Written by Mary Dan Eades on July 3, 2018
We invite you to audition for our 71st season!
You’ll be a part of Santa Barbara’s longest running adult chorus (founded in 1948) made up of 100+ passionate amateur and professional singers from diverse backgrounds, accepted annually by audition.
You’ll enjoy studying great choral masterworks (and other interesting music) and the thrill of performing with orchestra to appreciative audiences in grand venues, including The Lobero and The Granada, and in collaboration with such companies as Santa Barbara Symphony and State Street Ballet.
You’ll be eligible to tour with the chorus to exciting international locations. Recent tours have included Prague-Vienna-Budapest; Bavaria and Italy (including singing mass at the Vatican); all across Spain; and most recently a return to Italy (Naples, Rome, Florence, Pisa, and Lecco) to sing works of Lauridsen in the company of the great composer himself!
During the season (September through May/June) we rehearse each Wednesday evening from 7-9:30pm in Lehmann Hall at the Music Academy of the West.
More info about the audition process can be found HERE.
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.