Written by Mary Dan Eades on October 25, 2013
The 2013-14 Choral Season will begin in rehearsal at Music Academy of the West on September 4. Conductor JoAnne Wasserman and 90+ singers will begin to prepare the season’s repertoire which will include:
A Salute to our Veterans
November 10, the chorus will kick things off in patriotic fashion, offering a stirring choral element to a Veteran’s Day event at First Presbyterian Church at Constance and State Streets.
The Hallelujah Project 2013
Following up on the success of their award-winning viral You Tube video, Hallelujah Santa Barbara! Artistic Director, JoAnne Wasserman, plans what is sure to become a much-anticipated holiday musical event for the Santa Barbara community. The family-friendly program at the Lobero on December 14 and 15 will showcase holiday music, traditional, classical, and modern, but always including the perennial audience favorite Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah. This inaugural season’s concert will include a special celebrity guest to be announced closer to concert time! Bring the whole family! There will be something for every age and musical taste. Featuring: Metropolitan Opera tenor Eduardo Villa and Music Academy alumnus, bass-baritone, DeAndre Simmons.
Verdi’s Greatest Hits with Santa Barbara Symphony
On January 25 and 26, 2014, Artistic Director JoAnne Wasserman will prepare the chorus to join Maestro Kabaretti and the Santa Barbara Symphony at the Granada in a performance of Verdi’s greatest opera hits to honor the 200th anniversary of his birth. Maestro Kabaretti has carefully selected talented soloists to complement the Symphony’s full orchestra for some of Verdi’s greatest overtures, choruses, and arias from Rigoletto to Traviata to Aida. And the Santa Barbara Symphony and Opera Santa Barbara will join in providing educational experience for members of the community. In a program filled with emotion, passion and excitement, whether you are an opera fan or not, you will love Verdi!
Masterworks at the Lobero
The 4th Annual Masterworks Series concert will feature the Bruckner Te Deum and Music of the Modern Masters, with selections from American composer, Eric Whittaker, and Norwegian composer, Ola Gjielo. The centerpiece of the Modern Masters tribute will showcase the genius of American composer, Morten Lauridsen, with a special treat that the composer, himself, will be in attendance.
In 2006, Lauridsen was named an ‘American Choral Master’ by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2007 he received the National Medal of Arts from the President in a White House ceremony, “for his composition of radiant choral works combining musical beauty, power and spiritual depth that have thrilled audiences worldwide.”
His works have been recorded on more than 200 CDs, five of which have received Grammy Award nominations. Come hear the music of a modern master!
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.