header of cherished number-bearing warhorses, Beethoven’s Fifth and the “Rach 2″ (aka Rachmaninoff’s ever-popular Second Piano Concerto).

Over the course of the last several months, the Symphony’s season has featured such highlights as a version of Stravinsky’s “Firebird” with the State Street Ballet, a commissioned world premiere by American composer Jonathan Leshnoff, and an onstage live painting event to the tune of Glazunov’s “The Seasons.” Another round of top-notch soloists have passed through at The Granada, in the line of symphonic duty this season.

This weekend, season No. 60 rounds the corner to its finale, this time another grand and much beloved masterwork, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection,” the 80-minute spread of which constitutes the entire program. But they couldn’t do it alone, and the requisite epic choral forces necessary to realize Mahler’s vision is being supplied by a regular collaborator of the Symphony, the Santa Barbara Choral Society, and also another favorite choral group in the community, the Quire of Voyces, whose concerts in the St. Anthony’s chapel–such as one earlier this month–combine early music and new musical energies.

Further amping up the vocal component of this weekend’s grand finale, the soloists involved in the Mahler are young and ascendant stars soprano Jennifer Black and mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford. For her part, Ms. Mumford has been recently associated with another Southern California symphonic body, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, having toured the U.S. and Europe with the orchestra, under Gustavo Dudamel’s baton, in performances of John Adams’ “The Other May.” She also worked in the realm of Mahler recently, in his “Das Lied von der Erde,” with the Lincoln Center’s “White Lights Festival.”

In connection with the wrapping of the 60th season, we recently checked in with Mr. Kabaretti, about this weekend, the last several seasons of his tenure at the podium and more.

News-Press: This has been a great–and diverse–60th season for the Santa Barbara Symphony. Is there a sense within the symphony organization of having orchestral life and logistics can be vulnerable and threatened by economic forces?

Nir Kabaretti: I believe we have achieved a strong identity of an exciting and passionate orchestra which is an indispensable part of the community.

Diversity is our DNA, and in our program puzzle, one can find music from almost 300 years of music history, in many different styles, from different countries, and up to the contemporary, including commissioned pieces written especially for us.

NP: Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony is such a grand work and a fairly serious way to end the season. Is this one of those large masterpieces which is both challenging and rewarding, for musicians and listeners alike?

NK: Absolutely. This monumental and complicated piece is indeed very challenging for every orchestra, and the musicians love this challenge. Mahler’s music has also a very powerful impact on the listener. I believe one can’t remain indifferent to the sounds of Mahler, especially in this symphony. But beyond the music, Mahler is touching with his art the mysterious and unanswered question of life, the meaning of a life, and what is beyond it.

NP: Joining forces with the symphony are the Choral Society, which has collaborated with the symphony on many occasions, and also the Quire of Voyces. You also worked with the State Street Ballet again this season, on Stravinsky’s “Firebird.” Is the process of interacting with other arts organizations in Santa Barbara something which expands the symphony’s agenda, on different levels?

NK: Yes, I strongly believe that we should collaborate with other organizations, and offer our audience multimedia experiences, vocal music, ballet, etc. Beyond the artistic idea, it allows the Symphony to open its door to new audience, which is so important especially in these difficult financial environment.

NP: I was at the luncheon for Jazz at Lincoln Center at The Granada in April, and there you were speaking about the importance of a culture-centering venue such as The Granada. Your time with the Symphony has coincided with the orchestra’s move to and settling into The Granada, after many years at the Arlington. Do you have a sense of The Granada being a kind of nurturing space, for the orchestra as well as other arts in town?

NK: I was thrilled with the move to The Granada, because it is a wonderful venue, on many levels. Not many places around world cna an orchestra switch from the stage into the pit in just a few minutes, which allows us to combine a ballet with a normal concert. I know other organizations in town also enjoy the presence of such a great performing center, and indeed, it becomes the nurturing place.

NP: Programming-wise, you have managed to work a good balancing act between standard repertoire and coming up with creative fresh ideas. What are the highlights of the next Santa Barbara Symphony season?

NK: We continue to combine the master pieces next to discovering less known music. Next season we will play Holst’s “The Planets,” Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2, to name a few, combined with living composers like Dirk Brosse, Christopher Rouse and Noam Sheriff.

We will dedicate one concert to Verdi’s 200th Anniversary, featuring highlights from his operas, and another program will include all Mozart music, led by Maestro Mattias Bamert.

I am also very excited to share the stage with other fantastic guest artists, like pianist Helene Grimaud, and many more.

NP: You have been at the helm of the Santa Barbara Symphony for several years now, and guided the orchestra through growth and refinement. How do you reflect back on your time here thus far?

NK: It has been a very exciting time for all of us at the symphony. As you mentioned, the move to a new theatre, and the large number of new musicians who joined us after massive auditions–this all brought such a fresh and wonderful energy. Also as an ensemble, we musically grew together, and continue to reach for new heights.

NP: More generally in your artistic life, what other projects are you involved in these days, and are there particular things on the horizon you’re especially excited about?

NK: Beside the concerts in Santa Barbara, I am very excited about my next projects, including Verdi’s “Nabucco,” in an open-air Roman amphitheater in Switzerland, concerts with the Royal Orchestra of Seville (Spain), and a concert performance of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” with the Rochester Philharmonic.

By Miles Patton, Santa Barbara Seasons
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This Saturday and Sunday, Santa Barbara Symphony ends its 60th Anniversary season on a high note with Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony. (The final note of the Symphony is actually more in the mid-range, but “ending on a mid-range note” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, nor would it adequately describe expectations of the Symphony’s final performance.)

For its season finale, Santa Barbara Symphony brings on famed guest vocal soloists Jennifer Black and Tamara Mumford to sing alongside Santa Barbara Choral Society and Quire of Voyces. Santa Barbara Choral Society is celebrating its 65th anniversary and 20 years of leadership under artistic director and conductor JoAnne Wasserman.

“Service to the community is the Symphony’s true mission and the spirit of our 60th Anniversary Season, and we are honored to celebrate in this signature collaboration with the Santa Barbara Choral Society,” said David Grossman, executive director of Santa Barbara Symphony. “We welcome our community to come and try something new and rare—a full-scale live musical event.”

Two performances of the “Resurrection” Symphony will take place, both in The Granada Theatre: Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. In addition, attendees are invited to “Behind the Music,” a pre-concert talk which begins an hour before the program. If you appreciate the music but want to learn more about the history or subtle technicalities behind it, then “Behind the Music” is for you. If you can’t make it early, don’t worry—the concert itself will assuredly impress on its own.

The Santa Barbara Symphony Performs Gustav Mahler’s “Resurrection”

Mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford appears with the S.B. Symphony May 18 and 19. Photo by DARIO ACOSTA

By Joseph Miller, Independent
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Music lovers will be thinking big this weekend — a full-body sonic immersion of Gustav Mahler’s great Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection.” Mahler loved to use a full orchestra, large choruses, and operatic soloists in his symphonies, and “Resurrection” is no exception. After an exceptional season that began last fall with pianist André Watts playing Rachmaninoff, included a collaboration with State Street Ballet on Stravinsky’s Firebird, and last month brought in violinist Nigel Armstrong for a rousing rendition of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, the Santa Barbara Symphony draws its 60th anniversary season to a close with this extensive choral collaboration, which includes the Santa Barbara debut of two rising soprano stars. If anyone requires reinforcements, it’s Mahler, and the S.B. Symphony has called in the ranks.

First, there are the 100-plus singers of the Santa Barbara Choral Society. The S.B. Choral Society happens to be in the cross hairs of its fortuitous milestones this year, celebrating not only its own 65th anniversary but also Maestro JoAnne Wasserman’s 20th year at the podium. Second, Nathan Kreitzer will bolster the ranks with his 25 elite singers from Quire of Voyces, who are just rebounding from their own impressive resurrection-themed program, Songs of Remembrance. Mahler keeps this large choral ensemble in wait until the last 20 minutes of the finale, when the collective voices will be brought out to add a fresh aura of transcendence and glory to the program.

The power of the more than 200 musicians on stage may be sufficient for Mahler’s grand double fortes, but not for poetic moments like the fourth movement, “Primeval Light,” which requires an ethereal solo mezzo-soprano. Since her 2005 Carnegie Hall debut, Tamara Mumford has moved in high musical company and is currently touring with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. But Mahler also calls for a soprano soloist, and the talented Jennifer Black will lend the high notes. In short, beauty and bigness will be in league for a “Resurrection” that promises to wake the dead.

The Santa Barbara Symphony performs Mahler’s “Resurrection” at the Granada Theatre (1214 State St.) on Saturday, May 18, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, May 19, at 3 p.m. (KDB 93.7 FM will be broadcasting Sunday’s concert live.) Call (805) 898-9386 or visit thesymphony.org.

By Gerald Carpenter, Noozhawk Contributing Writer
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The Santa Barbara Youth Symphony will hold its final concert of the 2012-13 season at the unusual time of 7:30 p.m., on the unusual day of Friday and in the somewhat unusual venue of First Presbyterian Church, 21 E. Constance Ave.

The young musicians will be led by their music director, Andy Radford, and the featured soloist will be Dos Pueblos High School senior and cellist Laura Baldwin.

The program is bound to please. We’ll hear Franz Joseph Haydn’s Concerto No. 1 in C-Major for Cello and Orchestra, Hob. VIIb/1; two selections from the film scores of John Williams (the main theme from The Empire Strikes Back and the “March” from Raiders of the Lost Ark); and carrying on the theme of movie music, the Symmphonic Suite from Sergei Prokofiev’s score for the now-forgotten Soviet film Lieutenant Kijé (1934).

For all of the 19th century and two-thirds of the 20th, the world knew only one cello concerto by Haydn — that in D-Major, Opus 101 — and even that was often attributed to Haydn’s pupil, Anton Kraft. Then, in 1961, this C-Major work turned up in a Prague museum, and it was authenticated as a genuine work of Haydn by the Joseph Haydn Institute of Cologne.

Haydn’s concerti tend to be delightful rather than deep, and so it is with this one. Being considerably less demanding of the soloist (though plenty tricky, in spots) than the D-Major concerto, it is immensely suitable for young musicians, particularly those as gifted and well-trained as those of the Youth Symphony.

Those not completely — even excessively — familiar with Williams’ film scores are clearly living too far off the grid to be reading this, let alone contemplating this concert. Those, in whose breasts the strains of Williams’ scores do not immediately summon the shades of Darth Vader and Indiana Jones, can be sighted about as often as the ivory-billed woodpecker. I will say no more.

Prokofiev scored eight films — 10, if you count each of the three parts of Ivan the Terrible as separate films — between his return to the Soviet Union and his death there, 17 years later. Lieutenant Kijé was the first, and the music is justly beloved, but the movie itself was not much of a hit. (I have just discovered, however, that the film itself is available on the web, a “free download,” in Russian, with English subtitles, if you’re interested in hearing the music in its original context.)

The only films employing Prokofiev’s genius, which are themselves masterpieces of film art, are the ones directed by Sergei Eisenstein: Ivan the Terrible and Alexander Nevsky. Yet, I daresay that the suite from the Lieutenant Kijé score has turned many, many young people into passionate music lover — which I would prefer over critical acclaim any day.

Single tickets to the Youth Symphony concert are $14 for general admission and $10 for students and seniors over 65. They can be purchased at the door.

On April 13 and 14, 2013 at the Granada Theatre, we invited visual artist Jett Green to live paint along with the music to Alexander Glazunov’s The Seasons. The results are 8 incredible works of art depicting each of the seasons. Jett’s paintings will be available for purchase soon. Please check back for details.

Winter

Fall

Spring

Summer

By Brett Leigh Dicks, Music! Sounds of Santa Barbara
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When the Santa Barbara Symphony closes out its 60th season this month, with two performances at the Granada Theater on May 18th and 19th, it will do so in grand style. In performing Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection” as its final presentation, the program will afford its esteemed conductor, Nir Kabaretti, the opportunity to highlight his command of both symphonic and operatic repertoires. Mr. Kabaretti joined the Santa Barbara Symphony in 2006 as the orchestra’s Musical Director and two years later also assumed the role of Artistic Director since which he has infused the orchestra with a vibrancy second to none. Born in Israel, Kabaretti began piano lessons at the age of six and later studied piano and conducting at The Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University. He continued his education at the prestigious University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Upon his graduation in 1995, Kabaretti began working as coach and chorus master at the Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival. He served as personal assistant to Zubin Mehta for a period, who subsequently lauded him as “a conductor with immense musicality and warm personality.” Over the years Kabaretti has collaborated with the likes of Lang Lang, Placido Domingo, Itzhak Perlman and Salvatore Licitra. Never one to rest of his laurels, when the current season of the Santa Barbara Symphony wraps up, he heads to Switzerland for the Festival d’Opéra Avenches, before turning his attention to the next season in Santa Barbara which gets underway in September. At some point, he may even be afforded the opportunity to catch his breath.

You have been with the Santa Barbara Symphony for several seasons now. What initially attracted you to the ensemble?

When I applied to the position in Santa Barbara, I didn’t know much about the ensemble or about the city. The search for the new music director was quite long and when I finally was invited to conduct the orchestra it was a great click right from the beginning.

You became the Music Director in 2006 and Artistic Director in 2008. Perhaps you could differentiate the responsibilities of those two roles?

Both roles are actually related to each other, but, generally speaking, the Music Director is responsible for all the musical aspects related to the orchestra, like building and improving the ensemble, auditioning new people, etc. while the Artistic Director has more a visionary role of leading the organization artistically. That means choosing the repertoire, involve other fields from the art into the music, identifying soloists, commissioning new pieces and things like that.

When you joined the organization, the symphony was performing at the Arlington Theater, but shortly thereafter it moved to the Granada Theater. They are two decidedly different venues – did that exert an influence on the programming at all?

Absolutely! The Arlington is a beautiful theater, but has some acoustic problems. Therefore, certain pieces can’t be played there, simply because they won’t sound as good as they should. I am very happy that we moved to the Granada shortly after and this is a great hall to perform pretty much all kinds of classical music.

And how does the setting influence your role as conductor? Do different rooms have an influence on the playing?

Yes, the room certainly affects the music. In a dryer hall the strings will use the bow more intensively and play with what we call vibrato, while in a room with a huge echo, we often need to play a bit shorter. In my experience in the European big churches it is better to play a little bit slower than in concert halls because of the echo effect.

I believe you initially studied piano. What led you into conducting rather than performing yourself?

Originally I indeed wanted to become a pianist and played many years intensively, but when I started to go to concerts as a teenager I was fascinated by watching the conductors. That was the beginning and then when I was 18 I studied both piano and conducting until at one point I decided to concentrate only on conducting.

You have been a guest conductor with an array of ensembles over the years. What do you look for in collaboration?

Being a guest conductor is really part of the business and I have worked over the years with many different orchestras in different places. I always look for a good musical experience, working with great musicians, performing pieces that I am passionate about and ideally it will be in a nice place…

This month sees you conducting the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa before returning to Santa Barbara. Is creative diversity important to you?

Diversity is very important and it is for sure in my musical DNA. Since the beginning of my career I did symphonic, but also operatic stuff, ballet, choral music, from the baroque to the contemporary music. Speaking of Portugal, I have performed with the Orquestra Metropolitana few times in the past and it has been a great experience. This time I am doing next to a Haydn symphony, three pieces by Portuguese composers, and two of those will be world premieres. It is a project of the Ministry of Culture in Portugal to encourage new Portuguese music.

How does your relationship with your players manifest itself off stage? How much time is spent behind the scenes in rehearsals and preparing players for a performance?

We have four rehearsals for the subscription series, of two and a half hours each. Of course, we are coming prepared to the first rehearsal, in other words everyone practices alone prior to the orchestra sessions and the four rehearsals shape the pieces together.

In your role as Artistic Director, where do you start when crafting a performance schedule for a season?

The program of the season is a puzzle of many components that come together. I start by putting together a wish list of pieces I would like to perform, pieces that I know the orchestra would like to play and pieces that the audience would love to hear. I have an artistic team which helps me in this process and together we chose the best programs for our community.

What considerations are given to the pieces that will be performed in a given program? Last month for example the program included Jonathan Lesnoff’s Concerto Grosso, which was a world premiere, Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story and Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F. Why those three pieces?

When we planned the current season, having in mind that it is a remarkable mile stone, 60 years of making music in this community, my artistic team and I were all in favor of commissioning a new piece especially for the Santa Barbara Symphony. Leshnoff’s piece was written in the old form of concerto grosso, the nature of which showcases the virtuosity of different players. I wanted to combine this American music with some of the American symphonic masterpieces. Both Bernstein and Gershwin’s pieces are not only beautifully written, they are also brilliantly orchestrated and are part of every orchestra’s repertoire.

And this month you are presenting Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection.” It was written for orchestra, mixed choir, two soloists, organ, plus brass and percussion ensembles. Perhaps the grand finale for the season?

Indeed, a grand Finale for our 60th anniversary!

Once your Santa Barbara commitments wrap up, what does the remainder of the year hold in store for you?

After the season end in Santa Barbara I have few days off before heading to Switzerland for an open air production of Verdi’s Nabucco. Rehearsals are in June and the performances go through the 3rd week of July. I will then have some time off to relax, but also to start preparing myself for the next season starting in September.

By JOSEF WOODARD, NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT

In the continuing saga of the Santa Barbara Symphony’s 60th anniversary season, last weekend at The Granada, the April symphonic showers brought on at least a couple of deviations from norms and expectations. For one, music director Nir Kabaretti was taking the month off, passing the baton to the very fine Hungarian-born guest conductor Gregory Vajda. He presided sturdily over a program all about “seasons” — Vivaldi’s evergreen crowd-pleaser “The Four Seasons” and Alexander Glazunov’s palatably pictorial lark, “The Seasons,” also a four-part calendar soundtrack.

On the subject of pictorialism in the concert hall, the larger quirk of this stop on the concert program calendar was the literal “action painting” sideshow. During the Glazunov piece, veteran Hollywood scenic and matte painter Jett Green took on the brave, stunt-like task of rapidly creating four separate loose, broad-stroked landscape paintings, live and onstage, under duress and a strict deadline (or deadlines — four of them within an hour’s time).

As we watched her in the painting act, with her work shot on camera and looming large on a screen over the orchestra, her real time brushwork and hand gestures made a correlation with Mr. Vajda’s conducting. The point was also not lost on us that the rhythmic and harmonic elements of the music found a cross-media partner in the rhythm and color harmonies of her respective artwork.

In the end, it was a novel idea whose time may or may not have come. The Jury’s still out. Symphony orchestras sometimes embark on fresh and gamely experimental ideas, or gimmicks, in the ongoing attempt to make the orchestral concert experience more accessible and novel. But, however intriguing this event might have been, as a kind of easy-going and family-friendly performance art concept, the visual distraction did the music no favors. We think it was a good musical performance, but can’t be sure, as our attentions were strongly divided.

Meanwhile, back in the blessed, timeless music-for-music’s-sake camp, the real musical centerpiece of this program came before intermission, on the theme of one of Vivaldi’s greatest hits. This is a big season for “The Four Seasons.” Last weekend, we got a stripped-down, chamber music-sized component of the Santa Barbara Symphony’s sharp reading, with the dynamic young virtuoso violinist Nigel Armstrong in the soloist spotlight. Next week, we’ll get a period instrument version by the esteemed Handel and Haydn Society of Boston, coming soon to UCSB Campbell Hall.

In this modern-instrument, leaner, meaner symphony orchestra version, all strings but for harpsichord, the Santa Barbara Symphony exerted a bold, precise and persuasive presence, on a thematic turf whose familiarity makes our ears more discerning than usual. Mr. Vajda kept a firm, flexible hand on specifics and the larger arcing design of this necessarily episodic work, twelve movements in all, and hinting at the progression of time’s and season’s passings.

True to the essence of the piece and the more ensemble-oriented aesthetics of Baroque “concerto” writing, the solo violin part weaves in and out of the ensemble fabric throughout, stepping out heroically at points, and folding into the group think elsewhere. In both situations, Mr. Armstrong proved an impressive and sensitive force to reckon with.

Ultimately, Vivaldi’s beloved programmatic classic is a jubilant and life-affirming statement, with some slower movements flecked with elegant melancholy and potential mortality reminders which is inevitably tied to the idea of seasons ever in transit. Call these “memento mori” moments, to borrow a phrase from the artworld, an across-the-medium-aisle which seems entirely fitting under the circumstances. Chalk up another one for the self-reliant power of orchestra music done right.