Written by Mary Dan Eades on June 30, 2014
Annual auditions to sing with the Santa Barbara Choral Society have been set for August 23 and 24, 2014. Read more here about opportunities to sing and how to apply to audition.
As many of our singers will attest, singing with SBCS is one of the best gifts you can give your adult self. Being bathed every Wednesday night in the energy generated by the sound waves of 100 people singing at once is an incomparably uplifting and healthful experience. There’s nothing like that wall of sound. Couple that with the thrill of performing on Santa Barbara’s premier stages–the Granada and the Lobero Theatre–and touring to sing in exciting and historic venues around the world and you more fully understand why singers come back year after year and, yes, submit to the audition process to do it.
Next season promises to be an exciting one, with the second installment of our popular Hallelujah Project family holiday concert at the historic Lobero Theatre in December. Then in March, the chorus will showcase Then and Now, a new series exploring modern composers and the classical masters who influenced them, this year featuring the music of modern American Composer, Rollo Dilworth. In April, the chorus will travel to Berkeley to join with the UC Berkeley Alumni Chorus in performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana and finally in May, will be our annual collaboration with Santa Barbara Symphony at the Granada, in which Maestro Kabaretti will conduct the chorus and soloists in music from the opera Porgy and Bess.
How to Audition
Annual auditions, arranged by appointment, are handled individually, privately, for new singers and in groups of usually 3 to 5, in seasons thereafter. And though you don’t have to be a trained musician, you must be a solid singer with some choral singing experience, even if long dormant. The auditions involve singing scales to determine your range and voice quality, a short bit of sight reading, and demonstrating an understanding of rhythm and musical notation. As auditions go, Artistic Director and Conductor JoAnne Wasserman makes them as unthreatening and nurturing as they can possibly be.
Tenors are always in great demand (as is the case for almost all adult choruses) but strong singers in all voice parts are welcome. Additionally, there are paid section leader positions available to professional singers or those degreed in music, especially vocal performance.
Come join us! You’ll be glad you did! Email us at auditions@sbchoral.org for more information.
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.