After just about proudly owning the panorama of Santa Barbara’s summertime classical music scene for eight weeks, the Music Academy got here to a momentous conclusion, with a heroic sweep and a swoon. In a show of twin angles on late 19th century romanticism, the menu finally Saturday’s Granada Theatre orchestra evening veered from Strauss’ cool and huge tone poem Ein Heldenleben and the extra compact and palatable tune fest of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy. The primary piece challenged and enveloped. The second soothed and brooded. One complemented the opposite, in contrast.
For this particular finale event of the Academy’s 76th season, revered Finnish maestro Hannu Lintu took poetic cost of the massive forged within the Academy Competition Orchestra, which sounded in its most interesting and most polished type but.
Whereas final yr’s pageant had the celebratory distinction of being the 75th anniversary of this West Coast classical music establishment (establishment in additional methods than one), one distinguishing level of 2023 was the swan music of CEO/President Scott Reed. Reed has carried out a lot throughout his 12-year stint on the high — after 13 years of working in different capacities — to lift the bar of requirements and operations on the Academy. The Reed period additionally concerned making precious connections within the bigger classical world, establishing partnerships with the New York Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra, amongst different achievements of word.
On Saturday, Reed accepted a due ovation on the Granada, saying “25 years is a very long time to work for a company and in so some ways, I really feel like I’m a product of the Music Academy. What meaning to me is that each one of my future skilled experiences shall be a celebration of the experiences and alternatives I’ve been given on the Music Academy.”
Among the many common Academy pleasures supplied to the Santa Barbara group every summer season are a handful of spectacular orchestra concert events — led by a few of the area’s stronger conductors. This yr’s maestro listing included Stéphane Denève (doing up the fantastical Symphonie Fantastique, on the Summer season Solstice, no much less), Osmo Vänskä (in a program that includes a west coast premiere of Jessie Montgomery’s Hymn for Everybody), Anthony Parnther, JoAnn Falletta, and Lintu.
The quick listing of the Academy’s often scheduled highs, aside from a dense listing of recitals, masterclasses, and particular occasions, additionally features a fully-staged and newly-produced opera, this yr being the trusty crowd favourite La bohème, set in Brooklyn within the “Occupy” period.
Though journey prevented me from catching as a lot of the season’s choices this yr, some prime reminiscences embrace a deep dive from pianist (and Academy school member) Jeremy Denk on the theme of Bach’s Partitas, the now-traditional opening live performance by the grand Takacs Quartet in June, recital motion by Isabel Leonard, the opening Gala-featured Michelle Bradley recital-ette, and from the orchestra palette, Montgomery’s new hope-infused Hymn for Everybody.
12 months after yr, the AFO, by definition an orchestra with a shelf lifetime of solely eight weeks, manages to dazzle the ears with its stunning levels of experience as an ensemble and in its occasional solo moments. For this live performance, one of many standout particular person spotlights got here with concertmaster Danny Jin’s daring and, nicely, heroic cadenza activate Heldenleben.
Though Romeo and Juliet, with its inherently plot-spoiled tragic consequence for its lover protagonists, glad a broader viewers demographic on the Granada and properly served its pageant wrap-up operate, it was the Strauss which extra absolutely seized the thoughts and senses. At one level within the wide-ranging, hour-long piece — which was impressed by Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony and follows up (and quotes) Strauss’ personal earlier tone poem Don Quixote — three trumpets exit stage proper. Quickly after, the spatialized trumpets problem a fanfare from behind the stage within the “Hero at Battle” part.
In an attention-grabbing twist, Strauss’s transient citation from his now-famed Additionally sprach Zarathustra on the finish of his tone poem had an unintentionally well timed pop-cultural relevance. The long-lasting five-note theme triggered reminiscences of the tune’s cheeky look, referring to the opening scene of 2001: A Area Odyssey, in each the smash Barbie movie and opening Trombone Shorty’s set on the Santa Barbara Bowl the evening previous to the Granada orchestral blowout.
Let it not be mentioned that the twain of excessive and low tradition shall not meet. We heard it right here in Santa Barbara over the course of two weeks, on the Granada, the Bowl, and a theater close to us.
Multi-layered kudos exit to the Music Academy, as soon as once more, for enormously enriching the world’s hyperlink to severe music. The Strauss/Tchaikovsky blast proved a wake-up name, segueing into the slack interval of the yr when classical muse goes on vacation earlier than the official live performance season kicks in come fall.
