Written by Mary Dan Eades on August 28, 2013
Artistic Director, JoAnne Wasserman, has been busy programming what is sure to become the most anticipated annual holiday musical event for the Santa Barbara community: The Hallelujah Project!
The 90+ voice chorus, orchestra, and soloists will take the stage at the newly renovated Lobero Theatre for this family-friendly program on December 14 and 15. The new concert format will offer the best in holiday music– traditional, classical, and modern–but always including the perennial audience favorite “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s Messiah.
This season’s concert will showcase music with a decidedly Spanish flair, with Goleta native son and Metropolitan Opera tenor Eduardo Villa as soloist, along with the traditional English “Feast of Carols” by composer Randol Alan Bass and the haunting “Fantasia on Christmas Carols” by English composer, Ralph Vaughan-Willaims with Music Academy alumnus DeAndre Simmons, as soloist in the latter. The Santa Barbara Children’s Chorus will join the Choral Society chorus to add child-like magic of the holiday season to the event. There will also be a special celebrity guest narrator to be announced closer to concert time! Bring the whole family! There will be something for every age and musical taste.
Come get your annual ‘Hallelujah’ on!
Tickets ($25, $35, and $45) will go on sale through the Lobero box office in November, when the box office reopens!
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.