Josef Woodard: Sounds About Town

Sounds About Town

Embracing and Bracing for the Sounds of January

By Josef Woodard / VOICE

ON THIS FINAL DAY OF ANOTHER STRANGE AND STILL-UNSETTLED ON THIS FINAL DAY OF ANOTHER STRANGE AND STILL-UNSETTLED YEAR, rounding the corner to a new year and new flavors of hope, it’s hard to ignore the impulse to reflect on the old and new – and the “new normal” we wish would exit stage left. In terms of live music, the purview of this column, one year ago found the world in a cautiously positive mood, collectively trashing 2020 as a year we wanted time to forget. Any sense of regular live music programing and concertizing was still months away, and the assumption was that humanity (and America) would flock to the obvious necessity of mass inoculation. But we digress, partly.

Fast forward to now, and a new year and season of music is poised to flower starting in January, but not without the specter of fear triggered by the omicron variant’s ravaging path. New York’s cultural scene has virtually shut down, and we wonder, “wither goes NYC goes the country, and world?” Given that caveat, an air of subject-to-change-andcancellation hovers over what’s ostensibly to come.

Santa Barbara enjoyed a rich autumnal harvest of memorably concerts, and the 2021 slate brims with the teasing promise of cultural life returning to regularly scheduled programming. In a sense, the musical new year begins tonight with a pre-midnight New Year’s Eve tradition, as the Santa Barbara Symphony does up its accessible pops ‘n’ hooters party at the Granada, ending at ten to accommodate revelers with midnight-toasting plans. January’s musical menu is highlighted by the longawaited return of the city’s 100+ year-old CAMA, presenting internationallycelebrated artists. The Granada will host the luminous likes of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on January 11th, with conductor Vasily Petrenko and pianist Olga Kern, and CAMA’s most venerable visitor, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, on January 28th, with guest conductor Elim Chan and pianist Igor Levitt as soloist. Note: that program, with Beethoven and Mendelssohn as main courses, opens with an LA Phil commission of young composer Elizabeth Ogonek’s Cloudline, a U.S. Premiere, right here in River City.

CAMA’s impressive roster has as its main attraction the London Symphony Orchestra, with Sir Simon Rattle at the podium, March 24th, and a four-pack of high-end chamber music evenings at the Lobero Theater in its “Masterseries” component.

Another clear January pinnacle in town arrives January 14th and 16th at the Lobero, when Handel comes to town. Opera Santa Barbara, which has devised a fascinatingly diverse and venturesome season, breaks the seeming moratorium on tapping the healthy oeuvre of Handel operas with its production of the 1744-vintage Semele, set here in the jazzed-swirl of 1920s Los Angeles. If memory (institutional and otherwise) serves, the last serious Handel opera came courtesy of Marilyn Horne/Music Academy of the West’s production of Rodelinda at the Lobero, in the summer of 1999. The Baroque opera master’s return is overdue.

The Lobero’s own concert/event roster continues to lure us into the historic theater, and January includes a return by KT Tunstall (January 21st) and the rightlyheralded Anaïs Mitchell (January 29th), who dazzled with her Hadestown musical at the Lobero years back, part of the long-running “Sings Like Hell” series.

UCSB’s Arts & Lectures, which started its 2021-22 in a steady but slow-ish manner, plunges into a thicker programming thicket, with the potent post-grass group Punch Brothers, January 18th at Campbell Hall.

Looking at musical life beyond January, the prospects are bright. A&L’s schedule boasts such highlights as Joshua Bell (February 3rd at the Granada) and Wynton Marsalis’ Jazz at Lincoln Center (February 4th at the Granada)—live and in person, vs. their fine streamed concert in the fall of 2020. Of high interest is phase two of the Danish String Quartet “Doppelganger Project,” at Campbell Hall on April 27th, with Schubert melded in with newly-commissioned works inspired by Schubert. DSQ gave us one of the very finest musical evenings of 2021, at Rockwood in October. Acclaimed Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov, whose Bach interpretation captivated an SRO crowd at Campbell Hall, pre-pandemic, returns with a diverse recital program on April 30th.

The Santa Barbara Bowl springs back to full season action with a season already partially gone public, kicking off with alt J and Portugal. The Man on March 26th and closing (so far) with a double shot of mighty star-next-door and Hawaiian in Santa Barbara Jack Johnson, October 4th and 5th.

Lord willing and the variants don’t rise, we’re in for a busy, therapeutic musical cavalcade in the 805.

Pianist Olga Kern and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra will be presented by CAMA at the Granada on January 11th

Photo by Chris Lee

Courtesy Photo

KT Tunstall will perform at the Lobero Theater on January 21st

Enjoy the Punch Brothers at UCBS Campbell Hall on January 18th