Music Academy of the West Summer Festival

Headlined "The Music Academy of the West Goes Big," writer Charles Donelan's outstanding reportage expertly captures the sense of accomplishment and exhilaration that have come to characterize the current season. Check it out for yourself here. 

Speaking of excitement, the Music Academy is serving up an incredible doubleheader today: the 2014 Marilyn Horne Song Competition (winners to be announced this evening on the Academy website) and Concerto Night at the Granada Theatre. The latter will feature a performance of Tchaikovsky's beloved Fifth Symphony and an extra-special guest conductor: alumnus and former Concerto winner ('08) Josh Weilerstein.

And the coming week will see the Academy debut of New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert!

Stay tuned for more musical magic.

The Music Academy Concerto Competition invariably results in extraordinary performances with the Academy Festival Orchestra. Above, 2013 finalist Matous Michal with guest conductor Tito Muñoz.   

Looking ahead to week three of the 2014 Festival, the Music Academy will present its Concerto Competition finals over two evenings in Hahn Hall, marking a format departure from previous years. String Fellows will compete Wednesday; other instrumentalists will compete Thursday. Serving on the jury will be Los Angeles Philharmonic Principal Violist Carrie Dennis, New York Philharmonic Principal Clarinetist Anthony McGill, concert pianist Andrew von Oeyen,and Emmanuel Villaume, music director of the Dallas Opera and chief conductor of the Slovak Philharmonic. Now that’s a distinguished panel!

Daniel Hope

The coming week also will see the season’s first Picnic Concert (Friday in Hahn Hall), the opening installment of Opera Scenes (Saturday at the Lobero Theatre), and the summer’s second Mosher Guest Artist performance, featuring virtuoso violinist Daniel Hope (also on Saturday, in Hahn Hall). Described as “adventurous and brilliant” by The New York Times, Mr. hope will lead a chamber orchestra of Academy faculty and Fellows in a program of works by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Alfred Schnittke, Erwin Schulhoff, and Max Richter, including the latter’s enthralling Recomposed: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – a contemporary reimagining of the well-known Baroque masterpiece.

Expect a steady diet of sensational music, courtesy of the Music Academy of the West.  

The incomparable Takács Quartet brought its trademark panache to a scintillating program of Beethoven, Barber, and Dvořák in Hahn Hall on Wednesday, serving notice once more that it is indisputably one of the world's truly great ensembles. 

Two days later, this year's String Quartet Seminar participants acquitted themselves wonderfully in a program of works by Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, and Dvořák in Hahn Hall, demonstrating remarkable maturity and poise as performers.

And not to be outdone, members of the Academy Festival Orchestra shined under the batons of guest conductors Jay Friedman and Larry Rachleff at Santa Barbara's newly renovated Lobero Theatre on Saturday evening -- an event notable for its extraordinary energy and festive atmosphere throughout.

Upcoming this week: the season's first Tuesdays @ 8 Concert, eighth blackbird, the Academy Festival Orchestra in the Granada Theatre, and much more.

This year's Festival is off to a great start indeed!! 

Jay Friedman conducts his unique brass arrangement of Richard Strauss’ landmark tone poem An Alpine Symphony to open Saturday's orchestra concert at the Lobero Theatre.

I sometimes wonder if my husband Christopher and I would be as involved with the Music Academy were it not for the Compeer Program. Don’t get me wrong, the Academy otherwise has much to offer. The quality of the musicianship is consistently terrific. The 140 Fellows who have been invited from around the globe to participate in our eight-week Festival are extraordinarily gifted. The faculty roster is a veritable “Who’s Who” from the finest music schools, opera companies, and orchestras worldwide. The venues are varied but comfortable, attractive, and feature wonderful acoustics. The administration at the Music Academy is smart, dynamic, appreciative, and wonderful to work with. And the audiences are filled with enthusiastic, supportive, and now-familiar music lovers.

All that said, our eight summers as Compeers have been as transformative for us as we believe the Academy experience is for Fellows. Each summer we know the joy of listening to gorgeous music performed and sung by people with whom we have enjoyed laughs, meals, and heart-felt conversations, often in our own home. Our hearts and minds are engaged each Festival, and our own musical education is enriched by the time spent with these focused and dedicated young artists. Our chosen family now includes some of those people who came into our lives through the Compeer Program. We will begin our next Compeering adventure in the weeks to come and once again enjoy the music played and sung by people with whom we will most assuredly share more laughs, great conversations, and an unforgettable summer. 

It’s been an eventful spring at the Music Academy. After announcing our exciting new partnership with the New York Philharmonic, we finalized the coming season’s roster of world-renowned faculty and visiting artists. Of course, the focus of our 2014 Summer School and Festival will be this year’s complement of Fellows, who are eager to train and perform under the direction of some of the world’s most acclaimed classical musicians.

The 140 Fellows who will attend the Music Academy this summer were selected following an intensive and competitive audition process that took place over six months. After auditions in New York City and Santa Barbara for the Voice, Vocal Piano, and Collaborative Piano programs, Academy faculty and administrative staff facilitated auditions for the Instrumental and Solo Piano programs in six U.S. cities, as well as London and Kotor, Montenegro.

A record high 1,133 instrumental and solo piano applicants participated in the audition process, raising the total number of applicants across all five programs to 1,619, one of the highest in Music Academy history. Given the large worldwide applicant pool, our admission decisions were especially difficult this year. The resulting group of incoming Fellows hails from 13 countries, 19 U.S. states, and 41 conservatories and programs around the globe. They range in age from 18 to 33, with an average age of 23. Thirty are alumni, and the rest will be attending our program for the first time.

With the 2014 summer season now just around the corner, we are thrilled at the prospect of working with these extraordinarily talented musicians, and look forward to hosting what is sure to be a very memorable and transformative experience for each of them.

As I write this I’m listening to the recording of a performance of Thomas Adés’ Polaris given by Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic. In just over nine weeks, musicians from all over the United States will be coming together for an exhilarating summer of musical growth and exploration. Eight weeks later, we’ll be on the edge of our seats listening to Maestro Adés lead the Academy Festival Orchestra through his new work and Stravinsky’s Petrushka in our season finale concert. After a long eight months of visiting them around the world, I’m so excited to welcome old and new friends and colleagues to the 2014 Music Academy of the West Summer School and Festival!

In February I visited with faculty members Don McInnes and David Weiss and visiting faculty artist Jim Walker at a special event celebrating Don's retirement from the USC Thornton School of Music.

We begin the summer by celebrating the 150th anniversary of Strauss, whose works are featured prominently in the first half of our season. On June 21st, Chicago Symphony Orchestra Principal Trombonist Jay Friedman will conduct a brass ensemble of faculty and Fellows in his arrangement of the monumental Alpensinfonie. Later in the summer, Larry Rachleff will conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Fanfare to open our Granada season, and Edward Gardner will lead Also sprach Zarathustra on July 12th.

Our lineup of Mosher Guest Artists this year includes pianist Jonathan Biss, violinist Daniel Hope, soprano Deborah Voigt, and the acclaimed sextet eighth blackbird. Daniel Hope’s concert will feature a special chamber orchestra comprised of Fellows and faculty joining him onstage for Max Richter’s contemporary ‘recomposition’ of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons concertos, a minimalist reworking of these classic gems.

With Daniel Hope and pianist and alumna Grace Fong in Beverly Hills last month.

Piano fans are in for a treat, as in addition to the incomparable Jerome Lowenthal we’ll see guest masterclasses by Choong-Mo Kang, Jonathan Biss, Stephen Hough, and Jeremy Denk, who will perform Bartók’s third piano concerto with the Academy Festival Orchestra on July 12th. The following week, Academy alumnus Joshua Weilerstein, who performed as a winner on Concerto Night in 2008, returns to conduct this year’s winners in that concert, which will also feature Tchaikovsky’s 5th symphony.

Our new production of Carmen, presented in honor of Marilyn Horne’s 80th birthday, will have a local flair, being set in 1850s California, and will take place alongside Santa Barbara’s annual Fiesta celebration. We’re very excited to be partnering with the renowned State Street Ballet and choreographer Bill Soleau for this new production, which will be directed by David Paul and conducted by James Gaffigan.

With James Gaffigan and flutist Emmanuel Pahud in Lucerne, Switzerland, in January.

Maestro Gaffigan will also lead a group of faculty musicians on July 22nd in a very special concert celebrating the Music Academy’s return to the historic Lobero Theater after a year-long renovation. Inspired by Arnold Schoenberg’s Society for Private Musical Performances, Debussy’s Prelude a l’apres midi d’un faun and Mahler’s 4th symphony will be heard in reduced orchestrations for 11 and 15 musicians, featuring new faculty member Glenn Dicterow as solo violinist for the Mahler. In between, acclaimed pianist and composer Stephen Hough will present his own second piano sonata.

Later that week, our four-year partnership with the New York Philharmonic kicks off with a visit by Music Director Alan Gilbert leading a program of Schoenberg, Adés, and Schubert. The partnership continues with residencies by NYP artists Joe Alessi, Eric Bartlett, and Robert Langevan, who will give masterclasses, coach sectionals, and hold auditions to select 10 very lucky MAW Fellows, who will travel to New York in January 2015 for performances with the Philharmonic.

All of this goes on in addition to our fabulous regular series: faculty and Fellow chamber music in Tuesdays@8 and Picnic Concerts, Thursday afternoon free concerts at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and at the heart of our program over a dozen public masterclasses per week. Plus Alumnus-in-Residence Joshua Roman, the Takács Quartet, and a world-class roster of faculty and guest artists…there’s so much to look forward to!

Faculty member Richie Hawley and I look forward to seeing you this summer!

Baritone John Brancy and pianist Mario Antonio Marra have an extra-special treat in store for tonight's audience at Hahn Hall. In addition to Schumann's Dichterliebe, works by Dvořák, and a trio of American standards, the pair  — winners of last year's Music Academy of the West Marilyn Horne Song Competition — will perform the world premiere of Force by up-and-coming composer Chris Kapica.

It turns out, John and Chris have something of a shared musical history. John recently gave arts journalist Joe Woodard the lowdown:

"Kapica and I were actually roommates at Juilliard for almost four years. It was a formative time for me in my musical development, so having a composer for a roommate was kind of awesome. He helped me with a lot of my theory and ear training work — he was already teaching ear training at Juilliard at the time — and also introduced me to so much incredible music. Music became a game for us. We sat for hours together exploring different genres and dreaming up how some day we would collaborate and create something together.

"I saw these recitals as the opportunity for us to really showcase our musical connection, and I am confident we will deliver. Force is a piece that is neither song nor song cycle, but more of a monodrama, a soliloquy of the times to come and how we need to focus more as a culture on becoming closer to nature and being more in the moment every single day."

You can read the entire interview, which was published in the Santa Barbara News-Press' Scene Magazine, here.

Tonight's recital will take place at 7:30 pm, followed by performances this Friday at Santa Monica’s Broad Stage, and on March 16 at the National Opera Center in New York City.

It’s been a month since we headed to New York for a week of events celebrating our grand Diva Marilyn Horne and new faculty member Glenn Dicterow. In addition to the usual flurry of musical activity in New York, the week of January 12-19 included more than a few historic moments. Starting with Marilyn, Carnegie Hall did an outstanding job recognizing her milestone 80th birthday. I have learned over the years that the greatest gift you can give Marilyn is time with good friends, family, beautiful music, and the great young stars of opera and song. Carnegie did this in the most dignified, thoughtful, and fun way as part of this year’s Marilyn Horne Legacy event series. The high points for me as Music Academy President included Martin Katz’s masterclasses (Marty attended the Academy as a piano Fellow in 1964 and was a faculty member thereafter); seeing other Academy alumni participate in recitals and masterclasses, such as Sara Couden (’12 and ’13), Brent Funderburk (’08), Joseph Lim (’10), Mario Antonio Marra (’13), Emma McNairy (’13), Ashly Neumann (’13), Diana Newman (’13), and Diana Yodzis (’13); and the final celebration on January 16 (Marilyn’s actual big day), which included our very own Warren Jones on stage with Isabel Leonard (’05) and Brenda Rae (’08). The Marilyn Horne Legacy at Carnegie Hall can be counted on to provide a fresh reminder of the Academy’s impact in developing the world’s best singers and pianists. Many thanks to Jeremy Geffen, Clive Gillinson, and everyone at Carnegie Hall for letting us be part of the celebration. Check out The New York Times review.

Here I am with, from left, NY Phil Executive Director Matthew VanBesien, Glenn Dicterow, and Academy Board Chair Bob Toledo at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in New York City.

The second celebration of the week was equally impressive. On Sunday, January 19, the New York Philharmonic and Juilliard co-presented a farewell concert for violin great and newly appointed Music Academy faculty member Glenn Dicterow. The recital, which featured Glenn in ensemble, was presented as a gift to the city. As concertmaster of the NY Phil for 34 years, Glenn has clearly made an impression on New York City. The line to get in extended around Alice Tully Hall – it was truly among the hottest tickets in town. The concert was beautifully programmed, and Glenn shined in Korngold’s Much Ado About Nothing suite, the Corigliano Violin Sonata, and Dvořák’s American Quartet, the latter with members of the Antonin String Quartet. I’ve come to realize that New Yorkers don’t get to hear Glenn perform solo repertoire and in small ensemble very often. This is something Music Academy audiences are fortunate to enjoy each summer through our faculty chamber series (Tuesdays @ 8). Board Chair Bob Toledo, Board member Maurice Singer, Sheri Broedlow, and I were all honored to attend. Also in attendance were some of Glenn’s colleagues here at the Academy, including Jerry Lowenthal, Jonathan Feldman, Julie Landsman, Alan Stepansky, Hiromi Fukuda, and of course Karen Dreyfus (who performed as well). We are beyond proud to have Glenn as a member of our faculty. He won’t officially retire from the NY Phil until the end of the current season, so we send our best for his remaining months with the orchestra. Check out The New York Times review.

Other New York highlights included a visit to Le Poisson Rouge, meetings with our friends at 21C, time with Alan Gilbert and Matthew VanBesien, a trip to Boston with Jon Bishop to meet with some special Music Academy supporters, a wonderful lunch with Morrie and Irma Jurkowitz and Marilyn at Marea, a Central Park Loop run with alumnus Christopher Herbert (’07 and ’08) – whose ensemble, New York Polyphony, was recently nominated for a Grammy – an afternoon visit/tour of “Eataly” with Academy Board member Marge Cafarelli (who is about to open the Santa Barbara Public Market – a proud Academy sponsor – in downtown Santa Barbara (http://sbpublicmarket.com/), and a showing of Kinky Boots on Broadway. Many thanks to all our alumni, faculty members, and colleagues who represent us in the great city of New York – and to our supporters who made the trip with me. It was truly a Music Academy experience in the Big City. We’ll be back soon!

As will be officially announced shortly, bassoonist Keith Buncke ('13) has accepted an invitation to perform the first movement of Hummel's Concerto in F Major with the Louisville Orchestra at the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts on February 5th.

The work's title will no doubt resonate with many who attended the 2013 Music Academy Summer Festival: It's the very piece Keith memorably performed under the baton of Tito Muñoz at this year's Concerto Night concert in the Granada Theatre on July 20th.

The concert on February 5th will be presented as part of the Kentucky Center's Gheens Great Expectations Concert series, and as part of the engagement Keith will spend two days doing community/school residency events in the area. 

Interestingly, Music Academy alumnus Euntaek Kim (solo piano, '10) inaugurated the Gheens Great Expectations series eight years ago. 

More interesting still is how Keith's upcoming Kentucky gig came to be. It turns out that this year's Concerto Night audience included one Jeffrey Jamner, who serves as director of school programs and artistic director of the Gheens Residency Program at the Kentucky Center. Jeffrey studied piano at the Music Academy in 1974 and just happened to be visiting Santa Barbara on July 20th.

Suffice it to say, he was so impressed with Keith's performance that an invitation to the Kentucky Center was soon in the works -- an invitation proffered almost 40 years after Jeffrey's own turn as a Music Academy Fellow. Now that's what we call synergy!

Keep your eyes peeled for a formal announcement of Keith's February performance with the Louisville Orchestra.

Congratulations to Keith, and to Jeffrey!

Bassoonist Keith Buncke and conductor Tito Muñoz perform at the Granada Theatre on July 20th.

The Metropolitan Opera's 2013-14 season opens Monday, which means we're on the cusp of an exciting new series of "Live in HD" simulcasts in Hahn Hall (Yes!).

A new production of Tchaikovsky’s romantic tragedy Eugene Onegin will kick off the new simulcast season at 9:55 am on Saturday, October 5, followed by an encore screening at 2 pm on Sunday, October 27. The Music Academy will present a total of 10 Met Opera simulcasts through May 2014, including Così fan tutte – starring Music Academy alumnae Isabel Leonard (’05) and Susanna Phillips (’02 and ’03) – on April 26 and May 11, and La cenerentola – starring Academy alumnus Juan Diego Flórez (’95) – on May 10 and 18. Unlike previous seasons, the Music Academy will screen encores on Sunday afternoons following each subsequent opera’s live Saturday simulcast. Since its Moscow premiere in 1879, Eugene Onegin has endeared itself to opera lovers the world over. Conducted by Russian maestro Valery Gergiev and directed by Fiona Shaw, Deborah Warner’s new production stars soprano standout Anna Netrebko – opening her third consecutive Met season – in her company role debut as Tatiana, the naïve, love-struck heroine. Mariusz Kwiecien portrays the imperious title character, in a much-admired interpretation he has sung in many of the world’s leading opera houses, and Piotr Beczala reprises his acclaimed performance as Onegin’s friend-turned-rival, Lenski. Set in the late 19th century and capturing the splendor and passion of Tchaikovsky’s lyric opera, Warner’s production moves episodically from farmhouse to ballroom, with a powerful snowstorm providing the dramatic setting for the finale. The Sunday Telegraph has praised its “mixture of haunting visual and emotional impact: cutting straight to the heart of the work, [Warner] shows how Onegin is simultaneously about two colliding Russian societies – rustic provincialism and cosmopolitan decadence – and three wasted lives.” The 2013-14 season of “Met: Live in HD” screenings at Hahn Hall will continue with The Nose (October 26 and November 24), Tosca (November 23 and December 15), Falstaff (December 14 and February 9), Rusalka (February 8 and March 2), Prince Igor (March 1 and 16), Werther (March 15 and April 6), La Bohème (April 5 and 27), Così fan tutte, and La cenerentola. 

Subscription and single-ticket sales for the 2013-14 “Live in HD” season are underway. Single tickets may be ordered online at www.musicacademy.org beginning September 30.

From top to bottom, Isabel Leonard and Susanna Phillips in Così fan tutte and Juan Diego Flórez in La cenerentola

Those who missed it live at Santa Barbara's Granada Theatre in June can hear Bartók's Miraculous Mandarin suite as performed by the Academy Festival Orchestra and conductor Larry Rachleff now through Thursday via the website for the classical music radio program Performance Today. Check it out: http://bit.ly/18j46tn

Upon hearing its initial broadcast yesterday, one listener remarked: "The Academy Festival Orchestra's rendition of The Miraculous Mandarin was an absolute revelation! This is one of my favorite pieces so naturally I've heard a myriad of recordings of it and yet none was able to bring out the hidden textures, variety of colors, and masterful orchestration of Bartók like these fine 'fellows'!"

A recording of Vivaldi's Concerto in A Major for Violin and Echo as performed by Academy Fellows and conductor Nicholas McGegan in Santa Barbara's First Presbyterian Church on August 3rd will be available on the Performance Today site beginning Monday. 

In his Santa Barbara News-Press review of Saturday's Festival finale, critic Josef Woodard offers a fitting coda to an Academy season especially rich in musical treasures.

His review starts this way: "Like clockwork, a certain bittersweet atmosphere mixed in with the musical grandeur and precision when the Music Academy of the West's festival came to its grand orchestral finale Saturday night at The Granada. For eight weeks each summer, the Music Academy blithely and blissfully takes over our town, presenting a thicket of classical music for our listening pleasure, spoiling us with a high caliber of music and celebrated visitors (this year, including Midori, Matthias Pintscher, Jeremy Denk, Brooklyn Rider, Joshua Roman, Takacs Quartet and others). It extends an overall serious musical consciousness hovering around the community, from the idyllic Miraflores campus to The Granada and elsewhere."

The complete review resides behind a paywall, but we're happy to make a pdf available. Click here.

Thanks once more to everyone who made the 2013 Festival such a glorious triumph!

Cabaret, the Music Academy’s signature gala fundraiser, can be counted on to deliver top-notch entertainment. This year, organizers made good on that promise -- and then some.

By all accounts, last Thursday's edition of Cabaret was a stunning artistic and fundraising success. Some 520 people attended, and preliminary calculations put the funds-raised total near an all-time high. 

Once again this year, the event took place at Fess Parker’s DoubleTree Resort in Santa Barbara and featured cocktails, fine dining under the stars, and a spirited auction. As is the case each Cabaret, Academy Fellows gave captivating performances.  

But don't take our word for it. Check out critic Charles Donelan's review in the Santa Barbara Independent: http://bit.ly/15z7NE7 

Here are some photos from this memorable evening of culture, philanthropy, and fun:

Hailed as the most talented young American conductor working today, Maestro Gaffigan and the Academy Festival Orchestra will perform a program of grand Romantic works punctuating this year’s Festival theme of “Magic, Legend, and Ritual,” including the overture to Wagner’s Rienzi, songs from Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn– featuring four Academy Voice Fellows! – and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique.

Click on the link below to hear celebrated conductor James Gaffigan on why you should attend Saturday’s Academy Festival Orchestra finale at the Granada Theatre:

http://bit.ly/13puNFW

Cabaret, the Music Academy's signature gala fundraiser, is just a day away, and excitement is steadily building on campus and in the broader community.

Featuring cocktails, fine dining under the stars, and a captivating performance by the Academy's impressively talented Voice Fellows, this year’s Cabaret will take place tomorrow evening at Fess Parker’s DoubleTree Resort in Santa Barbara. Guests will also have the opportunity to bid on exciting auction items, including exclusive musical engagements.

Once again this year, Academy singers were aided in their preparation by the iconic American comedienne Carol Burnett. This is the second year in a row that Ms. Burnett has lent her comedic genius to producing Cabaret. As always, the expertise of legendary mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne, director of the Academy's acclaimed Voice Program, will ensure a superlative performance.

Images of Ms. Burnett coaching Fellows for last year's Cabaret production.

All proceeds will benefit the Music Academy’s full-scholarship program, which enables the Academy to host the finest young musicians each year.

See you at Cabaret!

– Oxana Ermolova

Claire de Sévigné as Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute

Last weekend was action-packed for the Music Academy, featuring two opera performances and an orchestra concert.

The Academy's production of The Magic Flute was a tremendous success, delighting near-capacity audiences both Friday and Sunday. The production was directed by David Paul and featured imaginative set design by Charlie Corcoran. Warren Jones conducted.

From left are Music Academy faculty member John Churchwell, soprano Emily Siar (Papagena), Marilyn Horne, and director David Paul.

Meanwhile, the other half of the Academy Festival Orchestra performed with Nicholas McGegan, the effervescent music director of San Francisco's Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.

The full orchestra will reunite to perform in the Festival finale this Saturday, under the baton of James Gaffigan. And up next for this summer's Voice Fellows is Cabaret, the Academy's signature gala, which will be the focus of our next blog post!

– Oxana Ermolova

Mosher Guest Artist Midori continues to impress! Her first of two Hahn Hall recitals Monday evening met with strong praise from Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed, who noted that “…she played Bach as if the ink were still wet and she didn't know where the movements were headed. She mined notes like an archaeologist on a dig to see what they might reveal.” You can read the full review here.

Midori has been a classical music force since her breakout performance at age 14. Her Music Academy residency has further shown her to be an artist of uncommon depth.

In addition to performing (her second all-Bach recital will take place this evening), she presided over a sold-out masterclass and treated Fellows to a private, 30-minute recital and discussion. The Music Academy is thrilled with the success of this year's Mosher Guest Artist series!