UCSB Arts & Lectures - Winter Program 2025

Winter Program 2025

Fresh, local ingredients, prepared with care. Excellent wines that reflect the quality and character of our region and work in concert with the cuisine. Warm, inviting ambience with engaging service at a relaxed, leisurely pace. is is bouchon. dinner nightly Sunday- ursday 5-9pm | Friday-Saturday 5-10pm

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Standing Ovation to Jody & John Arnhold

A Standing Ovation to Jody & John Arnhold

Launched in 2021 by a leadership gift from Jody & John Arnhold, the Arnhold Education Initiative has enabled Arts & Lectures to deepen its signature cross-campus collaborations by connecting world-class artists and thinkers with thousands of UCSB students in the classroom each year.

“The arts stimulate the imagination, so exposing students to those at the top of their craft will enhance the educational experience at UCSB. Students will think bigger, dream bigger, create bigger, and succeed bigger.” – John Arnhold

Launched in 2021 by a leadership gift from Jody & John Arnhold, Initiative Arts & Lectures to its cross-campus by world-class with thousands UCSB students the each year. arts the exposing those the of craft UCSB. will bigger, create bigger, and succeed bigger.” John

The Arnholds’ commitment to arts education extends far beyond A&L. Scan to learn more about Jody’s passion for dance education and how the Arnholds elevate the cultural landscape in their hometown of New York City.

The Arnholds’ commitment to arts education extends beyond to more about Jody’s dance and the landscape their York City.

(805) 893-3535

www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu

Tiler Peck teaches a ballet master class for UCSB students

Peck teaches master class for UCSB students

Wynton Marsalis and John Arnhold

Jody Arnhold

Dear Friends,

This winter, UCSB Arts & Lectures invites you to revel in connections between artists, and to explore our relationships to ourselves, to one another, to our heritage, to our earth.

Relationship therapist Esther Perel (Jan 14) brings us a highly interactive live event. Explore the intricacies of modern love, and flirt with curiosity as the evening unfolds.

Twyla Tharp Dance’s Diamond Jubilee (Feb 11) features the renowned choreographer’s first collaboration with composer Philip Glass in four decades, co-commissioned by A&L.

The Yuja Wang and Víkingur Ólafsson (Feb 28) piano duo has critics raving about their fivestar partnership.

DoosTrio (Feb 19) brings together three musicians whose friendship is as powerful as their artistry in an enchanting evening of music rich in history and contemporary interpretation.

Our relationship with nature takes center stage with leading conservationist

Kristine McDivitt Tompkins (Feb 12) discussing her efforts to rewild land on a massive scale, and the ever-optimistic Baratunde Thurston (Feb 27) exploring climate justice and environmental stewardship.

Our dear friend Pico Iyer (Jan 30) has a new book out in January. Pick up your FREE copy of A ame: Learning From Silence at what promises to be an insightful Q&A and book signing through our Thematic Learning Initiative.

Plus so much more. Discover what inspires you in the pages ahead, and better yet, at the theater.

With deepest gratitude,

Celesta M. Billeci

Miller McCune Executive Director

65th Anniversary Season Sponsor

Community Partners

Orchestra

with Julia Bullock, Jan 21 / Lobero Theatre

Father Gregory Boyle with Celesta M. Billeci

Illuminating a wide spectrum of systemic injustice, the Justice for All programming initiative looks to today’s great minds and creators and to the courageous leaders across the globe who are forging a new path forward. Join us as we learn from those confronting uncomfortable questions, solving difficult problems, and guiding us all toward a more equitable world.

Tommy Orange, Jan 29

Highlighting the complexities of Indigeneity

Naomi Shihab Nye, Feb 4

Celebrating Palestinian heritage and cultural difference

Baratunde Thurston, Feb 27

Promoting climate justice

Facing the Falls, Mar 11

Advocating for a more accessible world

Look for additional events to be added throughout the season.

JUSTICE FOR ALL Lead Sponsors: Marcy Carsey, Connie Frank & Evan Thompson, Eva & Yoel Haller, Dick Wolf, and Zegar Family Foundation

JUSTICE FOR ALL UCSB Faculty Advisory Committee: Daina Ramey Berry, Charles Hale, Beth Pruitt, Susannah Scott, Jeffrey Stewart, Sharon Tettegah

Arts & Lectures’ Thematic Learning Initiative (TLI) extends the conversation from the stage into the community, enriching lifelong learning and initiating dialogue and empowerment through special events, book giveaways and more.

2024-2025 Theme: Imagination In Action

For 65 years, Arts & Lectures has been a hotbed of art and ideas – a place where great minds and movers from across the globe converge. They leave us changed, challenged and ready to bust through our perceived limitations. Come behind the scenes, go beyond the barriers and discover the creative forces drawing outside the lines to redefine what we think is possible.

Winter Book Giveaway

Aflame: Learning from Silence

by Pico Iyer (Released Jan 2025)

Pico Iyer has made more than 100 retreats at a Benedictine monastery in Big Sur. He says, “Sitting in a radiant silence above the sea feels like liberation, reminds you of what really matters and sends you back into the world with a fresh sense of energy and direction. But the ultimate secret of stepping away from the world is that it allows you to act with more compassion, selflessness and hope. Clear vision leads to clearer action.”

FREE copies will be available at the Author Q&A and Book Signing with Pico Iyer on Jan 30 at Santa Barbara Wine Collective. See details on page 7. Books available while supplies last.

With thanks to our visionary partners, Lynda Weinman and Bruce Heavin, for their support of the Thematic Learning Initiative

Imagination In Action - Free Events

Wild Life

Documentary Screening

Tue, Jan 28 / 7 PM / Campbell Hall / FREE (registration recommended)

Follow conservationist Kristine McDivitt Tompkins on an epic love story as she and entrepreneur Doug Tompkins leave behind the successful outdoor brands they helped pioneer (Patagonia, The North Face, Esprit) and turn their attention to a visionary effort to effect the largest private land donation in history. (Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, 2014, 115 min.)

Kristine McDivitt Tompkins, Feb 12 (p. 42)

Pico Iyer

Author Q&A and Book Signing

Thu, Jan 30 / 6 PM / FREE (registration recommended)

Santa Barbara Wine Collective 131 Anacapa Street, Suite C

Pick up your free copy of our winter TLI book giveaway, Pico Iyer’s Aflame, and stay for a brief conversation and signing with the author. Enjoy no-host offerings from Santa Barbara Wine Collective and neighboring restaurants. RELATED

Richard Powers in Conversation with Pico Iyer, Feb 23 (p. 46)

Hope in the Water, Episode 1

Screening and Q&A

Tue, Feb 18 / 7 PM / Campbell Hall / FREE (registration recommended)

Explore the groundbreaking work of dedicated fishers, aqua farmers and scientists who are attempting what was once thought impossible. In Episode 1, “The Fish in the Sea,” discover new approaches to sustainable fishing on the open ocean. Stay for a Q&A with a panel of local experts from the series. (Brian Peter Falk, 2024, 55 min.)

RELATED EVENT Baratunde Thurston, Feb 27 (p. 50)

Look for additional events to be added throughout the season.

An Evening with Esther Perel The Future of Relationships, Love & Desire

Tue, Jan 14 / 7:30 PM / Arlington Theatre

Lead Sponsor: Heather & Tom Sturgess

Esther Perel has devoted her entire professional life to helping people build thriving relationships. She believes that the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives. Since arriving as a graduate student in the United States, Perel has examined this concept from myriad angles: the nature of cultural and religious identity, the negotiation between tradition and modernity, the ebb and flow between individualism and collectivism. She observed interracial and interreligious couples; the cultural forces that affect gender roles; practices of childrearing; and ultimately, the tensions, obstacles and anxieties that arise when our quest for love and security conflicts with our pursuit of adventure and freedom.

Today, Perel is best known as the host of the wildly popular podcast Where Should We Begin? This fascinating, inside look at Perel’s sessions with real-life couples has unlocked a deep-seated cultural interest in hashing these issues out openly in order to live better lives. However, it has also unlocked within Perel the understanding that her years of study and practice go beyond the romantic, and that the lessons she has learned can be applied to relationships of all kinds, in all environments. The same principles used to create an open, balanced relationship with one’s significant other can be applied to our co-workers, our bosses and our world at large.

Perel is recognized as one of today’s most insightful and original voices on modern relationships. As a psychotherapist, Perel has helmed a therapy practice in New York City for more than 35 years. In parallel, she serves as an organizational consultant for Fortune 500 companies around the world. Fluent in nine languages, Perel’s celebrated TED talks have garnered more than 40 million views. Perel is the New York Times bestselling author of Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs, translated into 31 languages. Perel is an executive producer and host of the award-winning podcast Where Should We Begin? Her new podcast How’s Work? focuses on workplace dynamics and can be enjoyed on Spotify or other podcast providers.

photo: Leeor Wild

The Golden Age of the Baroque

George Frideric Handel:

“The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” from Solomon “Verdi Prati” from Alcina

Antonio Vivaldi: “Spring,” The Four Seasons Concerto No.1 in E Major

Johann Sebastian Bach:

Air from Suite No.3 in D major, BWV 1068

Henry Purcell:

Suite from The Fairy Queen, Z.629 (Jig-Rondeau-Hornpipe from Act III)

Johann Pachelbel: Canon

George Frideric Handel: “Da Tempesta” from Giulio Cesare

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment Julia Bullock, soprano

Tue, Jan 21 / 7 PM / Lobero Theatre

Running time: approx. 115 minutes, including intermission

Great Performances Suite Sponsors:

G.A. Fowler Family Foundation The Shanbrom Family Foundation

Presented in association with UCSB Department of Music

- Intermission -

Jean-Philippe Rameau: Les Sauvages from Les Indes Galantes

Henry Purcell: Trumpet Sonata, Z.850 “If Love’s a Sweet Passion” from The Fairy Queen Z.629

Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No.3 in G major, BWV 1048

Barbara Strozzi: “Che si può fare”, Op 8.06

Georg Philipp Telemann:

Suite from Water Music, TWV 55:C3 (Ouverture-Loure-Gigue-Canarie)

Jean-Baptiste Lully: Marche pour la cérémonie des Turks from Le Bourgeois gentilhomme

George Frideric Handel: “Let the Bright Seraphim” from Samson, HWV 57

photo: Allison Michael Orenstein

First Violins

Kati Debretzeni, Director

Daniel Edgar

Alice Evans

Claire Holden

Sophie Simpson

Second Violins

Rodolfo Richter

Henry Tong

Deborah Diamond

Rebecca Harris

Violas

Francesca Gilbert

Martin Kelly

Kate Heller

Cellos

Andrew Skidmore

Catherine Rimer

Ruth Alford

Double Bass

Cecelia Bruggemeyer

Oboes

Daniel Bates

Alexandra Bellamy

Bassoon

Györgyi Farkas

Trumpet

David Blackadder

Percussion

Adrian Bending

Harpsichord

James Johnstone

Theorbo

Sergio Bucheli

The Enigma of Greatness in The

Golden Age of the Baroque

by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

There is a scene in the seminal 1990s TV series The Wonder Years where Kevin inadvertently starts a student walkout due to a call of nature. Borrowing from Shakespeare he observes, “It seems some are born great, some achieve greatness and others have greatness thrust upon them while they’re in the bathroom.” It is a good analogy for the enduring fame or misfortunes of Baroque composers.

You might wonder why a band on its first prestigious US tour after the coronavirus pandemic chooses to turn up with what might on the surface seem to be a playlist for an easy listening radio station. Better surely to present a high concept new version of a previously obscure masterpiece. Or a ‘box set’ epic of one composer’s entire orchestral output in one evening.

But as we’ve travelled around the UK in recent years, we’ve discovered there is another story that needs telling. It’s about that very enigma of greatness. The music you’ll hear today is all considered extremely famous. Great, if you will. But it is so for reasons we often overlook and its path to seeming immortality is more perilous than one might assume.

What makes one piece or composer a “hit” whilst others languish in obscurity? Is it luck – remember Kevin in the bathroom – or a genuine extra quality that raises it above mediocrity (as Peter Schaffer refers to in Amadeus)?

We can be embarrassed to say we love Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons for fear of seeming to lack discernment. But why? It is music of an exceptional quality and virtuosity that has lost none of its thrill in 300 years. The Four Seasons, composed in around 1723, owe their place in history to a number of factors. It was composed at a time when music publishing in Europe was just becoming a viable business, meaning that more music was preserved, disseminated and, frankly, avoided the fate of dying with its composer. Even then whilst many a person on the street will likely recognise its main themes, there are very few of us who can recall much, if anything, about the other eight concertos that were published in the same set. Was the difference simply that Vivaldi chose to assign these four concertos a “programme” courtesy of the poems inscribed with each?

You might think Vivaldi must have lived like a rock star. Even in his lifetime, his reputation fluctuated. In his 60s, after a portfolio career as a somewhat negligent priest, teacher at a girls’ school and an opera impresario, he decided to seek fortune one last time by heading to Vienna in search of a job at the Imperial Court. Once there, he encountered disaster and died barely a year later as a pauper.

Henry Purcell is a composer very much in the bones of the OAE. He lived, worked, drank and died in London for just 36 short years between 1659 and 1695. Yet no English-born composer came close to matching his fame until Elgar some 200 years after his death. Purcell came into the world at the end of England’s brief period as a republic – a time in which music had been effectively banned – as the arts had started to flourish again with the restoration of King Charles II. By rights, Purcell should occupy a place in English cultural life equal to Shakespeare, but he was not afforded the same status as time went by and very little of his music was heard again until the 20th Century ushered in a revival. The Fairy Queen is Purcell’s colourful adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a piece immersed in his trademark adventurous harmonies and beguiling melodies.

Handel really was a mega star in his day. Born in 1685 in Halle in the state of Prussia (now modern Germany), after extended travels around Italy he arrived in London in 1711. There the music scene was flourishing but still creatively feeling the loss of Henry Purcell. In 1714 his past could have caught up with him. When he left Germany, Handel had been in the employ of the Elector of Hanover and had stayed away without permission. When an unfortunate series of events led to the Elector becoming King George I of the recently united kingdoms of England and Scotland – he is the great-grandfather of Hamilton cameo star George III –Handel had a potentially career-ending reputational problem on his hands. The extent of this may be overstated in the telling of the story, but ever the gifted negotiator Handel was able to smooth over any rift and the renewed relationship with the Hanovers was to produce many of his best-known works, including the Water Music, the Coronation Anthems and the Fireworks Music. Through those skills, business acumen and an unearthly instinct for portraying human drama he first became a highly successful opera composer with shows such as Alcina and Giulio Cesare before public appetite for such things dwindled in the late 1730s. He found a new dramatic outlet in writing oratorios, including Samson (1743) and Solomon (1749). Whilst the oratorios have been omnipresent in concert halls ever since – most notably Messiah (1742) – the operas fell so far out of fashion that they were not revived for over 200 years – both Alcina and Giulio Cesare only had their modern revivals in the 1920s.

J.S. Bach, an exact contemporary of Handel, had an unusually enhanced sense of higher purpose even

by 18th Century standards. Despite his Lutheran devoutness, though, there is good evidence that he gave consideration to what these days would be called ‘legacy.’ Throughout his career he barraged his employers with complaints about the resources made available to him and spent much of his later life preparing and compiling authoritative editions of his work. Yet as large as Bach the historical figure looms today, in his lifetime he was not so feted. He only got the job as director of music for the city of Leipzig in 1723, where he produced the great masterpieces such as the Passions and the cantatas, when the town council finally accepted that their first-choice, Georg Philipp Telemann, was deaf to their offers.

The Brandenburg Concertos, now Bach’s most highly regarded orchestral pieces, were gifted to the Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt in 1721 as a presentational manuscript (now a prized asset of the Berlin State Library). The Margrave, however, just put them on a shelf in his library and they disappeared for over a century. That could well have been that, but fortunately they fell into the hands of a Bach devotee and they were finally published in 1850.

Composers in 18th Century Europe generally had three places of employment: the court and church as already discussed, and the opera house. The most glamorous of those establishments were in Paris. These were pre-Revolutionary times and great celebrity was still to be found delighting the aristocracy and upwardly mobile. Renowned amongst these were Jean-Baptiste Lully (1637-1687) and Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764). Purcell, Vivaldi and Bach have all enjoyed revivals in interest, but Lully and Rameau, whilst maintaining a hardcore of enthusiasts, have never regained the stellar appeal they once held. Today they are chiefly represented on orchestral programmes by interludes such as Lully’s ‘Marche pour la ceremonie des Turks’ from his music to Molière’s play Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and ‘Les Sauvages’ from the ‘opérahéroïque’ Les Indes Galantes by Rameau.

The quite phenomenal accomplishments of the women composers of the Baroque faded from public view faster even than the more unfortunate of their male counterparts. Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677) was reputed to have had more secular music in print than any other composer of her time. Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729) was hand-picked by no less than Louis XIV, the Sun King, as a court musician and was lauded in Paris throughout her lifetime. Today even amongst

musicians, their names are only gradually (re)gaining recognition. If we can’t right the injustices of the intervening centuries we can at least play our role in the restoration.

We view the narrative from our own point in history. That is inevitably coloured by the inventions of the last century or so, most significantly the means of distributing audio recordings widely, public broadcasting and commercial advertising. This coincided with a greater interest in and awareness of standardised cataloguing.

It is almost impossible to underestimate the impact of the recording industry in the 20th Century on the popularisation of these pieces. One day we may look back at it and consider it to be a machine of enlightenment to match the printing press. It has affected everything from how we refer to the pieces to what we consider to be canonical works. The story goes that the Arrival of the Queen of Sheba only came to be widely known by that name because the conductor Thomas Beecham decided it needed a better name than the Sinfonia from Act III of Solomon when he recorded it in 1933. For decades in the UK, Bach’s Air on the G String was far better known in Jacques Loussier’s jazz trio arrangement underscoring the punchline in a cigar advert. Johann Pachelbel (1653 - 1704) owes his ‘one hit wonder’ status to another Frenchman, the conductor Jean-François Paillard. A composer from the generation before Bach, Pachelbel and his work had languished in obscurity until 1968 when Paillard recorded an arrangement of his Canon in D for three violins and bass. It literally and figuratively struck a chord with listeners who understood music much more readily through the repeating structures of rock and pop songs and could grasp the unfolding of Pachelbel’s music. The Four Seasons always fitted neatly on a vinyl LP, but came to wider attention when British violinist Nigel Kennedy adopted the techniques of the MTV music video as part of the promotion of his 1989 recording.

The phonographic industry turbo-charged the perception of the Brandenburg Concertos as a singular entity and a pillar of the western musical canon. The first recording as a set appeared in the mid-1930s, just 80 years after their first publication. Thus someone’s first contact was as likely to be with the collected set on LP as it was with an individual concerto in performance. Another 50 years on, in the 1980s the gathering movement of period instrument ensembles coincided with the advent of the compact disc. There

was a vibrant market for new recordings of Baroque music, both familiar and less so, injected with the vitality that historically informed performance brought to the repertoire. Showcasing as they do a variety of instrumental timbres and appealingly packaged as double disc sets, the Brandenburgs became calling cards as each group laid down its take on this standard, including the OAE.

The music of the 17th and 18th Centuries has continued to be ‘unearthed’ and re-evaluated through modern times. Bach’s Cello Suites were not considered a core part of every cellist’s library until Pablo Casals fished a copy off the shelves of a music shop in Barcelona. The modern music lover would assume that Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C had always been there, but in fact, if you had whistled its theme on the steps of this concert hall in the 1950s nobody would have noticed. The manuscript was only discovered in 1961. By accident.

The really extraordinary reflection, on which we should all pause, is that when we look back at the 150 years we call the Baroque, some of the greatest musical creativity in the history of humanity, most people still know more tunes by The Eagles.

In a way we are all Kevin. Today you came to a concert. Maybe you brought someone with you. Maybe you’ll tell someone about it later. As a result, perhaps in 50 years time someone else will listen to these pieces for the first time with the same sense of excitement we all did once. You have become part of the never-ending story of music history in all its enigmatic greatness.

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

In 1986, a group of inquisitive London musicians took a long hard look at that curious institution we call the Orchestra, and decided to start again from scratch. They began by throwing out the rulebook. Put a single conductor in charge? No way. Specialize in repertoire of a particular era? Too restricting. Perfect a work and then move on? Too lazy. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment was born.

And as this distinctive ensemble playing on periodspecific instruments began to get a foothold, it made a promise to itself. It vowed to keep questioning, adapting and inventing as long as it lived. Residencies

at the Southbank Centre and the Glyndebourne Festival didn’t numb its experimentalist bent. Record deals didn’t iron out its quirks. Instead, the OAE examined musical notes with ever more freedom and resolve.

That creative thirst remains unquenched. The Night Shift series of informal performances taking place in pubs and bars redefines concert formats. Its association with another London venue, Kings Place, has fostered further diversity of music-making including the innovative series Bach, the Universe and Everything.

The OAE continues to tour around the UK, appearing in the major cities and concert halls as well as towns that most orchestras don’t stop by, and internationally. In 2024-25 the OAE performs at the Brucknerhaus in Linz, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Musikverein in Vienna, Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, in Copenhagen, Budapest, Graz, Antwerp, Munich, Zurich and on tour to the USA.

The OAE has never had a music director. It enjoys many long term collaborations and the title of Principal Artist is currently held by John Butt, Sir Mark Elder, Adam Fischer, Iván Fischer, Vladimir Jurowski, Sir Simon Rattle and Sir András Schiff.

In keeping with its values of always questioning, challenging and trailblazing, in September 2020, the OAE became the resident orchestra of Acland Burghley School in Camden (London). The residency – a first for a British orchestra – allows the OAE to live, work and play amongst the students of the school.

Julia Bullock

Combining versatile artistry with a probing intellect and commanding stage presence, American classical singer Julia Bullock has headlined productions and concerts at preeminent arts institutions worldwide.

Following her recent debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in El Niño, she returns in spring 2025 to star in the company premiere of Antony & Cleopatra, reprising her title role of Cleopatra from her first performance at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu in the 2023 European premiere. Bullock previously debuted at Covent Garden in Theodora, San Francisco Opera in the world premiere of Girls of the Golden West, Santa Fe Opera in Doctor Atomic, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in The Rake’s Progress and English National Opera, Teatro Real and Bolshoi

Theatre all in the title role of The Indian Queen. Other operatic highlights include the world premieres of Upload at Dutch National Opera and Fire Shut Up in My Bones at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.

In concert, she has appeared with the world’s foremost orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, Bavarian Radio Symphony, NDR Elbphilhormonie Orchestra, Deutsches SymphonieOrchester and London Symphony Orchestra, while recital highlights include appearances at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Celebrity Series, Washington’s Kennedy Center, London’s Wigmore Hall and the Mostly Mozart and Ojai Music festivals.

Her signature projects include Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine, conceived in collaboration with Peter Sellars, Tyshawn Sorey and Claudia Rankine; Five Freedom Songs, developed with Jessie Montgomery and History’s Persistent Voice, which combines the songs of enslaved people with new music by Black American women. Released by Nonesuch, Bullock’s solo album debut, Walking in the Dark, was featured in the New York Times’s “Best Classical Music Tracks of 2022” and among NPR’s top 20 in “Best Albums of 2022.”

Her growing discography also includes the soundtrack of Amazon Prime Video’s The Underground Railroad and Grammy-nominated recordings of West Side Story and Doctor Atomic. An innovative and in-demand curator, Bullock’s past positions include collaborative partner of Esa-Pekka Salonen and Artist-in-Residence of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the San Francisco Symphony and London’s Guildhall School.

Committed to integrating community activism with her musical life, she is a prominent voice for social consciousness and change.

Special

Thanks

Program

Franz Schubert: Drei Klavierstücke, D.946

No. 1 in E minor

No. 2 in E Major

No. 3 in C Major

Alexander Malofeev, piano

Fri, Jan 24 / 7 PM / Hahn Hall

Running time: approx. 100 minutes, including intermission

Hear & Now Series Sponsors:

Linda Sta ord Burrows

Dr. Bob Weinman

Presented in association with UCSB Department of Music

About the Program

Franz Schubert (1797-1828):

Drei Klavierstücke, D.946

Dmitri Kabalevsky: Sonata No. 3 in F Major, op. 26

Allegro con moto

Andante cantabile

Allegro giocoso

- Intermission -

Leoš Janáček: In the Mists

Andante

Molto adagio

Andantino

Presto

Franz Liszt: Funérailles, S. 173

Alexander Scriabin: Four Preludes, op. 22

Andante

Andante

Allegretto

Andantino

Alexander Scriabin: Fantasie in B minor, op. 28

Schubert fi nished drafting the Drei Klavierstücke in May 1828, six months before his death. Earlier that year, on the fi rst anniversary of the death of Beethoven, his idol, Schubert organized a well-attended concert of his own works. Despite this and other successes, his health had deteriorated so much by August that his doctor recommended he move in with his brother. As the illness (many contemporary scholars believe it was syphilis) progressed to its fi nal stage, Schubert continued to compose. In his fi nal days, he fell into a delirium and “sang ceaselessly,” yet in moments of lucidity worked on proofs of his song cycle Winterreise . After his death, Schubert’s friends organized tribute concerts to raise funds for a monument to him. A year later, it was erected bearing the epigraph, “The art of music has entombed here a rich treasure but even fairer hopes.”

Some catalogs classify this trio of piano pieces as impromptus, though Schubert himself said nothing on the subject. The designation is apt, for all of the pieces in the set reflect the impromptu’s formal conventions and spirit of improvisation. Turbulent outer sections flank the emotional core of the first piece. The middle section, a stately aria, proceeds with a balance of refinement and unexpected joyful outbursts. An

photo: Liudmila Malofeeva

allusion to George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Messiah reflects Schubert’s growing admiration for the Baroque composer in his final days.

Schubert casts the second piece in an ABACA rondo, a form often employed for impromptus. The A section is a graceful barcarolle whose lilting left-hand figures evoke the rocking of waves. A dramatic, improvisatory B section follows. Following the stormy and pensive C section, the piece concludes with another appearance of the opening material.

The rollicking outer sections of the final piece abound with syncopation and sudden dynamic shifts. By contrast, the slow middle section with its hypnotic repeated rhythmic pattern, has an almost hymn-like character.

Dmitry Kabalevsky (1904-1987):

Sonata No. 3 in F Major, op. 26

Though Kabalevsky’s work as an educator and proponent of children’s music sometimes overshadowed his compositions, he wrote in numerous genres including symphonies, chamber music and film. Much of his music was accessible and conventional, which endeared him to the conservative milieu of the Communist Party. Kabalevsky was initially named in the infamous Zhdanov Decree that targeted many of the USSR’s most prominent composers, though his connections within the Party swiftly removed his name from the list.

This piano sonata, written just after the Second World War, adheres to the Party’s ideals of socialist realism: direct, relatively uncomplicated and ultimately optimistic. Kabalevsky wrote that the sonata “lacks a concrete program, yet two themes, two major images – youth and war – prevail here. The collision of those themes and the final triumph of youth sums up the plot of the work!” The two musical themes of the first movement – the first Haydnesque and playful, the second jaunty and cocky – capture youthful vigor. War soon follows with an agitated, repetitive bass line; the music grows increasingly aggressive as heavy chords and ascending chromatic lines instill a mood of chaos. When the youthful themes return, it is with a sense of nervousness. An unexpected coda concludes with a high, soft melody fading into oblivion.

In the slow second movement, Kabalevsky again depicts the tension between youthful innocence and the violence that shatters it. It begins with a nostalgic dance in waltz time, though heavy chords in the left hand suggest that such peace cannot last. The second section introduces a martial rhythm that obliterates this wistful reverie. These two ideas clash throughout the movement; youth seems to prevail, but at what cost?

In the finale, “the final triumph of youth” over war comes only after a struggle between the two forces. A playful, high-flying opening gives way to a percussive riposte in the piano’s lower range. This fusillade grows to a thunderous breaking point before a soaring, optimistic conclusion.

Leoš Janáček (1854-1928): In the Mists

Janáček composed In the Mists in 1912 amid protracted personal and professional disappointments. Though well-regarded in his home city of Brno, he struggled to gain acceptance and recognition abroad and in Prague, the center of Czech cultural life. Janáček’s uneasy marriage had further deteriorated following the loss of his daughter to typhoid fever. As he approached sixty, bouts of illness left him hospitalized and at times unable to even dress himself. Though he found success and critical acclaim a few years later – including the enthusiastic reception of his opera Jenůfa in Prague – pessimism shades this suite. In a letter to a friend, Janáček mused, “Transparent, empty, destructive time plies on. What can we do? We cannot hold it back.”

The four pieces of In the Mists are suggestive rather than programmatic; while Janáček gives the set a unifying title, the four individual movements are labeled only with initial tempo markings. The first two are composed in D-flat major (which has five flats), Janáček’s favorite key. Frequent yet subtle shifts in harmony, volume and texture imbue the suite with ambiguity and doubt.

The Andante opens with wistful fragments of melody over an ambiguous accompaniment. Following an intrusion of stormy and rustic interludes, the opening theme returns before a harp-like coda.

At turns brooding and upbeat, the mercurial second movement rises to a brief but emphatic crescendo before concluding with cautious optimism. The deceptive tranquility that opens the third movement

quickly turns introspective. A lively but short-lived dance tries in vain to raise the piece’s spirits before a return to the opening material and an abrupt finish.

Thin textures and frequent changes of mood characterize the finale. A repeated, declamatory melody evokes the irregular speech rhythms of Janáček’s native Czech, which he fastidiously recorded and incorporated into his compositions. The movement climaxes with some of the suite’s most forceful and dramatic music before settling into quiet resignation.

Franz Liszt (1811-1886):

Funérailles, S. 173

When Liszt composed Funérailles in the early 1850s, he was living in the wake of tremendous personal and political upheaval. In 1847, he met Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, who quickly became his lifelong partner and confidant. Within a year of their meeting, Liszt retired from the concert stage at 35, ending an eight-year touring period in which he gave an estimated 1,000 performances. By the following June, the pair had settled in Weimar, where Liszt became Kapellmeister.

The year 1848 saw an explosion of uprisings against monarchies across Europe. Liszt composed Funérailles in response to the failed Hungarian Revolution. Its subtitle, “October 1849,” commemorates the crushing of the rebellion and the public execution of the Hungarian prime minister and thirteen generals on October 6, which remains a day of mourning in Hungary. Liszt, who was born in western Hungary, proudly claimed his Magyar heritage. After the Danube flooded the city of Pest in 1838, Liszt performed a benefit concert for the victims; in a letter from that time, he lamented, “Oh my wild and distant country! Oh my vast family, your cry of pain has called me back to you.” Liszt composed more than 80 works incorporating Hungarian musical material (most notable are the Hungarian Rhapsodies for piano), including Funérailles

The piece is set predominantly in F minor, a key associated with mourning and lamentation. It begins with an evocation of distant funeral bells which crescendo and culminate in trumpet-like fanfare. Dotted rhythms in the second section evoke both the funeral march and the verbunkos, a traditional Hungarian dance used for military recruitment. This march transforms into a tender, tearful major-key passage. Liszt introduces a new march, powerful and heroic over restless triplets.

The piece concludes with iterations of the previous themes, beginning with an emphatic transformation of the funeral march.

Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915): Four Preludes, op. 22

“Six nights ago he had a nervous attack. I have observed that this always happens before the birth of a new musical idea. I sat beside him all night… First he became ice cold, and I did not know how to warm him. Then his heart stopped… The seizure ended in the morning with hysterical and bitter tears.

That evening when he came home he sat at the piano and played very softly, forgetting his promise to his fiancée to go to bed early. I dropped off to sleep at four, and he was still playing and continued all night… I asked him if something new hadn’t been born, and he assured me that good was resulting. I could see by his face that he was in a truly blessed state of grace.”

These words, taken from the diary of Scriabin’s aunt, precipitated his compositions of 1897. Within the year, Scriabin would compose the Four Preludes, marry his first wife and complete and premiere his sole piano concerto.

Scriabin’s opus 22, a collection of four miniatures, deeply reflects Chopin’s influence on the young Russian. With his 24 Preludes, Chopin elevated the prelude from merely introductory to a stand-alone genre. Scriabin, like Chopin, employs wistful, brooding characters in the first two preludes. The third, the only prelude of the set in a major key, borrows dotted rhythms from the mazurka, a Polish dance Chopin had popularized in the Parisian salons (Chopin composed nearly sixty mazurkas in his brief life; Scriabin, following in his footsteps, composed twenty-four). An uptempo, moody piece with long, arching melodies concludes the set.

Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915): Fantasie in B minor, op. 28

Both impatient and capricious, Scriabin struggled to complete and revise longer works. As a result, his œuvre primarily consists of piano miniatures. At roughly nine minutes long, the Fantasie is the only substantial piece Scriabin composed during his years-long professorship at the Moscow Conservatory.

Written between his Third and Fourth Piano Sonatas and overshadowed by the lackluster premiere of his First Symphony (concertgoers booed and catcalled the hapless conductor), the Fantasie has often gone overlooked. According to one of Scriabin’s close friends, even Scriabin forgot the piece. When the friend began to play the piece in Scriabin’s apartment, the composer asked who had written the familiar-sounding music. Told that the theme was from his Fantasie, Scriabin responded, perplexed, “What Fantasie?” Scriabin never performed the piece in public. Alexander Goldenweiser, who would go on to teach Dmitry Kabalevsky at the Moscow Conservatory, premiered the Fantasie years after its completion.

Unlike the inhibited preludes of opus 22, the Fantasie erupts in barely restrained passion. The opening theme struggles to ascend as the bassline sinks lower, but this brooding and brash music gives way to an exuberant major-key melody. As the title suggests, the Fantasie exudes a sense of spontaneity; this virtuosic rhapsody maintains its bravado through the rousing final bars.

Program notes © Andrew McIntyre, 2024

About the Artist

Alexander Malofeev came to international prominence when, in 2014, he won the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians at age thirteen. Reviewing the performance, Amadeus noted, “Contrary to what could be expected of a youngster… he demonstrated not only high technical accuracy but also an incredible maturity. Crystal clear sounds and perfect balance revealed his exceptional ability.” Since this triumph, Malofeev has quickly established himself as one of the most prominent pianists of his generation.

Highlights of the 2024-25 season include Malofeev’s premiere with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, returns to Verbier Festival and San Diego Symphony, as well as performances at the Salle Gaveau in Paris, Philharmonie Berlin, recital tours throughout the US and Asia and recitals with violinist Maria Dueñas. He will appear with the New World Symphony, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and Stuttgarter Philharmoniker among others.

Alexander Malofeev performs with some of the most well-known orchestras around the world including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia, RAI National Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Korean Symphony Orchestra, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, State Chamber Orchestra “Moscow Virtuosi”, Baltic Sea Philharmonic Orchestra, National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia, Orchestre National de Lille and the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra. He regularly appears with the most distinguished conductors on stage today, including Mikhail Pletnev, Myung-Whun Chung, Charles Dutoit, Michael Tilson Thomas, Alain Altinoglu, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, JoAnn Falletta, Susanna Mälkki, Lionel Bringuier, Alondra de la Parra, Marcelo Lehninger, Kazuki Yamada, Juraj Valčuha, Gábor Takács-Nagy, Kristjan Jàrvi, Kirill Karabits, Vladimir Spivakov, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Vasily Petrenko, Andris Poga and Fabio Luisi.

He has been a guest of renowned music festivals and series including Verbier Festival, La Roque-d’Anthéron Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, Tanglewood Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Tsinandali Festival, Master Pianists Series and Celebrity Series of Boston.

Malofeev was born in Moscow in October 2001. Now residing in Berlin, he continues to give concerts at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, where he opened the 30th anniversary concert of the renowned Meester Pianists series. Other recent highlights include concerts at Teatro alla Scala, Musikverein, Kurhaus Wiesbaden, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Munich’s Herkules Hall, Philharmonie de Paris, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Théâtre des ChampsÉlysées, Auditorium Parco della Musica in Roma, Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, Queensland Performing Arts Centre in Australia, Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, Shanghai Oriental Art Center, National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing and the Royal Opera House Muscat in Oman.

In addition to his First Prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians, he has won numerous awards and prizes at international competitions and festivals, including the Grand Prix of the first International Competition for Young Pianists Grand Piano Competition, the Premio Giovane Talento Musicale dell’anno and Best Young Musician of 2017. Also in 2017, Malofeev became the first Young Yamaha Artist.

Fran Lebowitz

Sat, Jan 25 / 7:30 PM / Campbell Hall

Event Sponsor: Marcia & John Mike Cohen

In a cultural landscape of endless pundits and talking heads, Fran Lebowitz is one of our most insightful social commentators. Her essays and interviews offer acerbic views on current events and the media – as well as pet peeves including tourists, baggage claim areas, aftershave lotion, adults who roller skate, children who speak French or anyone who is unduly tan. The New York Times Book Review calls Lebowitz an “important humorist in the classic tradition.” Purveyor of urban cool, Lebowitz is a cultural satirist whom many call the heir to Dorothy Parker.

Lebowitz worked odd jobs like taxi driving, belt peddling and apartment cleaning before being hired by Andy Warhol as a columnist for Interview, followed by a stint at Mademoiselle. Her first book, a collection of essays titled Metropolitan Life, was a bestseller, as was a second collection, Social Studies. By turns ironic, facetious, deadpan, sarcastic, wry, wisecracking and waggish, Lebowitz’s prose is wickedly entertaining. Her two books are collected in The Fran Lebowitz Reader, published in nine languages including French, Korean, Russian, Spanish and Turkish. In 2021, it was published for the first time in the United Kingdom and became a bestseller. Lebowitz also authors the children’s book Mr. Chas and Lisa Sue Meet the Pandas.

Between 2001 to 2007, Lebowitz had a recurring role as Judge Janice Goldberg on the television drama Law & Order. She also had a part in the Martin Scorsese-directed film The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). A raconteur if ever there was one, Lebowitz has long been a regular on various

talk shows including those hosted by Jimmy Fallon, Conan O’Brien and Bill Maher.

She can be seen in various documentary films including the American Experience series on New York City, as well as Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures (2016), Regarding Susan Sontag (2014) and Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol (1990), among others. In 2010, Scorsese directed a documentary about Lebowitz for HBO titled Public Speaking. A limited documentary series, Pretend It’s a City, also directed by Scorsese, premiered on Netflix in 2021 and was nominated for the 2021 Emmys in the Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series category. In 2021, she was awarded the Forte dei Marmi Festival della Satira Lifetime Achievement Award and was a 2021 Foreign Press Honorary Awardee – an award given by the Foreign Press Correspondents Association & Club USA.

Lebowitz was named to Vanity Fair’s International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 2008 andremains a style icon. Lebowitz lives in New York City, as she does not believe that she would be allowed to live anywhere else.

Books are available for purchase in the lobby and a signing follows the event

Special Thanks

An Evening with Tommy Orange

Wed, Jan 29 / 7:30 PM / Campbell Hall

Justice for All Lead Sponsors:

Marcy Carsey, Connie Frank & Evan Thompson, Eva & Yoel Haller, Dick Wolf, and Zegar Family Foundation

With support from the Harold & Hester Schoen Arts & Lectures Endowment

Presented in association with the following UCSB partners: American Indian and Indigenous Collective; Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; and Department of English

Tommy Orange is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel There There, a multigenerational, relentlessly paced story about a side of America few of us have ever seen: the lives of urban Native Americans. His new novel, Wandering Stars, published in February 2024, conjures the ancestors of the family readers first fell in love with in There There, asking what it means to be the children and grandchildren of massacre. Orange graduated from the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and was a 2014 MacDowell Fellow and a 2016 Writing by Writers Fellow. He is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. He was born and raised in Oakland, Calif. He now lives in Angels Camp, Calif., with his wife and son.

Tommy Orange’s There There is an exceptional debut novel that grapples with the history of a nation. After noticing a lack of stories about urban Native Americans, Orange created a remarkable work that explores those who have inherited a profound spirituality, but who are also plagued by addiction, abuse and suicide. There There tells the story of 12 characters who each have private reasons for traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, and who come together after a brutal act of violence. Pam Houston praised the book, saying “This is Tommy Orange. Remember his name. His book’s gonna blow the roof off.”

Houston’s prediction proved to be correct: Orange’s There There was a national bestseller that won the PEN/Hemingway Award, the National Book Critics

Circle John Leonard Prize, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the American Book Award. It was also shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. It appeared on countless Best Books of the Year lists, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Time, O: The Oprah Magazine, GQ, Entertainment Weekly and Buzzfeed. Margaret Atwood hailed it as an “astonishing literary debut.”

Orange’s newest book, Wandering Stars, is a novel about epigenetic and generational trauma that traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through three generations of a family. This sequel to There There was longlisted for the Booker Prize.

Program

Dmitri Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 3 in F Major, op. 73

Allegretto

Moderato con moto

Allegro non troppo

Adagio

Moderato

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:

Divertimento for String Quartet in F Major, K. 138

Allegro

Andante

Presto

Igor Stravinsky: Three Pieces for String Quartet

No. 1

No. 2

No. 3

Turlough O’Carolan: Three Melodies

Mabel Kelly

Planxty Kelly

Carolan’s Quarrel with the Landlady - Intermission -

Danish String Quartet (arr.):

Original Compositions and Traditional Tunes

Danish String Quartet

Fri, Jan 31 / 7 PM / Campbell Hall

Frederik Øland, violin

Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen, violin

Asbjørn Nørgaard, viola

Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin, cello

Event Sponsor: Anonymous

Great Performances Suite Sponsors:

G.A. Fowler Family Foundation

The Shanbrom Family Foundation

Presented in association with UCSB Department of Music

About the Program

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975):

String Quartet No. 3 in F Major, op. 73

The Third String Quartet was Shostakovich’s only composition during the year 1946. He dedicated it to the members of the Beethoven Quartet, who gave the first performance in Moscow on their namesake’s 176th birthday, December 16, 1946. The mention of Beethoven is apt, for many observers have felt that this quartet, particularly in its heartfelt fourth movement, consciously evokes the spirit of the older master. Yet the Third String Quartet is no imitation.

There is evidence that this quartet may have had a program related to the just-concluded war. Shostakovich’s original titles for the five movements of this quartet were Calm Awareness of the Future Cataclysm, Rumblings of Unrest and Anticipation, The Forces of War Unleashed, Homage to the Dead, and The Eternal Question – Why? And for What? Those titles suggest a program for this quartet very similar to the “Leningrad” Symphony of 1941 and a fivemovement structure similar to the Eighth Symphony of 1943, which – like this quartet – included a “battle” movement, a passacaglia-like movement, and a quiet ending. Yet Shostakovich suppressed those titles and any hint of a program about the war, choosing instead to publish the quartet with only tempo markings for the movements.

photo: Caroline Bittencourt

The writing in this quartet is often quite demanding for the players. Much of it is set in the instruments’ higher registers, and there are moments of soloistic brilliance that seem at odds with the ensemble-playing expected in quartets. In addition, the harmonic language can be gritty – each movement has a key signature and a home key, but a clear sense of tonality is obscured by the continuously chromatic writing.

All this makes the Third Quartet sound forbidding, which it is not. But this is quite varied music, and listeners should come to it ready for the broad range of expression that marks Shostakovich’s best music. The very beginning of the opening Allegretto is frankly playful. The first violin’s skittering main idea dances gracefully, but Shostakovich stresses to all four players that he wants this beginning dolce. By contrast, the second subject is somber, moving darkly on its twonote cadence, and from the collision of these two ideas Shostakovich builds this sonata-form movement.

A pounding 3/4 pulse continues virtually throughout the Moderato con moto. There are moments when this 3/4 meter verges on a ghostly, frozen waltz, only to be straitjacketed back into rigidity; the movement fades into silence with all the instruments muted. By contrast, the Allegro non troppo explodes to life with what sound like gunshots. Built on alternating measures of 2/4 and 3/4, this scherzo – a first cousin of the “battle” movement of the Eighth Symphony, which had been inspired by newsreels of tank battles – rushes to a sudden close.

The expressive Adagio has reminded many of Beethoven’s late quartets. It opens with a powerful five-measure phrase that will function (somewhat) like the ground bass of a passacaglia, providing the foundation over which Shostakovich will spin out long spans of intense and moving melody. This proceeds without pause into the finale, which might have been a lighthearted conclusion, were the main idea not so spooky: the cello’s dark, sinuous main theme is accompanied by the viola’s pizzicato harmonics. As this movement dances along, Shostakovich gradually brings back themes from the earlier movements, and the quartet fades enigmatically into silence on a final chord marked morendo.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791):

Divertimento for String Quartet in F Major, K.138

Mozart wrote three “divertimenti” for strings, K.136-8, in Salzburg in 1772, but a certain amount of mystery continues to surround this music. The designation “Divertimenti” in the manuscript is not in Mozart’s hand, and these three pieces lack the minuet movements characteristic of the divertimento form. Even the size of the instrumental forces Mozart had in mind is unclear: though scored for four string instruments, these works may be played by either quartet or string orchestra.

Mozart biographer Alfred Einstein has suggested that these three works, composed after Mozart’s second trip to Italy, may have been written for use during his third Italian tour late in 1772 and that the simple addition of horns and oboes would transform these quartet-like works into symphonies on the three-movement Italian model. And so Mozart may have extracted double service from these three pieces: as divertimentos for string quartet in Salzburg and as potential symphonies intended for the court of Milan, where he had been feted during previous tours. The uncertainty about the form of these works has led to their being classified variously (and erroneously) as the “Salzburg symphonies” and “quartet-symphonies.”

The last of the three, Divertimento in F Major, K.138, is a jewel: a fully-formed string symphony only nine minutes long. In its grand gestures and rich sonorities, this music certainly sounds symphonic. The sonataform opening movement (Mozart left no tempo indication) opens with a two-part theme – the powerful opening figure and its soft “answer” – followed by a flowing main idea announced and decorated by the two violin sections. This is followed by a moving Andante, in which the sixteen-year-old composer offers music whose haunting lyric lines foreshadow the great slow movements of his final years. The Presto is a sparkling rondo, complete with two contrasting episodes – the chirping second a pure delight – and a coda. This polished finale sizzles past in one hundred seconds.

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971):

Three Pieces for String Quartet

Stravinsky wrote symphonies, concertos, and sonatas, but one important classical form is notable for its near-absence in his catalog: the string quartet. In his long career, he wrote only three brief works for quartet, and none of these is a true string quartet: Three Pieces for String Quartet (1914), the Concertino (1920), and a Double Canon – In Memoriam Raoul Dufy (1959). The resonant, lyrical sonority of the string quartet appears to have held little attraction for Stravinsky, who seemed to prefer a drier, more percussive sound, such as could be produced by the piano or wind instruments.

Stravinsky wrote the Three Pieces for String Quartet in Salvan, Switzerland, just a few weeks before the outbreak of World War I. The notorious premiere of The Rite of Spring had occurred the previous year, and he was now about to begin work on his secular cantata Les Noces. The Three Pieces lack a unifying structure and can seem isolated and unrelated pieces, quite short in duration (a total of eight minutes) and fragmentary in effect. But when Stravinsky arranged the pieces in 1928 as the first three movements of his Four Studies for Orchestra, he gave them names that may suggest a key to understanding them: “Dance,” “Eccentric,” and “Canticle.” Stravinsky scholar Eric Walter White has shown that, however obscure in themselves, the Three Pieces are truly germinal pieces for the composer, for all three contain thematic cells that would figure centrally in Stravinsky’s later works. The first movement, a Russian dance for the two violins over a steady viola drone, provided material that would later appear in the Symphony in C (1940). The second movement, an odd and nervous dance, was inspired by the clown Little Tich, whom Stravinsky had seen earlier in the summer of 1914 in London; the composer noted that “the jerky, spastic movement, the ups and downs, the rhythm –even the mood or joke of the music – was suggested by the art of the great clown.” The first violin theme in the Allegro section was to become the subject of the slow fugue in the Symphony of Psalms (1930). The final movement, of religious austerity, brings the work to a very quiet close; the opening two measures were to figure importantly in Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920).

Turlough O’Carolan (1670-1738):

Mabel Kelly

Planxty Kelly

Carolan’s Quarrel with the Landlady

Turlough O’Carolan (or simply Carolan) was a Celtic harpist, composer, and singer. Blinded by smallpox at age 18, he nevertheless made his career as a touring performer, traveling throughout Ireland on horseback with another horse carrying his harp. O’Carolan was a welcome guest at wealthy estates, where he would often write music in tribute to his hosts. He was also much in demand as a performer at weddings, and the story has it that some weddings were delayed until O’Carolan arrived. Many of his songs set his own texts, and while over 200 of his compositions survive, none survive as manuscripts – his pieces were passed down as songs and fiddle tunes and later collected by enthusiasts. O’Carolan is regarded by many as Ireland’s greatest composer, and if his name is unfamiliar to American audiences, it should be noted that his fame is great enough that a crater on Mercury has been named in his honor, and his likeness appears on the Irish fiftypound note.

This concert offers three of O’Carolan’s compositions in arrangement for string quartet. O’Carolan himself invented the title “planxty” for a piece written in tribute to a patron.

Program notes by Eric Bromberger

Danish String Quartet

The Grammy-nominated Danish String Quartet continues to assert its preeminence among the world’s finest string quartets. Celebrated for their “intense blend, extreme dynamic variation (in which they seem glued together), perfect intonation even on harmonics, and constant vitality and flow” (Gramophone) and renowned for the palpable joy they exude in musicmaking, the Danish String Quartet has become one of today’s most in-demand classical quartets, performing to sold-out concert halls around the world. The Quartet’s inventive and intriguing programming and repertoire choices have produced critically acclaimed original projects and commissions as well as sophisticated arrangements of Scandinavian folk tunes. In August 2024, the Quartet released their longawaited third album of folk-inspired traditional and

original tunes, Keel Road, on ECM. Comprising 14 tracks, all arranged by the Danish String Quartet, Keel Road is a retracing of musical pathways across the North Sea, from Denmark and Norway to the Faroe Islands, England and Ireland. The release of Keel Road marks the Quartet’s tenth anniversary of exploring Scandinavian folk traditions, beginning with their 2014 album Wood Works and followed by Last Leaf (ECM 2017); the latter was chosen as one of the top classical albums of the year by NPR, Spotify and The New York Times.

With a growing audience in North America, they embark on four tours this season that bring them to 24 cities in the US and Canada, beginning with major summer festivals including Aspen and Tanglewood. They will also perform at the Library of Congress in Washington DC, Cal Performances and UC Santa Barbara Arts & Lectures in California, Carnegie Hall in New York, Nashville Symphony’s Chamber Music Series, Friends of Chamber Music in Denver and the Savannah Music Festival. Outside the US, they perform this season in Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Italy and Greece.

The Danish String Quartet continues to tour its ambitious Doppelgänger initiative, a multi-year commissioning project pairing world premieres by four composers with major quartets and quintets by Schubert. In the 2024-2025 season, the Quartet, joined by cellist Johannes Rostamo, perform Thomas Adès’s Wreath for Franz Schubert (paired with Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major) at Tanglewood and the Ottawa Chamberfest and in Amsterdam and Leipzig. In the spring of 2025, they return to Carnegie Hall and Philadelphia Chamber Music

Society and to Flagey in Brussels, Belgium, to perform Bent Sørensen’s Doppelgänger commission, paired with Schubert’s Quartet in G Major. In addition, they perform a variety of repertoire this season, including original tunes and elegant arrangements of traditional tunes from their new ECM album Keel Road and work by Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Caroline Shaw and 18th century Celtic harpist and composer Turlough O’Carolan.

The final disc in the Quartet’s five-disc PRISM series on ECM – which The New York Times called “essential listening” – was released to great acclaim in April 2023. PRISM explores the symbiotic musical and contextual relationships between Bach fugues, Beethoven string quartets and works by Shostakovich, Schnittke,

Bartók, Mendelssohn and Webern. The Quartet’s discography also reflects the ensemble’s special affinity for Scandinavian composers, with the complete quartets of Carl Nielsen (Dacapo, 2007 and 2008), Adès, Nørgård and Abrahamsen (their debut on ECM in 2016). This season, the Quartet plan to record the complete Doppelgänger series for ECM. The Quartet takes an active role in reaching new audiences through special projects. In 2007, they established the DSQ Festival, which takes place in intimate and informal settings in Copenhagen. In 2016, they inaugurated a concert series, Series of Four, in which they both perform and invite colleagues to appear. They have been the recipient of many awards and appointments, including Musical America’s 2020 Ensemble of the Year; the Borletti-Buitoni Trust; BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist; and a coveted spot in the Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two). In 2011, the Quartet were awarded the Carl Nielsen Prize, the highest cultural honor in Denmark.

The Danish Quartet recently celebrated their 20th Anniversary in 2024, having formed when violinists Frederik Øland and Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen and violist Asbjørn Nørgaard were teenagers under the mentorship of Tim Frederiksen of Copenhagen’s Royal Danish Academy of Music. In 2008, the three Danes were joined by Norwegian cellist Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin.

www.danishquartet.com

Exclusive Representation: Kirshbaum Associates Inc.

307 Seventh Avenue Suite 506 New York, NY 10001 www.kirshbaumassociates.com

The Danish String Quartet is currently exclusive with ECM Records and has previously recorded for DaCapo and Cavi-Music/BR Klassik.

Special Thanks

Imani Winds

Brandon Patrick George, flute

Toyin Spellman-Diaz, oboe

Mark Dover, clarinet

Kevin Newton, horn

Monica Ellis, bassoon

Boston Brass

José Sibaja, trumpet

Jeff Conner, trumpet

Chris Castellanos, horn

Domingo Pagliuca, trombone

William Russell, tuba

Imani Winds and Boston Brass

Sun, Feb 2 / 4 PM / Hahn Hall

Running time: approx. 90 minutes, including intermission

Hear & Now Series Sponsors: Linda Sta ord Burrows

Dr. Bob Weinman

Program

Dmitri Shostakovich: Galop

Johann Sebastian Bach: Selection from Wachet Auf

– Boston Brass

Paquito D’Rivera: Selections from Aires Tropicales

– Imani Winds

Leonard Bernstein (arr. Domingo Pagliuca): Maria

Astor Piazzolla (arr. Domingo Pagliuca): Selection from María de Buenos Aires

Paul Hindemith (arr. William Russell): March from Symphonic Metamorphosis

– Boston Brass and Imani Winds

- Intermission -

photo: Shervin Lainez

photo: Donna Conversano

Billy May: Flight of the Green Hornet

Benny Golson: I Remember Clifford

– Boston Brass

Lalo Schifrin: La Nouvelle Orleans

Stevie Wonder (arr. Mark Dover): Overjoyed

– Imani Winds

Arturo Sandoval: Metales y Maderas*

Ernesto Lecuona (arr. Chris Castellanos): Malagueña

– Boston Brass and Imani Winds

*Commissioned by Robert and Sheila Challey, Florida State University, Boston Brass and Imani Winds. Premiered on January 22, 2025 in Tallahassee, FL.

Imani Winds

Celebrating over a quarter century of music making, the three time Grammy-nominated Imani Winds has led both a revolution and evolution of the wind quintet through their dynamic playing, adventurous programming, imaginative collaborations and outreach endeavors that have inspired audiences of all ages and backgrounds.

The ensemble’s playlist embraces traditional chamber music repertoire and newly commissioned works from voices that reflect historical events and the times in which we currently live.

Imani Winds is the 2024 Grammy winner in the Classical Compendium category for Jeff Scott’s Passion for Bach and Coltrane. They released their 11th studio recording, BeLonging, by and with Andy Akiho in 2024, reflecting on the issues of mass incarceration. Recent projects include a Jessie Montgomery composition inspired by her great-grandfather’s migration from the American south to the north, socially conscious music by Andy Akiho and a work by Carlos Simon celebrating iconic

figures of the African American community. These works and more have been commissioned as a part of the Legacy Commissioning Project.

Twenty-six seasons of full-time touring has brought Imani Winds to virtually every major chamber music series, performing arts center and summer festival in the U.S. They regularly perform in prominent venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and the Kennedy Center and have a presence at festivals such as Chamber Music Northwest, Chautauqua Institution and Banff Centre.

Imani Winds thoughtfully curates unique residencies that include performances, workshops and masterclasses to thousands of students each year at institutions such as the University of Chicago, Eastman School of Music and Duke University.

Their international presence includes concerts throughout Asia, Brazil, Australia, England, New Zealand and Europe.

Appointed in 2021 as Curtis Institute of Music’s first ever Faculty Wind Quintet, Imani Winds’ commitment to education runs deep. The highly successful Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival launched in 2010, is an annual summer program devoted to musical excellence and career development for pre-professional instrumentalists and composers. The curriculum includes mentorship, masterclasses, entrepreneurial workshops, community engagement activities and performances with the goal of fostering the complete musician and global citizen.

In 2019, the group extended their mission even further by creating the non-profit organization, Imani Winds Foundation, which exists to support, connect and uplift their initiatives and more.

Imani Winds’ travels through the jazz world are highlighted by their multifaceted association with luminary musicians and composers Wayne Shorter, Paquito D’Rivera and Jason Moran. Their ambitious project, Josephine Baker: A Life of Le Jazz Hot! featured jazz songstress René Marie in performances that brought the house down in New York, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Los Angeles and St. Louis.

In 2021, Imani Winds released their ninth studio album, Bruits on Bright Shiny Things Records, which received a 2022 Grammy nomination for Best Chamber Music/

Small Ensemble Performance. Gramophone states, “the ensemble’s hot rapport churns with conviction throughout.”

Imani Winds has recordings on Koch International Classics and E1 Music, including their 2006 Grammy nominated recording, The Classical Underground. They have also recorded for Naxos and Blue Note and released an acclaimed arrangement of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring on Warner Classics. They are regularly heard on all media platforms including NPR, American Public Media, the BBC, SiriusXM, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

To date, one of Imani Winds’ most humbling recognitions is a permanent presence in the classical music section of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

Boston Brass

For over 30 years Boston Brass has set out to establish a one-of-a-kind musical experience. From exciting classical arrangements to burning jazz standards and the best of original brass repertoire, Boston Brass treats audiences to a unique brand of entertainment that captivates all ages. The ensemble’s lively repartee, touched with humor and personality, bridges the ocean of classical formality to delight audiences with great music and boisterous fun. The philosophy of Boston Brass is to provide audiences with a wide selection of musical styles in unique arrangements while maintaining a friendly and fun atmosphere. The quintet plays to audiences at concert halls, educational institutions and music festivals, and regularly collaborates with orchestras, concert and marching bands, organists, jazz bands and a variety of other ensembles.

The Boston Brass have been featured as educators and performers at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, Music Educators National Conference events, American Bandmaster Association Conference, The American Band College, Western International Band Clinic and at the Texas Bandmasters Association Convention. They have performed in all 50 US states and 30 countries and have conducted masterclasses around the world including sessions and residencies at the Eastman School of Music, The Juilliard School, Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, Peabody Conservatory of Music, University of North Texas, Royal Academy of Music in London, Yong

Siew Toh Conservatory at the National University of Singapore and Mahidol University in Bangkok.

Their newest recording Blues for Sam features a mix of classical and jazz arrangements alongside old Boston Brass favorites and is dedicated to their mentor Sam Pilafian. Simple Gifts features new and exciting classical and jazz arrangements while Latin Nights features a collection of some of the greatest classical and jazz works by Latin composers and performers, including the legendary drummer Steve Gadd and the beautiful voice of Talita Real.Other albums include Ya Gotta Try, featuring music from Horace Silver, Chick Corea and Dizzy Gillespie, produced by legendary jazz recording genius Rudy van Gelder and Within Earshot, featuring classical works by Shostakovich, Ginastera, Dvořák, Liszt and others. Boston Brass has two holiday recordings, Christmas Bells are Swingin’ and The Stan Kenton Christmas Carols, featuring the Boston Brass All-Stars Big Band playing the truly phenomenal charts made popular by the Stan Kenton Orchestra. Boston Brass tours a vibrant holiday show each year featuring many of the charts from these two albums, combined with a variety of quintet and combo selections which has established the show as a perennial audience favorite.

2011 marked the 25th Anniversary of Boston Brass and was celebrated with the 25 Fanfares Project, wherein 25 fanfares were premiered by composers from all over the country. Boston Brass also premiered a new major commission by noted wind ensemble composer Brian Balmages and new arrangements by former member and tuba player Sam Pilafian. Additionally, Boston Brass was very excited to have the opportunity to collaborate in the 2010-2011 season with the fabulous Imani Winds in a program entitled Sketches of Spain, featuring the music of Miles Davis and Gil Evans. In the 2012-2013 season, the quintet began touring their Notes from the Balcony program with the Enso String Quartet featuring a program of music based on Romeo and Juliet

Boston Brass is a Yamaha Performing Group and performs exclusively on Yamaha instruments. With shared goals of musical excellence and educational outreach, Boston Brass and Yamaha endeavor to present concerts and masterclasses around the world, including a 2018 tour of major music conservatories in China.

An Evening with Naomi Shihab Nye

Tue, Feb 4 / 7:30 PM / Campbell Hall

Justice for All Lead Sponsors:

Marcy Carsey, Connie Frank & Evan Thompson, Eva & Yoel Haller, Dick Wolf, and Zegar Family Foundation

Presented in association with the following UCSB partners: Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Departments of English, Global Studies, and Religious Studies

Naomi Shihab Nye describes herself as a “wandering poet.” She has spent more than 40 years traveling the country and the world to lead writing workshops and inspire students of all ages. Nye was born to a Palestinian father and an American mother and grew up in St. Louis, Jerusalem and San Antonio. Drawing on her Palestinian-American heritage, the cultural diversity of her home in Texas and her experiences traveling in Asia, Europe, Canada, Mexico and the Middle East, Nye uses her writing to attest to our shared humanity.

Nye is the author and/or editor of more than 30 volumes. Her books of poetry for adults and children include 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East (a finalist for the National Book Award), A Maze Me: Poems for Girls, Red Suitcase, Words Under the Words, Fuel, Transfer, You & Yours, Mint Snowball, Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners, Come with Me: Poems for a Journey, Honeybee, The Tiny Journalist, Cast Away: Poems for Our Time and Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems. Her new poetry book for children is Grace Notes: Poems about Families. Kirkus called it “beautifully written poetry about the butterfly effect of human experience.”

Nye’s collections of essays include Never in a Hurry and I’ll Ask You Three Times, Are you Okay? She has edited several poetry anthologies including I Feel a Little Jumpy Around You, Time You Let Me In, This Same Sky and What Have You Lost? She also edited Dear Vaccine:

Global Voices Speak to the Pandemic. Her most recent book was co-edited with Marion Winik titled I Know About a Thousand Things: The Writings of Ann Alejandro of Uvalde, Texas. Nye’s fiction books for young people include Habibi, Going Going, There Is No Long Distance Now, The Turtle of Oman and its sequel, The Turtle of Michigan. Her picture books include Baby Radar, Sitti’s Secrets and Famous.

Nye was a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow and a Witter Bynner Fellow (Library of Congress). She has also been the recipient of many awards and prizes. In 2021 she was voted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Nye was affiliated with The Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin for 20 years and was also poetry editor at The Texas Observer for 20 years. In 2019-2020 she was the editor for New York Times Magazine poems. She is Chancellor Emeritus for the Academy of American Poets and is Professor of Creative Writing - Poetry at Texas State University.

photo: Michael Nye

Cirque Kalabanté

Cirque Kalabanté Afrique en Cirque

Thu, Feb 6 / 7:30 PM / Lobero Theatre

Running time: approx.90 minutes, no intermission

Kalabanté Productions was created by Yamoussa Bangoura, a multidisciplinary artist of Guinean origin. His dream was the founding of a school of circus arts, and to direct his own multidisciplinary company specializing in the African arts.

Bangoura first became interested in the Circus Arts as a young man growing up in Conakry Guinea in the 1990s. He studied the circus performers he saw on European TV and practiced on the beach and dirt around his home. He also studied the Nyamakala tradition of circus, practiced by the Fula people of West Africa. He eventually joined Guinea’s original circus company, Circus Baobab, with whom he toured Africa and Europe.

In the early 2000s, Bangoura was recruited to come to Canada with Cirque Éloize, a Montreal based Canadian cirque company. While in Canada, he also performed with Cirque du Soleil and Cavalia (cirque with horses). In 2007, Bangoura realized his dream and opened his own company, Kalabanté Productions in Montreal Canada. He recruited many of his extended family members to join the company, including his twin sisters, brothers and cousins.

The company began doing shows in Quebec, and over the years expanded to all of Canada, the USA and now performs all over the world. In 2018, Kalabanté opened their own studio and school in Montreal, where they offer classes in African dance, cirque and drumming.

Kalabanté Productions is proud to be able to share their work, achievements and skills to inspire others and to assist with the humanitarian mission to help the Guinean community from which Bangoura and many of his company members come.

Special Thanks

photo: Peter Graham

Lakecia Benjamin and Phoenix

Fri, Feb 7 / 8 PM / Campbell Hall

Running time: approx. 75 minutes, no intermission

Lakecia Benjamin, saxophone

Oscar Perez, piano

Elias Bailey, bass

Dorian Phelps, drums

Jazz Series Lead Sponsor: Manitou Fund

Presented in association with UCSB Department of Music

To witness a live performance by the alto saxophonist and bandleader Lakecia Benjamin is to never forget it. The success of her most recent releases, 2023’s Phoenix and 2020’s Pursuance: The Coltranes, positioned Benjamin among jazz’s most celebrated recording artists: In addition to absolute raves in outlets like The New York Times, The Guardian and DownBeat, she received three Grammy nominations for Phoenix, as well as an NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Jazz Album. Earlier this year, she was named Alto Saxophonist of the Year by the prestigious Jazz Journalist Association.

And yet, the ever-rising star from Washington Heights remains, at her core, an improviser best experienced in her soul-stirring concerts. Each and every time she hits the bandstand, she takes her repertoire, and her wide-ranging audience, to sublime new planes. And her message of spiritual uplift, of social and political liberation soars higher still.

Given Benjamin’s personal story over the last few years, her live dates are nothing short of life-affirming. In 2021, she was involved in a car accident that resulted in more than one potentially career-ending injury: Benjamin broke her jaw, shoulder blade and ribs and ruptured an eardrum among other wounds. Today, she’s regained her confidence and physical strength, and embraces whatever limitations her accident may have engendered. She also realizes she has decades of more music and travel to go. “I don’t think about the accident

anymore. Some people might see my shows now as a victory lap, because inspiration comes in multiple forms,” Benjamin says, “but I really feel I’m still learning. I’m trying to get uncomfortable. I’m trying to grow. I’m trying to play better.”

Benjamin’s new album, Phoenix Reimagined, focuses on the music from her acclaimed Phoenix project and adds three new songs. It was captured live-in-studio at Brooklyn’s the Bunker, a great-sounding space whose alumni include everyone from Brad Mehldau to Bang on a Can to the Black Keys. Combining the spontaneous magic of a live LP with the crisp, crystalline audio that only a world-class studio can deliver, Phoenix Reimagined illustrates that vibrant togetherness between Benjamin and her live listeners. In the case of the Bunker show, that meant pretty much anyone who adores music as much as she does. “I was like, you know what? Let’s celebrate life. Let’s celebrate everything. I’m going to invite everybody to this studio,” Benjamin recalls with a chuckle. “The studio personnel were lucky I didn’t just open the door!” The atmosphere took the saxophonist back to her earliest years hitting the NYC jam-session scene: the heat, the camaraderie, the competition, the hard-earned lessons. “It just reminded me why I love music,” she says.

Special Thanks

photo: Elizabeth Leitzell

Access for ALL | Arts & Lectures Learning

Through Access for ALL, inspirational, dynamic learning experiences are possible for students and lifelong learners across classrooms, our community and the UCSB campus.

UCSB Students

• Classroom visits

• Master classes

• Panel discussions

• Lecture-demonstrations

• Discounted and free admission to A&L mainstage events

K-12

• Matinee field trips for students from across the county

• Assemblies

• Workshops

• Q&As

Lifelong Learners

• Thematic Learning Initiative (TLI): Extending the conversation through film screenings, special events and book giveaways

• Author signings

• Pre-show talks and post-show Q&As

• Community workshops

Access for ALL serves more than 30,000 students and community members annually.

Please consider a contribution to A&L’s award-winning educational outreach programs. Call Stacy Cullison, Senior Director of Development & Special Initiatives, at (805) 893-3755 to learn more.

Lil Buck and Jon Boogz teach a pop and lock workshop for Santa Barbara High School dance students

photos: David Bazemore

“Every child moved by art is a victory / inspired to learn history but also to make it / To shape it, to speak it / Until the world glows with sound.” – Amanda Gorman, “House of Light”

UCSB Strings Master Class with the Juilliard String Quartet

Thank you to our Education and ¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara! Sponsors

Arnhold A&L Education Initiative

Connie Frank & Evan Thompson

WILLIAM H. KEARNS FOUNDATION

Sara Miller McCune

Audrey & Timothy O. Fisher

Eva & Yoel Haller

Stone Family Foundation

Linda Stafford Burrows

Kath Lavidge & Ed McKinley

Dorothy Largay & Wayne Rosing

University Support:

Office of the Chancellor

Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor

Office of Education Partnerships

Michelle Dorrance leads a tap dance workshop for Santa Barbara Dance Arts

“Everyone should have access to art and music. Viva is awesome. It provides world-class musicians and artists to the community at no charge.”

– Salud Carbajal, U.S. Congressman Representing California’s 24th District

Dancers from Ballet Folklórico de Los Ángeles perform at Franklin Elementary School

¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara! brings people together to share the rich cultural heritage of Latin America, serving more than 15,000 students and community members each year throughout Santa Barbara County.

Created in 2006 out of a commitment to arts access for all, Viva works with dozens of local partners to present high-quality artists who share their knowledge and passion. Schools, neighborhood spaces and community centers come alive in these free programs for youth and families.

¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara! is a collaboration between UCSB Arts & Lectures, The Marjorie Luke Theatre, the GuadalupeNipomo Dunes Center and the Isla Vista School Parent Teacher Association serving Carpinteria, Santa Barbara, Goleta, Lompoc, Santa Maria, Guadalupe and New Cuyama.

Performances are FREE

(no registration required)

Coming in Winter of 2025

La Santa Cecilia

January 24-26

Las Guaracheras

March 14-16

photo: Isaac Hernández de Lipa

Learn more about the award-winning ¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara! program. Call Jenna Hamilton-Rolle, Director of Education & Community Engagement, at (805) 893-5829 for information.

The Benefits of Giving

Your seat is waiting! Become a member and join a network of arts advocates that enable us to deliver remarkable programming on and off stage.

The Benefits of Giving

Invitation to a reception or meet-and-greet opportunity with a featured artist or speaker

Complimentary parking at all ticketed A&L events at UCSB Campbell Hall

Opportunity to introduce guests to Arts & Lectures with a pair of complimentary tickets to an A&L public event, as available

VIP Ticketing Concierge Service and Priority Seating

Complimentary ticket exchange when your plans change

Invitations to Producers Circle Receptions with featured artists and speakers

Access to Intermission Lounge in the McCune Founders Room during A&L performances and lectures at The Granada Theatre

Invitation to A&L’s exclusive Season Announcement Party

Opportunity to attend master classes and other educational activities

Invitation to a member appreciation event

Recognition in A&L event programs or digital media

To inquire about membership, please call Rachel Leslie, Membership Director, at (805) 893-3382

CircleofFriendsProducersCircleExecutiveProducersCircleLeadershipCircle Leadership Circle includes all the benefi ts of Executive Producers Circle plus your own personalized membership experience

To inquire about a customized Leadership Circle experience, please call Elise Erb, Director of Development, at (805) 893-5679

Thank You Arts & Lectures Members!

Arts & Lectures Council

Arts & Lectures is privileged to acknowledge our Council, a group of insightful community leaders and visionaries who help us meet the challenge to educate, entertain and inspire.

Marcy Carsey

Timothy O. Fisher

Rich Janssen, Co-Chair

Dorothy Largay, Co-Chair

Kath Lavidge, Co-Chair

Arts & Lectures Ambassadors

Patricia MacFarlane

Susan McCaw

Sara Miller McCune

Jillian Muller

Natalie Orfalea

Tom Sturgess

Anne Smith Towbes

Lynda Weinman

Cliff Wyatt

Merryl Snow Zegar

Arts & Lectures is proud to acknowledge our Ambassadors, volunteers who help ensure the sustainability of our program by cultivating new supporters and assisting with fundraising activities.

Winnie Dunbar

Donna Fellows

Belle Hahn

Eva Haller

Robin Himovitz

Luci Janssen

Maxine Prisyon

Lily Hahn Shining

Arts & Lectures Program Advisor

Bruce Heavin

Leadership Circle

Heather Sturgess

Anne Smith Towbes

Sherry Villanueva

Crystal Wyatt

Our Leadership Circle members, a group of key visionaries giving $10,000 to $100,000 or more each year, make a significant, tangible difference in the community and help bring A&L’s roster of premier artists and global thinkers to Santa Barbara. We are proud to recognize their philanthropy.

$100,000+

Jody & John Arnhold

Audrey & Timothy O. Fisher ◊ ‡

G.A. Fowler Family Foundation

Connie Frank & Evan Thompson

Martha Gabbert

Eva & Yoel Haller ◊

$50,000+

Patricia Bragg Foundation Cancer Foundation of Santa Barbara

Marcy Carsey

Justin Brooks Fisher Foundation

$25,000+

Betsy Atwater

Mary Becker ‡

Gary Bradhering & Sheraton Kalouria

Linda Stafford Burrows

Marcia & John Mike Cohen ‡

Margo Cohen-Feinberg

Robin & Roger Himovitz

Manitou Fund

Sara Miller McCune ◊ ‡

Jillian & Pete Muller

Natalie Orfalea & Lou Buglioli

Sage Publishing ‡

The Shanbrom Family Foundation

William H. Kearns Foundation ‡

Dorothy Largay & Wayne Rosing ◊

Susan McCaw

Lynda Weinman & Bruce Heavin ◊ ‡

Dick Wolf

Laura & Geofrey Wyatt

Zegar Family Foundation

Anonymous (2)

Laura & Kevin O’Connor

Barbara Stupay

Heather & Tom Sturgess ◊ ‡

Luci & Rich Janssen ‡

Ellen & Peter O. Johnson

Siri & Bob Marshall

Marilyn & Dick Mazess

Montecito Bank & Trust

Merrill Sherman

Russell Steiner

Stone Family Foundation

Sheila Wald

Dr. Bob Weinman

Susan & Bruce Worster

Crystal & Cliff Wyatt

$10,000+

Allyson & Todd Aldrich

Leslie Sweem Bhutani

Jennifer & Jonathan Blum

Tracy & Michael Bollag

Albert & Elaine Borchard Foundation

Christine Bruce & John Hilliard

Sarah & Roger Chrisman

NancyBell Coe & William Burke ‡

David & Debby Cohn

Bettina & Glenn Duval

Jane Eagleton

Donna M. Fellows & Dave Johnson

Producers Circle

Gainey Foundation

Robyn & Larry Gottesdiener

Lisa & Mitchell Green

Little One Foundation

Lucky One Foundation and Hahn Shining Family

Jacquie & Harry McMahon

Holliday McManigal

Judy Wainwright Mitchell & Jim Mitchell

John C. Mithun Foundation

Northern Trust

Stacy & Ron Pulice

Sharon & Bill Rich

Julie Ringler & Richard Powell

Towbes Fund for the Performing Arts, a field of interest fund of the Santa Barbara Foundation

Anne Smith Towbes ‡ Williams-Corbett Foundation

Nicole & Kirt Woodhouse

Monica Wyatt & Mark Horowitz

Anonymous

Arts & Lectures gratefully recognizes the commitment and generosity of our Producers Circle members, who have made gifts between $2,500 and $9,999. Recognition is based upon a donor’s cumulative giving/pledges within a 12-month period.

$5,000+

Executive Producers Circle

Elizabeth & Andrew Butcher

Annette & Dr. Richard Caleel

Scott Charney & Ellen McDermott Charney

Olivia Erschen & Steve Starkey

Katrina Firlik

Andrea & Mark Gabbay

Pamela Gann & David Hardee

$2,500+ Producers Circle

Roxana Anson

Martha & Bruce Atwater

Marta Babson

Nancy Barasch

Jill & Arnie Bellowe

Deirdre & Fraser Black

Susan D. Bowey

Victoria Hendler Broom

Drs. Paula & Thomas* Bruice

Sherri Bryan & Tim Dewar

C & J Colmar Foundation

Susan & Claude Case

Lilyan Cuttler & Ned Seder

Dorothy Daniels

Deborah David & Norman A. Kurland

Winnie & Hod Dunbar

Eva Ein

Julia Emerson

Cynthia Enlow & Elise Antrim

Richard Flacks

Tisha Ford

Charlie Franciscus

& Dr. Herb Rogove

Bunny Freidus

Nanette & Jeff Giordano

Shari & George Isaac

Ann Jackson Family Foundation

Margaret & Barry Kemp

Maia Kikerpill & Daniel Nash

Cindy & Steve Lyons

Suzanne & Duncan Mellichamp

Scott D. Miller

Patricia & Michael French

Priscilla & Jason* Gaines

Linda Gorin - In Memory of

Arnold B. Gorin, M.D.

Grafskoy Hindeloopen Limited, LLC

Tricia & Don Green

Paul Guido & Stephen Blain

Barbara Gural

Daniel Halsted

Rosie Hart

Ruth & Alan Heeger

Mandy & Daniel Hochman

Carolyn Holmquist

Donna & Daniel Hone

Andrea & Richard Hutton

Carolyn Jabs & David Zamichow

Lauren Katz

Connie & Richard Kennelly

Linda Kitchen ‡

Larry Koppelman

Pat Lambert & Rick Dahlquist

Jacqueline* & Robert Laskoff

Karen Lehrer & Steve Sherwin

Janice & David Levasheff

Denise & George Lilly

Michael Millhollan & Linda Hedgepeth

Mission Wealth

Lisa Reich & Bob Johnson ◊

Kyra & Tony Rogers

Eva & Bryan Schreier

Laurie Seigel & Joseph Nosofsky

Randall & Roxanna Solakian

Joan Speirs

Towbes Foundation

David Tufts & Cris Dovich

Sandra & Sam Tyler

Beth & George F. Wood

Anonymous (4)

Peggy Lubchenco & Steve Gaines

Nancy & Mike McConnell

Nancy McGrath

Amanda McIntyre

Peter Melnick

Harriet Mosson

Nanette & Henry Nevins

Elizabeth & Charles Newman

Dale & Michael Nissenson

Jan Oetinger

Joan Pascal & Ted Rhodes

Lynn Pearl

Ann & Dante Pieramici

Ann Pless

Andrew & Liisa Primack

Susannah E. Rake

Justine Roddick & Tina Schlieske

Jean Rogers

Susan J. Rose

Gayle* & Charles Rosenberg

Ginger Salazar & Brett Matthews

Santa Barbara Skin Institute and Roberta Sengelmann M.D.

Jo & Ken Saxon

Karen Shapiro & Richard Appelbaum

Anitra Sheen

Holly & Lanny Sherwin

Rebecca Sokol Smith

Lynne Sprecher

Carol Spungen

Elisa & Marc Stad

Dale & Gregory Stamos

Debra & Stephen Stewart

Sheila Stone

Mary Jo Swalley ◊

Denise & James Taylor

Amy & George Tharakan

Christine Van Gieson & John Benson

Kathryn & Alan Van Vliet

Dianne & Daniel Vapnek

Sherry & Jim Villanueva

Elizabeth Von Summer-Moller & John Moller

Kathryn Washburn

Dr. Richard Watts

Alexis & Mike Weaver

Kathy Weber

Circle of Friends

$1,000+

Jim Chiddix

Cid & Thomas* Frank

Judith L. Hopkinson ‡

Sandra Howard

Janet & Robert Kates

$500+

Michael & Marilyn Avenali

Peggy & Steve Barnes

Rochelle & Mark Bookspan

Linda & Peter Beuret

Ann & David Dwelley

$250+

Penny & Michael Arntz

Harold Baer

Yun-Seng Chao

Edward & William* DeLoreto

Victoria Dillon

$100+

Rene Aiu

Lynn & Joel Altschul

Vickie Ascolese & Richard Vincent

Susan Badger

Kirsten Baillie

Deborah Barr

Thomas Beland & Laurel Luby

Rosalie Benitez Poe

Jane Brody & Royce Adams

Vikki Cavalletto

Michael Chabinyc

Kathleen Copeland

Tony Cossa

Jeanette Curci

Lila Deeds

Mary Degruy

Joan & Thomas Dent

Elizabeth Downing & Peter Hasler

Cinda & Donnelley Erdman

Danson Kiplagat

Irene Marsi

Mary & Mark Maxson

Nancy & Douglas Norberg

Dodd & Beth Geiger

Kris & Eric Green

Diana Katsenes

Elinor & James Langer

Melinda & Aaron Lewis

Paul Finkel

James & Diane Giles

Nancy Goldberg

Jody Holehouse

Cheryl & G.L. Justice

Lorne Fienberg

Lori Frank

Betty H. Fussell

Jane Gutman

Laura & Michael Hamman

Lee Heller

Lauren Hobratsch

Andriana Hohlbauch

Deborah & Jay James

Stacey & Raymond Janik

Susan Kadner

A.J. Kamp

Lois Kaplan

Jean Keely

Katherine Corley Kenna

Thomas Kren

Pita Khorsandi

Laurie King

Antonia LaRocca

& Christopher Johnson

Minie & Hjalmer Pompe

van Meerdervoort

Josephine Powe

Eileen Read

Robin Rickershauser

Priscilla & Forrest Mori

Almeda & J. Roger Morrison

Stephanie Mutz

Carol & Stephen Newman

Oshay Family Foundation

Anna & Peter Kokotovic

Laura B. Kuhn

Alan Lash

Sandra Lynne

Karen Merriam

Michael & Arlyn Latin

Marilyn R. Lee

Catherine & Wayne Lewis

Martin Lynch

Rochelle Mackey

Mary Martin

Patrick McNulty

Mari Mitchel

Erik Munkdale

Jennifer O’Toole

Elisabeth Ogle

Cindy Omiya

Fredric Pierce

Deborah & Ken Pontifex

Gaines Post

Karen Poythress

Gabriel Reyes

Kathy & Mark Rick

Mark Rosenthal

Diane & Charles Sheldon

Kirstie Steiner & John Groccia

Claire & Glenn Van Blaricum

Carol Vernon & Robert Turbin

Lisa Youngman

Ayesha & Mohammed Shaikh

Stephen Simons

Anita & Eric Sonquist

David Warnock

Jeanne & Larry Murdock

Diane Quinn

Alanna & Peter Rathbone

Beverly & Michael Steinfeld

Anonymous

Judith & Michael Rothschild

Marco Ruocco

Tina Ruttenberg

Joan & Steven Siegel

Geoffrey Slaff

Britta D. Smith

Shirley Soares

Richard C. Solomon

Sarah Stokes

Terry & Art Sturz

David Tackman

Sharon & Dan Terry

Diana & William Thomas

Donald Thomas

Susan Thomason

Phillip Thurber

Marion & Frederick Twichell

Carole Wasserman

Jo Ellen & Thomas Watson

List current as of Dec 13, 2024. Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy. Please notify our office of any errors or omissions at (805) 893-3382.

* In Memoriam

◊ Indicates those who have made plans to support UCSB Arts & Lectures through their estate

‡ Indicates those that have made gifts to Arts & Lectures endowed funds in addition to their annual program support

Legacy Circle

Legacy Circle members listed below have made provisions in their estate plans to support A&L and ensure our exciting programs continue for future generations. We are pleased to acknowledge these thoughtful commitments.

Judy & Bruce Anticouni

Helen Borges*

Ralph H. Fertig*

Audrey & Timothy O. Fisher

Georgia Funsten*

Eva & Yoel Haller

Dorothy Largay & Wayne Rosing

Susan Matsumoto & Mel Kennedy

Sara Miller McCune

Lisa A. Reich

Hester Schoen*

Heather & Tom Sturgess

Mary Jo Swalley

Lynda Weinman & Bruce Heavin

Arts & Lectures Endowments

Fund for Programmatic Excellence

Beth Chamberlin Endowment for Cultural Understanding Commission of New Work Fund

Education and Outreach Fund

Sara Miller McCune Executive Director of Arts & Lectures

Harold & Hester Schoen Arts & Lectures Endowment

Sonquist Family Endowment

Lynda Weinman & Bruce Heavin Arts & Lectures Endowment for Programmatic Excellence

Government & Regional Funders

California Arts Council

City of Santa Barbara

National Endowment for the Arts UCSB Summer Culture and Community Grant Program

University Support

Arts & Lectures is especially grateful to UCSB students for their support through registration and activity fees. These funds directly support lower student ticket prices and educational outreach by A&L artists and writers who visit classes.

Arts & Lectures Staff

Celesta M. Billeci, Miller McCune Executive Director

Meghan Bush, Associate Director

Ashley Aquino, Contracts Administrator

Marisa Balter, Financial Analyst

Michele Bynum, Senior Artist

Stanly Chung, Development Coordinator

Shiloh Cinquemani, Assistant Ticket Office Manager

Stacy Cullison, Senior Director of Development & Special Initiatives

Charles Donelan, Senior Writer/Publicist

Elise Erb, Director of Development

Kevin Grant, Senior Business Analyst

Ashley Greene Hill, Education Associate

Carmen Guzmán-Matos, Production Coordinator

Jenna Hamilton-Rolle, Director of Education & Community Engagement

Nina Johnson, Marketing Manager

Rachel Leslie, Membership Director

Mari Levasheff, Marketing Manager

Hector Medina, Marketing & Communications Production Specialist

Caitlin O’Hara, Director of Public Lectures & Special Initiatives

Jennifer Ramos, Programming Manager

Summer Rivera, Chief Financial & Operations Officer

Angelina Toporov, Marketing Specialist

Laura Wallace, Finance & HR Manager

Eliot Winder, Production Manager

Sir Niall Ferguson Why We Study History: Standing at the Crossroads of Past, Present and Future

Sat, Feb 8 / 4 PM (note special time) / Granada Theatre

Major Sponsors:

Niall Ferguson, MA, DPhil, FRSE, is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. He is the author of 16 books, including The Pity of War, The House of Rothschild, Empire, Civilization and Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist, which won the Arthur Ross Book Award from the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also an award-winning filmmaker, having received an international Emmy for his PBS series The Ascent of Money His 2018 book, The Square and the Tower, was a New York Times best-seller and was adapted for television by PBS as Niall Ferguson’s Networld

In 2020, he joined Bloomberg Opinion as a columnist. In addition, he is the founder and managing director of Greenmantle LLC, a New York-based advisory firm, a co-founder of Ualá, a Latin American financial technology company, and a trustee of the New York Historical Society, the London-based Centre for Policy Studies and the newly founded University of Austin. His latest book, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe, was published in 2021 by Penguin and was shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize. He is currently writing Kissinger, 1969-2023. Ferguson was the Philippe Roman Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics in 2010-11. His many prizes and awards include the GetAbstract International Book Award (2009), the Benjamin Franklin Prize for Public Service (2010), the Hayek Prize for Lifetime

Achievement (2012), the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economic Journalism (2013), the Estoril Global Issues Distinguished Book Prize (2013), the Philip Merrill Award of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education (2016) and Columnist of the Year at the 2018 British Press Awards. He has received honorary degrees from the University of Buckingham (UK), Macquarie University (Australia) and the Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (Chile).

Susan McCaw

Laura & Kevin O’Connor

Twyla Tharp Dance

Diamond Jubilee

Featuring Live Music Performed by Third Coast Percussion

Tue, Feb 11 / 7:30 PM / Granada Theatre

Running time: 115 minutes, including intermission

Lead Sponsor: Jody & John Arnhold

Dance Series Sponsors:

Margo Cohen-Feinberg, Barbara Stupay, and Sheila Wald

Made possible by gifts to the A&L Commission of New Work Endowment Fund

Presented in association with UCSB Department of Theater and Dance

Twyla Tharp, Choreographer

Ensemble

Renan Cerdiero, Angela Falk, Zachary Gonder, Oliver Greene-Cramer, Kyle Halford, Daisy Jacobson, Miriam Gittens, Nicole Ashley Morris, Marzia Memoli, Alexander Peters, Molly Rumble, Reed Tankersley

Vladimir Rumyantsev, piano

Third Coast Percussion

David Skidmore, Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin

Constance Volk, flute

Program

Diabelli

Choreography: Twyla Tharp

Music: 33 Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli, Op. 120 by Ludwig van Beethoven

Live musical performance by Vladimir Rumyantsev

Costume Design: Geoffrey Beene

Costume Coordinator: Victoria Bek

Lighting Design: Justin Townsend

Dancers: Renan Cerdiero, Angela Falk, Miriam Gittens, Oliver Greene-Cramer, Kyle Halford, Daisy Jacobson, Marzia Memoli, Nicole Ashley Morris, Alexander Peters, Reed Tankersley

Covers: Zachary Gonder, Molly Rumble

Diabelli was commissioned by The Cité de la Musique (Paris); The Barbican Center (London); University of Iowa, Hancher Auditorium (Iowa City).

- Intermission -

SLACKTIDE

Choreography: Twyla Tharp

Music: Aguas Da Amazonia by Philip Glass

Live musical performance by Third Coast Percussion and Constance Volk, Flute

Costume Design: Victoria Bek

Lighting Design: Justin Townsend

Dancers: Renan Cerdiero, Angela Falk, Miriam Gittens, Zachary Gonder, Oliver Greene-Cramer, Kyle Halford, Daisy Jacobson, Marzia Memoli, Nicole Ashley Morris, Alexander Peters, Molly Rumble, Reed Tankersley

SLACKTIDE was commissioned by New York City Center (New York); the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington, D.C.); UC Santa Barbara Arts & Lectures (Santa Barbara).

This arrangement by Third Coast Percussion of Aguas da Amazonia by Philip Glass was commissioned with support from Modlin Center for the Arts, University of Richmond, the Zell Family Foundation, the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation, the Julian Family Foundation and Steph and Daniel Heffner.

Twyla Tharp

Since graduating from Barnard College in 1963, Twyla Tharp has choreographed more than 160 works: 129 dances, 12 television specials, six Hollywood movies, four full-length ballets, four Broadway shows and two figure skating routines. She received one Tony Award, two Emmy Awards, 19 honorary doctorates, the Vietnam Veterans of America President’s Award, the 2004 National Medal of the Arts, the 2008 Jerome Robbins Prize and a 2008 Kennedy Center Honor. Her many grants include the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

In 1965, Tharp founded her dance company, Twyla Tharp Dance. Her dances are known for creativity, wit and technical precision coupled with a streetwise nonchalance. By combining different forms of movement – such as jazz, ballet, boxing and inventions of her own making – Tharp’s work expands the boundaries of ballet and modern dance.

In addition to choreographing for her own company, she has created dances for The Joffrey Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, The Paris Opera Ballet, The Royal Ballet, New York City Ballet, The Boston Ballet, The Australian Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, The Martha Graham Dance Company, Miami City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Atlanta Ballet and Royal Winnipeg Ballet. Today, ballet and dance companies around the world continue to perform Tharp’s works.

Tharp’s work first appeared on Broadway in 1980 with When We Were Very Young, followed by her collaboration with musician David Byrne on The Catherine Wheel and later by Singin’ In The Rain. In 2002, Tharp’s dance musical Movin’ Out, set to the music and lyrics of Billy Joel, made its debut. Tharp later worked with Bob Dylan’s music and lyrics in The Times They Are A-Changin’ and Come Fly Away, set to songs sung by Frank Sinatra.

In film, Tharp has collaborated with director Milos Forman on Hair, Ragtime and Amadeus. She has also worked with Taylor Hackford on White Nights and James Brooks on I’ll Do Anything.

Her television credits include choreographing Sue’s Leg for the inaugural episode of PBS’ Dance In America In 1976, co-producing and directing Making Television Dance and directing The Catherine Wheel for BBC Television. Tharp co-directed the television special Baryshnikov By Tharp.

In 1992, she published her autobiography Push Comes To Shove. She went on to write The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life, followed by The Collaborative Habit: Life Lessons For Working Together. In 2019, her fourth book was published, Keep It Moving: Lessons For The Rest Of Your Life.

Today, Tharp continues to create.

Third Coast Percussion

With nearly two decades of exciting and unexpected performances to its name, Chicago-based percussion quartet Third Coast Percussion (TCP) is the first percussion ensemble to win a Grammy Award in the classical genre. Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2025, Third Coast recasts the classical musical experience with a brilliantly varied sonic palette, crafting music to “push percussion in new directions, blurring musical boundaries and beguiling new listeners” (NPR). In its

latest of seven total Grammy nominations, TCP’s 2023 album Between Breaths was nominated under Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance in the 2024 Grammy Awards.

Celebrating its 20th anniversary season in 20242025, the ensemble embarks on its most ambitious projects yet, collaborating with leading musicians, choreographers and composers. The season includes national tours with tabla player Zakir Hussain, featuring a newly commissioned work and a performance at Carnegie Hall, and with Twyla Tharp Dance in a new piece set to Philip Glass’s Aguas da Amazonia. Other highlights include TCP performances of their acclaimed Metamorphosis program; and a national tour with composer and violinist Jessie Montgomery featuring a new work commissioned by Third Coast. TCP has also commissioned new works from composers Tigran Hamasyan and Jlin.

Passionate about connecting with its audience, Third Coast has been praised for “an inspirational sense of fun and curiosity” (Minnesota Star-Tribune). The ensemble has toured widely across the U.S. and four continents. Its four members are also accomplished teachers who have developed a wealth of K-12 workshops and family programming, plus educational partnerships benefiting thousands of Chicago students.

Third Coast has produced exciting new art through unlikely collaborations with engineers at the University of Notre Dame, architects at the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, dancers at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and musicians of all genres. The quartet has served as ensemble-in-residence at the University of Notre Dame’s DeBartolo Performing Arts Center (2013-2018) and Denison University (current).

TCP has commissioned and premiered new works in a unique, highly collaborative process from Zakir Hussain, Jessie Montgomery, Philip Glass, Clarice Assad, Danny Elfman, Jlin, Tigran Hamasyan, Augusta Read Thomas, Devonté Hynes, Missy Mazzoli, Ivan Trevino, Tyondai Braxton and leading early career composers through their annual Currents Creative Partnership. Jlin’s Perspective, a TCP commission, was a 2023 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Besides putting its stamp on works by John Cage and Steve Reich, the quartet has created first recordings of commissioned works by Philip Glass, Missy Mazzoli, Danny Elfman, Jlin, Tyondai Braxton, Augusta Read

Thomas, Devonté Hynes and more – in addition to original Third Coast compositions. The ensemble won a Grammy (Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance) for their recording of Steve Reich’s works for percussion. They have received five additional Grammy nominations as performers, plus a 2021 nomination as composers.

With strong ties throughout Chicago, Third Coast has collaborated with such institutions as Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, the Uniting Voices Chicago choir, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Chicago Humanities Festival, Adler Planetarium, the University of Chicago and numerous Chicago-based composers.

The four members of Third Coast Percussion (Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin and David Skidmore) met while studying percussion at Northwestern University and formed the ensemble in 2005. Members of Third Coast also hold degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Rutgers University, the New England Conservatory and the Yale School of Music.

Tour Credits

Artistic Associate: Alexander Brady

Production Supervisor & Stage Manager: Tony Crawford

Wardrobe Supervisor: Jeffrey Shirbroun

Lighting Supervisors: Jesse Campbell and Stacey Boggs

Company Manager: Jesse Ontiveros

Tour Booking & Management:

Opus 3 Artists

Robert Berretta, Managing Director

Benjamin Maimin, Chief Operating Officer

Jemma Lehner, Associate Manager

Major support for the Twyla Tharp Dance Foundation is provided by Jay Franke and David Herro. Funding for the 60th Tour made possible by Jody and John Arnhold, Valerie and Chuck Diker, Peter and Sarah Finn, Sarah Hoover, Bill Miller, James Nederlander Jr., Patsy and Jeff Tarr, Stephen and Cathy Weinroth and Vicente Wolf.

Kristine McDivitt Tompkins

Rewilding on a Continental Scale

Wed, Feb 12 / 7:30 PM / Campbell Hall

Presented in association with UCSB Bren School of Environmental Science & Management and Environmental Studies Program

Kristine McDivitt Tompkins is the president and co-founder of Tompkins Conservation, an American conservationist and former CEO of Patagonia, Inc. For three decades, she has committed to protecting and restoring wild beauty and biodiversity by creating national parks, restoring wildlife, inspiring activism and fostering economic vitality as a result of conservation.

McDivitt Tompkins and her late husband Douglas Tompkins have protected approximately 14.8 million acres of parklands in Chile and Argentina through Tompkins Conservation and its partners, making them among the most successful national park-oriented philanthropists in history.

Through Tompkins Conservation and its offspring organizations, Rewilding Argentina and Rewilding Chile, McDivitt Tompkins has helped to create or expand 15 national parks in Argentina and Chile, including two marine national parks, and works to bring back species that have gone locally or nationally extinct such as the jaguar, red-and-green macaw and giant river otters in Northeast Argentina, and Darwin’s rheas and the extremely endangered huemul deer in Chile.

McDivitt Tompkins served as Patron for Protected Areas for the United Nations Environment Programme from 2018-2022. The recipient of numerous honors, she was the first conservationist to be awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy. Her 2020 TED Talk, “Let’s Make the World Wild Again,” has more than two million views.

About DoosTrio

Three masters and old friends join together in a new collaboration. Kayhan Kalhor, Wu Man and Sandeep Das are established soloists in their individual traditions. Their new trio highlights the ancient traditions of Iran, China and India in a 21st century program. Three-time Grammy nominee Kayhan Kalhor is an internationally acclaimed virtuoso on the kamancheh, who through his many musical collaborations has been instrumental in popularizing Persian music in the West. Recognized as the world’s premier pipa virtuoso and leading ambassador of Chinese music, Wu Man has carved out a career as a soloist, educator and composer giving her lute-like instrument a new role in both traditional and contemporary music. A Guggenheim Fellow and Grammy-winning musician, Sandeep Das is one of the leading tabla virtuosos in the world today. Since his debut concert at the age of 17 with legendary sitar player Ravi Shankar, Das has built a prolific international reputation spanning over three decades.

Kayhan Kalhor

Three-time Grammy nominee Kayhan Kalhor is an internationally acclaimed virtuoso on the kamancheh, who through his many musical collaborations has been instrumental in popularizing Persian music in the West and is a creative force in today’s music scene. His performances of traditional Persian music and multiple collaborations have attracted audiences around the

DoosTrio

Kayhan Kalhor, kamancheh Wu Man, pipa Sandeep Das, tabla

Wed, Feb 19 / 8 PM / Campbell Hall

Presented in association with UCSB Department of Music

globe. He has studied the music of Iran’s many regions, in particular those of Khorason and Kordestan, and has toured the world as a soloist with various ensembles and orchestras including the New York Philharmonic and the Orchestre National de Lyon. He is co-founder of the renowned ensembles Dastan, Ghazal: Persian & Indian Improvisations and Masters of Persian Music.

Kalhor has composed works for Iran’s most renowned vocalists Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Shahram Nazeri and has also performed and recorded with Iran’s greatest instrumentalists. He has composed music for television and film and was most recently featured on the soundtrack of Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth in a score that he collaborated on with Osvaldo Golijov. In 2004, Kayhan was invited by American composer John Adams to give a solo recital at Carnegie Hall as part of his Perspectives Series and in the same year he appeared on a double bill at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, sharing the program with the Festival Orchestra performing the Mozart Requiem. Kayhan was a founding member of the Silkroad Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma and his compositions appear on several of the Ensemble’s albums.

Wu Man

Recognized as the world’s premier pipa virtuoso and leading ambassador of Chinese music, Wu Man is a soloist, educator and composer who gives her lutelike instrument a new role in both traditional and contemporary music. She has premiered hundreds of new works for the pipa by leading composers, while also spearheading multimedia projects to both preserve and create awareness of China’s ancient musical traditions. Her projects have resulted in the pipa finding a place in new solo works, concertos, opera, chamber, electronic and jazz music as well as in theater, film and dance. She has performed in recitals, with major orchestras around the world, is a frequent collaborator with ensembles such as the Kronos Quartet and The Knights and is a founding member of the Silkroad Ensemble. She has appeared on nearly 50 recordings, including numerous Grammy Award-winning and nominated albums such as the Silkroad Ensemble’s Sing Me Home recording featuring her composition “Green (Vincent’s Tune).” She is also a featured artist in the 2015 documentary The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble

Born in Hangzhou, China, Wu Man was hailed as a child prodigy at age 13 and became a nationally recognized role model for young pipa players. She studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she became the first recipient of a master’s degree in pipa and is now a Visiting Professor. She is also a Distinguished Professor at the Zhejiang and the Xi’an Conservatories, and received an honorary Doctorate of Music from the New England Conservatory in 2021. In 2023, she was honored with a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA), one of the United States’ most prestigious honors in folk and traditional art and she was previously the recipient of the United States Artist Fellowship in 2008. Wu Man was the first artist from China to perform at the White House in addition to being Musical America’s 2013 Instrumentalist of the Year, marking the first time this prestigious award has been bestowed on a player of a non-Western instrument.

Sandeep Das

Hailed as a “creator of myths with Houdini-like skills” (The Sydney Morning Herald), Sandeep Das is one of the leading Indian tabla virtuosos in the world today. Debuting at the age of 17 with legendary sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, he went on to establish a prolific international career that now spans more than three decades. He has collaborated with top musicians and ensembles from across the globe such as Yo-Yo Ma and the Silkroad Ensemble, with whom he has performed for the past 21 years, as well as Paquito D’Rivera, Bobby McFerrin and orchestras like the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony and others.

A Grammy-winning musician and Guggenheim Fellow, Das’ groundbreaking new music projects sit at the crucible of ancient tradition and modern innovation, enchanting audiences worldwide with “flawless playing” (Songlines) and as a “roadmap for irresistible aural adventures” (Downbeat). His original compositions have been performed in over 50 countries including China’s Forbidden City Concert Hall, the Sydney Opera House and the Hollywood Bowl. He launched Transcending Borders One Note at a Time in 2020 to widespread international acclaim, which seeks to harness the power of music to create positive social change. Driven by a vision for a brighter future, Das is the founder of Harmony and Universality through Music (HUM), a nonprofit organization in India that has promoted global understanding through music performance and provided learning opportunities and scholarships for visually-impaired children with artistic potential since 2009. He is also an active public speaker, and has presented at The New York Encounter, The EG Conference, TEDx events and multiple university residencies. In 2015, he established Das Tabla School, where he currently trains musicians from over six countries both online and in-person in Boston, MA.

Special

Thanks

Jonathan Haidt

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

Thu, Feb 20 / 7:30 PM / Arlington Theatre

Event Sponsors:

Jillian & Pete Muller

Natalie Orfalea Foundation & Lou Buglioli

Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992, and taught for 16 years in the department of psychology at the University of Virginia.

Haidt’s research examines the intuitive foundations of morality, and how morality varies across cultures –including the cultures of progressives, conservatives and libertarians. His goal is to help people understand each other, live and work near each other and learn from each other despite their moral differences. Haidt has co-founded a variety of organizations and collaborations that apply moral and social psychology toward that end, including Heterodox Academy, The Constructive Dialogue Institute and Ethical Systems.

Haidt is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, and the New York Times bestsellers The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion and The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure (co-authored with Greg Lukianoff ). He has written more than 100 academic articles which have been cited nearly 100,000 times. In 2019, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was chosen by Prospect magazine as one of the world’s Top 50 Thinkers. He has given four TED talks.

Since 2018, he has been studying the contributions of social media to the decline of teen mental health and the rise of political dysfunction. His most recent book is The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, which was published by Penguin Press in March 2024.

photo: Jayne Riew

Richard Powers

Richard Powers in Conversation with Pico Iyer

Sun, Feb 23 / 7:30 PM / Campbell Hall

Speaking with Pico Series Sponsors:

Martha Gabbert, Robin & Roger Himovitz, Siri & Bob Marshall, and Laura & Kevin O’Connor

Presented in association with UCSB College of Creative Studies

Richard Powers is the author of 13 novels that explore connections among disciplines as disparate as photography, artificial intelligence, musical composition, ecology, genomics, game theory, virtual reality, race, biology and business. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Esquire, Grand Street, Conjunctions, Granta, The Guardian, Common Knowledge, Wired, Tin House, Zoetrope, Paris Review, The Believer, Best American Short Stories and The New York Times Sunday Magazine.

His books have won numerous recognitions including The Rosenthal and Vursell Awards, the James Fenimore Cooper Prize, the Corrington Award, a PEN/Hemingway Special Citation, the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, two Pushcart Prizes and Time magazine’s Book of the Year. He is a MacArthur Fellow, a fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award. He won the W.H. Smith Literary Award for best novel of 2003 and the Ambassador Book Award in 2004. His novel The Echo Maker won the 2006 National Book Award. He has been longlisted and was twice a finalist for the Booker Prize. The Overstory was awarded the William Dean Howells Medal and the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages.

Pico Iyer

Pico Iyer is the author of 16 books, translated into 23 languages, and dealing with subjects ranging from the XIVth Dalai Lama to Islamic mysticism and from globalism to the Cuban Revolution. They include such long-running sellers as Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, The Global Soul and The Art of Stillness. The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise (2023), was a national bestseller. Aflame: Learning from Silence, on his first 32 years with a community of Benedictine monks in Big Sur, was published on January 14, 2025. He has also written the introductions to more than 70 other books, the liner notes for many Leonard Cohen albums and Criterion Collection movies and a screenplay for Miramax. Since 1986 he has been a regular essayist for Time, The New York Times, Harper’s, The New York Review of Books and many others.

His four TED talks have received more than 11 million views, and he has been featured in program-length interviews with Oprah, Krista Tippett and Larry King, among others. Born in Oxford, England in 1957, Iyer was a King’s Scholar at Eton and was awarded a Congratulatory Double First at Oxford, where he received the highest marks of any student on English Literature at the university. He received a second master’s degree at Harvard and was recently a Ferris Professor at Princeton.

Special Thanks

Co-creators:

Batsheva Dance Company dancers and Ariel Cohen

Lighting Design: Avi Yona Bueno (Bambi)

Set and Props Design: Gadi Tzachor

Costume Design: Eri Nakamura

Sound Design and Editing: Maxim Waratt

Music: Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet, Philip Glass, Arca, Maxim Waratt

Performed by 11 Batsheva Dance Company Dancers, Season 2024-2025

Dancers: Yarden Bareket, Emil Brukman, Adi Blumenreich, Nathan Chipps, Holden Cole, Guy Davidson, Iyar Elezra, Sean Howe, Londiwe Khoza, Adrienne Lipson, Bo Matthews, Mermoz Melchior, Eri Nakamura, Sofiia Pikalova, Danai Porat, Igor Ptashenchuk, Yoni (Yonatan) Simon, Annika Verplancke, Gili Yaniv Amodai, Yarden Zana

Batsheva Dance Company

MOMO

Choreography by Ohad Naharin

Tue, Feb 25 / 7:30 PM / Granada Theatre

Running time: approx. 70 minutes, no intermission

Lead Sponsor: Jody & John Arnhold

Dance Series Sponsors: Margo Cohen-Feinberg, Barbara Stupay, and Sheila Wald

Presented in association with UCSB Department of Theater and Dance

Music:

“Helicopters Hang Over Downtown”

“Built You a Mountain”

“Riding Bicycles Through the Muddy Streets”

“The Electricity Goes out and We Move to a Hotel”

“Then It Receded”

“Wind Whistles Through the Dark City”

“Darkness Falls”

“CNN Predicts a Monster Storm”

“Dawn of the World”

“Another Long Evening”

“All The Extinct Animals”

“The Dark Side”

Performed by Artist Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet, Courtesy of Nonesuch Records

By arrangement with Warner Music Group Film & TV Licensing

Supported by Batsheva New Works Fund, American Friends of Batsheva, L’Association Pluriel pour l’Art Contemporain, The Zita and Mark Bernstein Family Foundation and Factory54.

photo: ASCAF

“Metamorphosis Two”

by Philip Glass

©1988 Dunvagen Music Publishers Inc.

Used by Permission.

Philip Glass is managed and published by Dunvagen Music Publishers, Inc.

Adrienne White, Director

Richard Guerin, Head of Repertoire and Promotion

“Madre

Acapella” by Arca

Maxim Waratt

Batsheva Dance Company

Batsheva Dance Company is critically acclaimed and popularly embraced as one of the world’s foremost contemporary dance companies. Ohad Naharin, hailed as a preeminent contemporary choreographer, was the company’s artistic director between 1990-2018, and currently serves as its House Choreographer. Under his leadership, Batsheva is a home for dancemakers collectively committed to ongoing research and adventurous exploration of new forms and ideas of our times. Batsheva is a proponent of Gaga, the radical movement language developed by Naharin for dancers and for the wide public.

Batsheva was founded in 1964 by Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild, who enlisted the seminal choreographer Martha Graham as the company’s first Artistic Advisor. It is Israel’s largest dance company, with 40 extraordinary dancers from Israel and around the world in its senior company and the Junior Batsheva Ensemble. Batsheva stages some 250 performances annually with more than 100,000 audience members and offers extensive educational activities for young dancers in its dance school through a variety of courses and workshops. Dr. Lior Avizoor is the Company’s current Artistic Director. Dina Aldor has been the Executive Director since 2009.

Ohad Naharin

Ohad Naharin was born in 1952 in Mizra, Israel. He joined Batsheva Dance Company in 1974. During his first year, guest choreographer Martha Graham invited him to join her own company in New York, where Naharin later made his choreographic debut in 1980. For the next decade, Naharin presented works in New York and abroad, including pieces for Batsheva Dance Company, the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company and Nederlands Dans Theater. At the same time, he worked with his first wife, Mari Kajiwara, and a group of dancers in New York. Naharin and Kajiwara continued to work together until she died from cancer in 2001. In 1990, Naharin was appointed Artistic Director of Batsheva Dance Company, and in the same year, he established the company’s junior division, Batsheva – the Young Ensemble. He has since created over forty works for both companies and set pieces on many others. After almost thirty years of leading Batsheva, Naharin stepped down as Artistic Director in 2018, and continues to serve as the Company’s House Choreographer.

In addition to his stagework, Naharin also developed Gaga, an innovative movement language based on research into heightening sensation and imagination, becoming aware of form, finding new movement habits and going beyond familiar limits. Gaga is the daily training of Batsheva’s dancers and has spread globally among both dancers and non-dancers. Under the pseudonym Maxim Waratt, he composed music for many pieces he created for the company. Naharin’s work has also been featured in several films including Tomer Heymann’s Out of Focus (2007) and the Heymann Brothers’ Mr. Gaga (2015). A citizen of both Israel and the United States, Naharin currently lives in Israel with his wife, dancer and costume designer Eri Nakamura, and their children, Noga and Asa.

Artistic Team

Dina Aldor (Executive Director) was born in 1957 in Jerusalem. She has been a cultural activist in Israel and abroad for over three decades. Amongst her activities, Aldor worked with Lia van Leer in the establishment of the Jerusalem Cinematheque. For twenty years, she co-directed Multi Media, which was then Israel’s leading production company. Reputed for its artistic audacity, Multi Media’s extensive work has brought the world’s leading companies and artists across the wide spectrum of the performing arts. Serving as the executive director of Batsheva Dance Company since 2009, she is active in various international cultural forums.

Lior Avizoor (Artistic Director) was born in 1981 in Petah Tikva. She is a dancer, teacher, curator and researcher in the field of dance. Upon graduating from the Thelma Yellin High-School of Arts, she moved to Amsterdam and studied dance at the Amsterdam University of the Arts, danced with independent choreographers and taught for several years. During this period, Avizoor received various scholarships as a dancer, including from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and the Hanny Veldkamp Fund in the Netherlands. Following her return to Israel, Avizoor completed her master’s degree with honors in the Interdisciplinary Program of Arts from Tel Aviv University, where she is currently completing her doctoral dissertation on dance ontology. In her work, she focuses on deepening the discourse and thought pertaining to performing arts and engages in connecting the dance field to other cultural areas. Avizoor was the artistic co-director of the “Room Dances Festival” alongside Amos Hetz (2012-2015); co-editor of “Maakaf”–an online journal for performing arts in collaboration with Ran Brown (2010-2017); and curator of the Kontrapunkt Dance Series at the Tel Aviv Museum (2014-2017). She has served as a member of the “Sal Tarbut Artzi” – a governmental culture-education program (2012-2014), and as a member of the Ministry of Culture’s dance department (2014-2019).

Yaniv Nagar (Company and Stage Manager) was born in Tel Aviv in 1971. He began his dance studies at the Beit Danny Community Centre, under the direction of Batya and Ofra Hanoon. He graduated from the Thelma Yalin High School and studied at the Bat Dor School of Dance between 1987 and 1992, under the direction of Janet Ordman and Roz Sobol. Nagar won recognition as an outstanding dancer within the framework of the IDF, and was the recipient of a scholarship from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. Between 1992

and 1996, he was a dancer with the Ballet de Monte Carlo, under the direction of Jean-Christophe Maillot. He joined the Batsheva Dance Company as a dancer in 1996 until 2002 when he became the company and stage manager. In 2007 he received the Yair Shapira Award for his contribution to dance in Israel.

Hsin-Yi Hsiang (Rehearsal Director) was born in Taiwan in the year of the pig. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign in the United States. Hsiang relocated to New York City and joined LeeSaar The Company from 2007 to 2014. Hsiang moved to Israel and joined the Batsheva Dance Company from 2014 to 2018. Since 2019, she has been working with the choreographer Marlene Monteiro Freitas and performing in her productions – Bacchae, Prelude to a Purge and MALEMBRIAGUEZ DIVINA. Hsiang is also the assistant choreographer of Marlene Monteiro Freitas in works –idiota, ÔSS and LULU. She is a certified Gaga teacher and a passionate performing artist.

Ori Kroll (Assistant to the Artistic Director and Assistant to the Company Rehearsal Ranager) grew up in Rosh Pinna. She is a graduate of the dance program at the Thelma Yelin School of Arts. In 2011 she was a participant in Batsheva Dance Company’s excellence project. She joined the Batsheva Ensemble as an apprentice in 2012 and between 2015-2023 was a dancer in the ensemble. In 2019-2020 she participated as a dancer in a creative process by Noa Zuk and Ohad Fishoff. She co-produced Hasadna The Dance Workshop, in collaboration with Yaara Moses.

House Choreographer: Ohad Naharin

Artistic Director: Lior Avizoor

Executive Director: Dina Aldor

Company & Stage Manager: Yaniv Nagar

Rehearsal Director: Hsin-Yi Hsiang

Assistant to the Artistic Director and assistant to the Company Rehearsal Ranager: Ori Kroll

North

American Production Management Pomegranate Arts

Linda Brumbach, Founder and Director

Alisa E. Regas, Founding Principal

Baratunde Thurston

Climate Justice and Environmental Stewardship

Thu, Feb 27 / 7:30 PM / Campbell Hall

Event

Sponsor: Patricia Bragg Foundation

Justice for All Lead Sponsors: Marcy Carsey, Connie Frank & Evan Thompson, Eva & Yoel Haller, Dick Wolf, and Zegar Family Foundation

Presented in association with UCSB Bren School of Environmental Science & Management and Environmental Studies Program

Baratunde Thurston is an Emmy-nominated, multiplatform storyteller and producer operating at the intersection of race, technology, democracy and climate. He is the host of the PBS television series America Outdoors with Baratunde Thurston, creator and host of How to Citizen with Baratunde – which Apple named one of its favorite podcasts of 2020 – and a founding partner of the new media startup Puck. Most recently, Thurston was featured in the Hulu original docuseries, Black Twitter: A People’s History

In 2024, Thurston launched the video podcast Life with Machines, exploring the human side of the A.I. revolution – the good, the bad and the weird. To help produce the show, he and his team built their own A.I. model named Blair to move from observers to practitioners of the technology. Through fun and enlightening conversations with entrepreneurs, artists, policymakers, technologists, business leaders, creators, educators and scientists, Thurston seeks to demystify A.I. and answer the question, “how can these machines help us become more human?”

His comedic memoir, How to Be Black, is a New York Times bestseller. In 2019, he delivered what MSNBC’s Brian Williams called “one of the greatest TED talks of all time.” Thurston is unique in his ability to integrate and synthesize themes of race, culture, politics and technology to explain where our nation is and where we can take it. He serves on the boards of BUILD.org and the Brooklyn Public Library and lives in Los Angeles, Calif.

Program

Yuja Wang, piano Víkingur Ólafsson, piano

Fri, Feb 28 / 7 PM / Granada Theatre

Running time: approx. 100 minutes, including intermission

Luciano Berio: Six Encores for Piano: No. 3, Wasserklavier

Franz Schubert: Fantasy in F minor, D. 940

Allegretto molto moderato

Largo

Allegro vivace

Tempo I

John Cage: Experiences No. 1

Conlon Nancarrow (arr. Thomas Adès): Study No. 6

John Adams: Hallelujah Junction

- Intermission -

Arvo Pärt: Hymn to a Great City

Sergei Rachmaninoff : Symphonic Dances, op. 45

Non allegro

Andante con moto (Tempo di valse)

Lento assai

Allegro vivace

Lento assai

Come prima

Great Performances Suite Sponsors:

G.A. Fowler Family Foundation

The Shanbrom Family Foundation

About the Program

Luciano Berio (1925-2003):

Six Encores, No. 3 Wasserklavier

Luciano Berio composed Wasserklavier in 1964; that title means “Water-Piano,” and it has a companion piece composed in 1970: Erdenklavier: “Earth-Piano.” Wasserklavier is an extremely brief (26-measure) and concentrated work. Berio’s detailed performance markings give explicit indication of the music’s character: it must be triple piano throughout, and Berio marks the music sempre legatissimo and teneramente e lontano: “tenderly and far away.” Though it is in a specific key (F minor), this music may be regarded as a study in harmonic and textural complexity. It begins gently in 6/8, and at least one critic has made the connection between this quiet opening and the barcarolle, the rocking song of Venetian gondoliers, and identified that connection as the source of the work’s title. Within this quiet beginning, Berio introduces a brief thematic cell that interrupts the harmonic and rhythmic flow. Gradually, textures grow thicker, there are wide thematic skips and the music takes on an unexpected complexity before Wasserklavier resolves quietly on an F-minor scale.

Franz Schubert (1797-1828):

Fantasy in F Minor for Piano Four-Hands, D.940

The Fantasy in F Minor for Piano Four-Hands is one of the creations of Schubert’s miraculous final year of life, which saw a nearly unbroken rush of masterpieces. Schubert wrote most of the Fantasy in January 1828 but ran into problems and set the work aside for several months, returning to complete it in April. He and his friend Eduard von Bauernfeld gave the first performance on May 9 of that year, six months before the composer’s death at age 31.

Music for piano four-hands is a very particular genre, now unfortunately much out of fashion. In early nineteenth-century Vienna, however, there was a growing market for music that could be played in the home, where there might be only one piano but several pianists, usually amateur musicians. Such music often had an intentionally “social” appeal – it was not especially difficult, and it tended to be pleasing rather than profound. Much of Schubert’s four-hand piano music was intended for just such “home” performers (he often wrote music for his students to play together), but the Fantasy in F Minor is altogether different: this work demands first-class performers and contains some of the most wrenching and focused music Schubert ever wrote. Schubert scholar John Reed has gone so far as to call it “a work which in its structural organization, economy of form, and emotional depth represents his art at its peak.”

The title “fantasia” suggests a certain looseness of form, but the Fantasy in F Minor is extraordinary for its conciseness. Lasting barely a quarter of an hour, it is in one continuous flow of music that breaks into four clear movements. The very beginning – Allegretto molto moderato – is haunting. Over murmuring accompaniment, the higher voice lays out the wistful first theme, whose halting rhythms and chirping grace notes have caused many to believe that this theme had its origins in Hungarian folk music. Schubert repeats this theme continually – the effect is almost hypnotic –and suddenly the music has slipped effortlessly from F minor into F major. The second subject, based on firm dotted rhythms, is treated at length before the music drives directly into the powerful Largo, which is given an almost Baroque luxuriance by its trills and double (and triple) dotting. This in turn moves directly into the Allegro vivace, a sparkling scherzo that feels like a very fast waltz; its trio section (marked con delicatezza) ripples along happily in D major. The writing for the first

pianist here goes so high that much of this section is in the bell-like upper register of the piano – the music rings and shimmers as it races across the keyboard. The final section (Schubert marks it simply Tempo I) brings back music from the very beginning, but quickly, the wistful opening melody is jostled aside by a vigorous fugue derived from the second subject of the opening section. On tremendous chords and contrapuntal complexity, the Fantasy drives to its climax, only to fall away to the quiet close.

Schubert dedicated this music to the Countess Caroline Esterhazy, who ten years before – as a girl of 15 – had been one of his piano students. Evidence suggests that Schubert was – from a distance – always thereafter in love with her: to a friend he described her as “a certain attractive star.” Given the intensity of this music, it is easy to believe that his love for her remained undiminished in the final year of his life.

John Cage (1912-1992):

Experiences No. 1

In 1945, while he was working as pianist and composer for choreographer Merce Cunningham, John Cage composed two brief works that he titled Experiences. One was for two pianos, and the other was a setting of the poetry of E.E. Cummings for solo voice. Cage came back to this music three years later, while he was teaching at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, and revised both works for publication.

Composed before Cage’s experiments with chance and random composition, Experiences No. 1 is remarkable for what it is not: it is without form, without development, without conflict and resolution and without high profile. The resulting static quality is clearly intentional – this music breathes an air of calm. Performed only on the white keys, Experiences No. 1 proceeds along steady rhythms, though that quiet progression is interrupted by moments of silence before resuming. Only two minutes long, the piece comes to an enigmatic conclusion, and Merce Cunningham would later use it as the score for a dance.

Conlon Nancarrow (1912-1997): Studies for Player Piano: No. 6 (arr. Thomas Àdes)

Conlon Nancarrow studied at the Cincinnati College Conservatory and in Boston with Sessions, Piston and Slonimsky. He supported himself briefly as a jazz

trumpeter, then joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to fight in the Spanish Civil War (he paid his way across the Atlantic by playing jazz trumpet on the ship). Returning to the United States after the Loyalist defeat, Nancarrow – who had joined the Communist Party in 1934 – faced the loss of his visa because of his political affiliations, and so he moved to Mexico City, where he became a Mexican citizen in 1956 and lived for the rest of his life. Before his departure, Nancarrow had become fascinated with rhythm, particularly with conflicting rhythms and meters. This led him to make an unusual musical decision: he composed almost exclusively for player piano, on which he could achieve a level of rhythmic complexity and accuracy impossible with mortal performers. In a telling remark, Nancarrow once said that “ever since I’d been writing music I was dreaming of getting rid of the performers.” The core of Nancarrow’s music is his nearly fifty Studies for Player Piano. These have been released on various recordings, and several were choreographed by Merce Cunningham, whose tours helped spread awareness of what Nancarrow was doing.

Nancarrow’s rhythmic complexity fascinated other musicians (Copland commented: “You have to hear it to believe it”), and over the years there have been a handful of pianists willing to master the complexities of music originally conceived for a mechanical player. In 2007, the English composer and pianist Thomas Adès made arrangements for two pianos of several of Nancarrow’s Studies. No. 6 has been described as both “three-part harmony with tempo ratios of 4:5:6” and as “bluesy.”

John Adams (b. 1947): Hallelujah Junction

John Adams has always come up with unusual names for his pieces: A Guide to Strange Places, Naive and Sentimental Music, Hoodoo Zephyr, Gnarly Buttons, and many more. For the present work, he came upon the title by accident. On his way to his cabin in the Sierras, Adams passed through a place with the unlikely name of Hallelujah Junction. It is hardly a “place” – it is simply a truck stop at the junction of Highway 395 and Route 70 – but the title of that intersection high in the remote highlands near the Nevada border caused Adams to wonder “what piece of music might have a title like ‘Hallelujah Junction.’ It was a case of a good title needing a piece, so I obliged by composing this work for two pianos.” Adams wrote the piece for two California pianists who have long been champions of new music, Gloria Cheng and Grant Gershon (who is

also music director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale). Those two gave the premiere in April 1998 at the Getty Center in Los Angeles.

On his website, Adams has provided a concise introduction to Hallelujah Junction:

Two pianos is a combination that’s long intrigued me, and the pairing plays important roles in both Common Tones in Simple Time and Grand Pianola Music. What attracts me is the possibility of having similar or even identical material played at a very slight delay, thereby creating a kind of planned resonance, as if the sonorities were being processed by a delay circuit. The brilliant attacks and rich ten-fingered chords of the grand pianos suggest endless possibilities for constructing an ecstatic, clangorous continuum, the effect of which could not be achieved with any other sonorous instrument.

I begin with only the “__lle-lu-jah” of the title (a Hebrew word), a three-syllable exclamation that bounces back and forth between the two instruments until it yields to a more relaxed and regular figuration of rolling 16ths. The harmonies are essentially modal, staying exclusively in the flat regions of the circle of fifths.

Eventually the rambling, busy patter of 16ths gives way to a passage of dry, secco chords that punctuate the musical surface like karate chops until they too give way, this time to the serene middle movement. Here, the “__lle-lu-jah” motif of the opening is gently transformed and extended above a quiet fabric of repeated triplets. These triplets become the main event as the movement tightens up and energy increases, leading into the final section. I take advantage of the acoustically identical sounds of the two pianos to make constant shifts of pulse (“Is it in two? Or is it in three?”). This ambiguity produces a kind of giddy uncertainty as the music pings back and forth in bright clusters.

The final moments of Hallelujah Junction revel in the full onomatopoeic possibilities of the title. We get the full four-syllables – the “Hallelujah” – as well as the “junction” of the by-now crazed pianists, both of them very likely in extremis of full-tilt boogie. (John Adams)

Arvo Pärt (b. 1935):

Hymn to a Great City

The emergence of Arvo Pärt as a major voice at the end of the twentieth century is one of the most unusual stories in music. Pärt was almost unknown in the West until he was nearly fifty: he lived in Estonia, supported himself by composing film music and working as a recording engineer for Estonian Radio, and composed largely in private. Pärt rebelled against the strictures of Soviet control of the arts and began to experiment, first with serialism (at a time when that was forbidden in Soviet music) and later with collage techniques. Without any knowledge of minimalism as it was then evolving in the United States, Pärt arrived at similar compositional procedures by himself, and his music is built on the same hypnotic repetition of simple materials, in his case often derived from early church music (a strong animating feature of Pärt’s music is his devout Orthodox faith). With his family, Pärt emigrated in 1980 and lived for many years in Germany; he has since returned to Estonia.

Pärt composed Hymn to a Great City in 1984, and it premiered in New York City at a concert of his works on March 10 of that year. For that concert, Pärt came to the United States, where he was a guest of an Estonian couple, Mirjam and William Miesse, and he dedicated the Hymn to them. It has always been presumed that the “great city” of the title is New York, though that remains conjectural.

Hymn to a Great City is very short (only three minutes long), and it is set in the unusual key of C-sharp major. Hymn shows some of the fundamental elements of Pärt’s style in his first years after leaving Estonia: the second piano has simple chord progressions, while the first piano responds with staccato G-sharps – the ringing sound of those high staccato notes reflects Pärt’s lifelong fascination with bell-sounds. The piece proceeds slowly but steadily, and soon bright flourishes break out in the first piano. The players exchange roles, and the music grows more ebullient, but the hypnotic effect of those ringing G-sharps continues, even as the piece breaks down into fragments and vanishes on quiet repetitions of the flourish figures.

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943):

Symphonic Dances, op. 45 for two pianos

Rachmaninoff spent the summer of 1940 at Orchard Point, a 17-acre estate on Long Island that had groves, orchards, and a secluded studio where he could work in peace. There, very near the East and West Egg of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Rachmaninoff set to work on what would be his final complete work, a set of dances for orchestra. By August, he had the score complete in a version for two pianos, and because he regarded this as a dance score, he consulted with choreographer Mikhail Fokine, a neighbor of his that summer. Fokine liked the music when Rachmaninoff played it for him, and they began to look ahead to a ballet production, but Fokine’s death shortly thereafter ended any thought of that. Even by the end of the summer, though, Rachmaninoff appears to have rethought the character of this music. By the time he completed the orchestration on October 29, he had changed its name to Symphonic Dances, and when Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra gave the premiere on January 3, 1941, it was as a purely orchestral composition. Rachmaninoff himself seemed surprised by what he had created, and when friends congratulated him on the energy of this music, he said, “I don’t know how it happened – it must have been my last spark.” Two years later he was dead.

The orchestral version of the Symphonic Dances has become one of the most popular of Rachmaninoff’s late works. This concert, however, offers the unusual opportunity to hear this music in the form in which Rachmaninoff originally composed it – for two pianos; this was the version Fokine heard during the summer of 1941 and planned to choreograph. The orchestral version is remarkable for the opulence of its instrumental color (it includes the rarely-heard alto saxophone) and the verve of Rachmaninoff’s writing; it is one of his most exciting scores – and one of his loudest. Two pianos cannot pretend to match the variety of color produced by symphonic instruments, nor can they match the sonic punch of a onehundred piece orchestra. But the version for two virtuoso pianists offers an appeal all its own, in the excitement of a more intimate performance and in the black-andwhite clarity it brings to Rachmaninoff’s sometimes thick orchestral textures.

The Symphonic Dances are remarkable for Rachmaninoff’s subtle compositional method. Rather than relying on the Big Tune, he evolves this music from the most economical of materials – rhythmic fragments, bits of theme, simple patterns – which are then built up into powerful movements that almost overflow with rhythmic energy. Rachmaninoff may have been 67 and in declining strength in 1940, but that summer he wrote with the hand of a master.

The music opens with some of these fragments, just bits of sound, and over them is heard the three-note pattern that will permeate the Symphonic Dances, reappearing in endless forms across the span of this score. Rachmaninoff plays it up here into a great climax, which subsides as the opening fragments lead to the wistful central episode; this slow interlude gradually makes its way back to the explosive gestures of the beginning section. In the closing moments, Rachmaninoff rounds matter off with a grand chorale (here finally is the Big Tune), and the movement winks into silence on the fragments with which it began.

The second movement is marked Tempo di valse, the only explicit dance indication in the score. Fokine himself warned Rachmaninoff not to feel bound to “dance” music (and specifically to waltz music) when writing music for dancing – if the music had vitality and character, Fokine felt that he could find a way to make it work as a ballet. Rachmaninoff may call for a waltz tempo here, but he avoids the traditional meter of 3/4, setting the music instead in 6/8 and 9/8. This waltz evolves through several episodes – some soaring, some powerful – before the movement subsides to a sudden, almost breathless close.

The slow introduction to the final movement is enlivened by interjections of the three-note pattern. Gradually these anneal into the Allegro vivace, and off the movement goes, full of rhythmic energy and the sound of ringing bells. A central episode in the tempo of the introduction sings darkly (Rachmaninoff marks it lamentoso), and finally the Allegro vivace returns to rush the Symphonic Dances to the close. Out of this rush, some unexpected features emerge: a quotation from Rachmaninoff’s First Symphony (composed nearly fifty years earlier), the liturgical chant “Blessed Be the Lord,” and, finally, that old Rachmaninoff obsession, the Dies Irae. At first this is only hinted at, but gradually it takes shape amid the blazing rush and finally is shouted out in all its glory as this music dances furiously to a close guaranteed to rip the top off a concert hall.

As he finished each of his symphonies, Joseph Haydn would write Laus Deo – “Praise God” – at the end of the manuscript. At the end of the manuscript of Symphonic Dances, Rachmaninoff – perhaps aware that this would be his last work – wrote (in Russian) the simple phrase: “I thank Thee, Lord.”

Program notes by Eric Bromberger

Yuja Wang

Pianist Yuja Wang is celebrated for her charismatic artistry, emotional honesty and captivating stage presence. She has performed with the world’s most venerated conductors, musicians and ensembles and is renowned not only for her virtuosity, but her spontaneous and lively performances, famously telling the New York Times, “I firmly believe every program should have its own life, and be a representation of how I feel at the moment.”

Her skill and charisma were recently demonstrated in a marathon Rachmaninoff performance at Carnegie Hall alongside conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Philadelphia Orchestra. This historic event celebrating 150 years since the birth of Rachmaninoff, included performances of all four of his concertos plus the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in one afternoon and saw queues around the block for tickets on the day. Wang also performed the world premiere of Magnus Lindberg’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and further performances of the work throughout North America and Europe.

Wang was born into a musical family in Beijing. After childhood piano studies in China, she received advanced training in Canada and at the Curtis Institute of Music under Gary Graffman. Her international breakthrough came in 2007, when she replaced Martha Argerich as soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Two years later, she signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon, and has since established her place among the world’s leading artists, with a succession of critically acclaimed performances and recordings. She was named Musical America’s Artist of the Year in 2017, and in 2021 received an Opus Klassik Award for her world-premiere recording of John Adams’ Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel.

As a chamber musician, Wang has developed longlasting partnerships with several leading artists. This season, she embarks on a highly-anticipated international duo recital tour with pianist Víkingur Ólafsson with performances in world-class venues across North America and Europe, which will once again showcase her flair, technical ability and exceptional artistry in a wide-ranging program.

Víkingur Ólafsson

Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson has captured the public and critical imagination with profound musicianship and visionary programs. One of the most sought-after artists of today, Ólafsson’s recordings for Deutsche Grammophon have led to almost one billion streams and garnered numerous awards, including BBC Music Magazine Album of the Year and Opus Klassik Solo Recording of the Year (twice). Other notable honors include Rolf Schock Music Prize, Gramophone’s Artist of the Year and Order of the Falcon (Iceland’s order of chivalry) as well as the Icelandic Export Award given by the president of Iceland.

In a landmark move, Ólafsson devoted his entire last season to a world tour of a single work, J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations, performing it 88 times to great critical acclaim. The 2024-25 season will see Ólafsson as Artist-in-Residence with Tonhalle Zürich and Royal Stockholm Philharmonic as well as Artist-in-Focus at the Musikverein in Vienna. He will tour in Europe with the Cleveland Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, perform with the Berliner Philharmoniker at the BBC Proms and return to the New York Philharmonic. He joins forces with Yuja Wang for a highly anticipated two piano recital tour across Europe and North America and, in January 2025, will give the world premiere of John Adams’ After the Fall with San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, a piano concerto written especially for him. In spring 2025, Ólafsson will perform his new piano recital, the last three sonatas of Beethoven, on multiple dates across the US and Europe.

Special Thanks

Andrew Ross Sorkin Inside the Minds of Today’s Changemakers

Sat, Mar 1 / 7:30 PM / Campbell Hall

Supporting Sponsors:

Jennifer & Jonathan Blum

Laura & Geof Wyatt

Presented in association with UCSB Economic Forecast Project

Andrew Ross Sorkin is an award-winning journalist for The New York Times and a co-anchor of Squawk Box, CNBC’s signature morning program. He is also the founder and editor-at-large of DealBook, an online daily financial report published by The Times that he started in 2001.

Sorkin is the author of Too Big to Fail: How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System –and Themselves (Viking, 2009), which chronicled the events of the 2008 financial crisis. The book won the 2010 Gerald Loeb Award for Best Business Book, and was shortlisted for the 2010 Samuel Johnson Prize and the 2010 Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award. The book spent more than six months on the New York Times Best Seller list in hardcover and paperback. It was adapted as a movie for HBO Films in 2011. Sorkin was a co-producer of the film, which was nominated for 11 Emmy Awards.

Sorkin is also co-creator of the drama series Billions on Showtime starring Paul Giamatti and Damien Lewis. He has several new film and television projects in development. Sorkin is one the preeminent interviewers in the nation, known for his incisive, nuanced long-form conversations with the biggest newsmakers in the world, from Elon Musk to Lebron James to Kim Kardashian and Hillary Clinton. In 2022, he won the Emmy award for Outstanding Live Interview.

Over the years, Sorkin has broken news of many major mergers and acquisitions in the pages of The New

York Times and has been at the forefront of Wall Street news. He reported extensively on the financial crisis of 2008, its aftermath and the government bailout of major investment banks, including the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, and the A.I.G. bailout. He has broken news of deals including Chase’s acquisition of J.P. Morgan and Hewlett-Packard’s acquisition of Compaq. He also led The New York Times’s coverage of Vodafone’s $183 billion hostile bid for Mannesmann, resulting in the world’s largest takeover ever.

As a leading voice about Wall Street and corporate America, Sorkin is a frequent guest on national television and radio programs, as well as a lecturer at universities across the country. He has appeared on NBC’s Today Show, PBS’s NewsHour, HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, NPR’s Talk of the Nation and many others.

He won a Gerald Loeb Award in 2004 for breaking the news of IBM’s historic sale of its PC business to Lenovo. He was also a finalist in the commentary category for his DealBook column. He won a Society of American Business Editors and Writers Award for breaking news in 2005 and again in 2006. In 2007, the World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader.

Sorkin is co-chair of The New York Public Library’s Business Leadership Council and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Sorkin began writing for The New York Times in 1995 under unusual circumstances: he hadn’t yet graduated from high school. Sorkin is a graduate of Cornell University.

photo: Mike Cohen

Facing the Falls

Screening and Q&A with the Filmmakers

Tue, Mar 11 / 7:30 PM / Campbell Hall

FREE (registration recommended)

Facing the Falls : Directed by Celia Aniskovich, 2024, 34 min.

Justice for All Lead Sponsors:

Marcy Carsey, Connie Frank & Evan Thompson, Eva & Yoel Haller, Dick Wolf, and Zegar Family Foundation

Presented in association with the following UCSB partners: College of Creative Studies; Disabled Students Program; Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; and Department of Film and Media Studies

From the Executive Producers Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton, Facing the Falls chronicles the daring, 12-day expedition through the Grand Canyon of international disability rights advocate and entrepreneur Cara Elizabeth Yar Khan. Deep in the throes of an aggressive, fatal muscle-wasting disease and no longer able to walk unassisted, Yar Khan’s journey to live an extraordinary life and shatter stigma against people living with disabilities unexpectedly becomes a deep dive into fear, trust and vulnerability. As the entire expedition team grapples with unanticipated dangers in a truly remote wilderness, they also come face to face with their individual demons, insecurities and internal conflicts. Facing the Falls is a story of fear, adrenaline, ambition, determination, hubris, courage and perseverance against the odds. Co-produced by UCSB’s Wendy Eley Jackson. (Celia Aniskovich, 34 min.)

An Intimate Evening with Jason Isbell

Sat, Mar 15 / 7:30 PM / Arlington Theatre

Jason Isbell has established himself as one of the most respected and celebrated songwriters of his generation. The North Alabama native possesses an incredible penchant for identifying and articulating some of the deepest, yet simplest, human emotions and turning them into beautiful poetry through song. Isbell sings of the everyday human condition with thoughtful, heartfelt and sometimes brutal honesty. Isbell broke through in 2013 with the release of Southeastern. His next two albums, Something More Than Free (2015) and The Nashville Sound (2017), won Grammy Awards for Best Americana Album and Best American Roots Song. Isbell’s song “Maybe It’s Time” was featured in the 2019 reboot of A Star Is Born

Isbell’s 2020 full-length, Reunions, is a criticallyacclaimed collection of ten songs that showcases an artist at the height of his powers and a band fully charged with creativity and confidence. The creation of the album and the period around it is the subject of a full-length documentary from Sam Jones, Running With Our Eyes Closed.

Isbell and his band the 400 Unit released their next album Weathervanes during the summer of 2023. Weathervanes was produced by Isbell. The record is a collection of grown-up songs: songs about adult love, about change, about the danger of nostalgia and the interrogation of myths, about cruelty and regret and redemption. With Weathervanes, Isbell has added to his collection of Grammys, winning Best Americana Album and Best American Roots song for “Cast Iron Skillet.”

In October, just ahead of his latest Ryman residency, Isbell released Live From The Ryman Vol. 2, a collection of recordings from four of the last six years of sold-out shows at Nashville’s legendary Ryman Auditorium.

Isbell also appears as Bill Smith in the Oscar-nominated Martin Scorsese film, Killers of the Flower Moon, which received the 2024 SAG Award for Cast in a Motion Picture. Isbell’s time on set with Scorsese informed Weathervanes. He watched the great director work, saw the relationship between a clear vision and its execution, and perhaps most important, saw how someone as decorated as Scorsese sought out and used his co-workers’ opinions.

“It definitely helped when I got into the studio,” Isbell says. “I had this reinvigorated sense of collaboration. You can have an idea and you can execute it and not compromise – and still listen to the other people in the room.”

Special Thanks

French Alps, photo by Jordan Manoukian

The SBCC Promise has provided more than 7,000 local high school graduates with the opportunity to pursue their dreams at Santa Barbara City College. Launched in 2016, the SBCC Promise covers all required fees, books, and supplies for two years, and is funded entirely by private donations.

This fall a record 2,000+ students enrolled in the SBCC Promise!

The SBCC Foundation provides approximately $5 million annually for the SBCC Promise, student success programs, scholarships, emergency grants, and more.

Your gift makes it possible.

sbccfoundation.org

sbccfoundation.org

6 PM TO 9 PM

Listen to live jazz music and revel with fellow guests while you sip on your new favorite concoction. Reveal the secret passcode to your server and receive a complimentary Negroni.

SECRET PASSWORD CLUE: The famous Route 66 was created in 1926. Which two major cities sit at each of its ends?