Written by Mary Dan Eades on November 23, 2013
Santa Barbara Favorite Son Is Home for the Holidays!
This holiday season brings something new and family friendly to the Santa Barbara music scene: The Hallelujah Project! December 2013 will mark the first of what is sure to become Santa Barbara’s most-anticipated holiday musical event and Conductor JoAnne Wasserman has been busy putting together a star-studded program.
The inaugural concert will be multifaceted, and will feature, among other types of holiday music, a grouping of carols with a decidedly Spanish flair, befitting its venue at the newly renovated Lobero Theatre, including a trio of 16th Century Spanish carols, John Rutter’s Esta Noche, and Edmund Walters’ Buenos Reyes. And the big news? To perform the solos for these pieces, SBCS will welcome back Santa Barbara’s native son and internationally-acclaimed, Metropolitan Opera tenor, Eduardo Villa! (He tells us he may even have a few additional surprises in store for the audience.) Mark your calendar for December 14 and 15 today and plan to join us!
Ticketing through the Lobero box office online or by calling 805-963-0761.
Ticket prices are $25 for section C seats, $35 for section B seats, and $45 for section A seats.
(Additional $1.50 Lobero facility fee applied to all ticket prices and convenience fee added to online ticketing by the Lobero Theatre.)
Saturday December 14 at 8 pm
Sunday December 15 at 3 pm
The Lobero Theatre
33 E Canon Perdido
Santa Barbara
American baritone, Ralph Cato has travelled the world extensively, telling stories in song with his warm, clarion baritone voice.
Tenor, Benjamin Brecher has performed over fifty operatic roles with many of the world’s most prestigious opera companies, specializing in the high lying lyric tenor repertoire. He has performed 16 roles with New York City Opera alone. Career highlights include performances with Opera Orchestra of New York, L’Opera de Nice, Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, L’Opera de Montreal, Santa Fe Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, among many others. His orchestral solo repertoire includes Mozart, Handel, Orff, Bach, Haydn, as well as many performances of Britten. In 2000 he began performing the great Irish Tenor songs in a concert produced for him entitled A Celtic Celebration, Twenty years later, the show has become a North American hit with performances with 45 Symphonies in North America. Ben continues his discography having added his twelfth recording in 2016 Forgotten Liszt, with pianist Robert Koenig, and will record a new release in 2022 entitled “Three Centuries of Thomas Moore” including the music of Britten, Berlioz, and Sarah Gibson on MSR Classics. He is a Professor of Voice at University of California Santa Barbara, where he has served as the Head of Voice.
Tracy Van Fleet is pleased to return to the Santa Barbara Choral Society. As a soloist, she has performed with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Lüneburg Symphony in Germany, Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río in Mexico, Pasadena Symphony, Naples Philharmonic, Los Angeles Bach Festival, San Diego Chamber Orchestra, Colorado Philharmonic, USC Symphony and Chorus, and others. She has had many appearances with the Los Angeles Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Opera Pacific, San Diego Opera and Opera Colorado.
Born and raised in Southern California, April Amante is a versatile soprano with expertise and facility in repertoire spanning from early music to contemporary musical theater.