CAMA to Present LA Phil in Gala Concert

Community Arts Music Association (CAMA) of Santa Barbara will celebrate its longstanding relationship with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a Gala 100th Anniversary Concert featuring the acclaimed orchestra at the Granada Theatre on Friday, March 6 – 100 years to the day from the LA Phil’s first performance in Santa Barbara on March 6, 1920. Conducted by Music and Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, the performance will include Ives’ Symphony No. 2 and Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, “From the New World.” The concert will begin at 7 pm.

“CAMA’s unique relationship with the Los Angeles Philharmonic has seen the orchestra perform almost 300 concerts in Santa Barbara with many of the greatest conductors of the past century, among them Otto Klemperer, Leopold Stokowski, Bruno Walter, Zubin Mehta, André Previn, Simon Rattle, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Esa-Pekka Salonen, to name just a few. We are honored to have collaborated with this great American orchestra and look forward to continuing this ongoing collaboration for another 100 years,” said CAMA Executive Director Mark Trueblood.

“One hundred years ago, the founders of the Civic Music Committee that would become CAMA chose to invest in the cultural life of the Santa Barbara community and invited the brand-new Los Angeles Philharmonic to perform,” said LA Phil CEO Chad Smith. “Through peace time and war, economic booms and busts, the relationship of our two organizations has continued and grown. We are proud to continue this great partnership as we both enter our second centuries, and we are honored to mark the occasion of our first concert with CAMA on March 6.”

Founded and single-handedly financed by copper mining heir William Andrews Clark Jr. in 1919, the Los Angeles Philharmonic made its debut in October of that year in the City of Angeles’ Trinity Auditorium (later known as the Embassy Hotel). The orchestra’s premiere program that month concluded with French Romantic composer Alexis-Emmanuel Chabrier’s España – the same work that would close its first Santa Barbara performance at Potter Theatre in 1920. Already a world-class ensemble under Otto Klemperer by the 1930s, the LA Phil methodically built an enviable reputation for innovation and dynamism over the succeeding decades. The New Yorker’s Alex Ross has described it as the most “contemporary-minded” and “forward-thinking” orchestra in the United States.   

Following his U.S. debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in 2005, Gustavo Dudamel was named the orchestra’s music director starting in the 2009-10 season. His bold programming and expansive vision over the ensuing decade prompted The New York Times to declare the LA Phil “the most important orchestra in America – period.” Celebrated for his dynamic podium presence and tireless advocacy for arts education, he is credited with introducing classical music to new audiences around the world. Born in Venezuela, Maestro Dudamel was appointed music director of the Simón Bolívar Youth Symphony Orchestra at age 18, and five years later won the inaugural Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition before being named music director of the Gothenburg Symphony. Among his many honors, he has received the Konex Foundation Classical Music Award, a Distinguished Artist Award from the International Society for the Performing Arts, the Gish Prize, the Paez Medal of Art, the Pablo Neruda Order of Artistic and Cultural Merit, and the Leonard Bernstein Lifetime Achievement Award. Leading publications such as Musical America and Gramophone have named him artist of the year.

Immediately prior to the concert on March 6, local writer and researcher Hattie Beresford will present a free, public lecture on CAMA’s 100-year history with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the New Vic Theater in Santa Barbara beginning at 5:15 pm. Ms. Beresford is the author of the book Celebrating CAMA’s Centennial: Bringing the World’s Finest Classical Music to Santa Barbara, and her talk will be illustrated by dozens of historic photographs. Tickets are not required for the lecture; attendees will be seated on a first-come, first-served basis. To reserve space, call (805) 966-4324 or email tickets@camasb.org. 

Concert ticket holders are invited to attend a red carpet reception in the Granada Theatre lobby areas beginning one hour before the performance. Wine, sparkling water, and hors d’oeuvres will be served.

Concert sponsors include the Elaine F. Stepanek Foundation (principal sponsor), the Samuel B. And Margaret C. Mosher Foundation (primary sponsor), Peggy and Kurt Anderson, Bob and Val Montgomery, the Shanbrom Family Foundation, Dody and Eric Small, the Towbes Fund for the Performing Arts at the Santa Barbara Foundation, Bitsy and Denny Bacon and the Becton Family Foundation, Elizabeth and Kenneth Doran, Robert and Christine Emmons, and Stephen J.M. and Anne Morris.

CAMA’s 2019-2020 season will continue on February 14 with a performance by the legendary Brazilian guitar duo Sérgio and Odair Assad at the Lobero Theatre. Additional highlights include appearances by British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor (March 13, Lobero Theatre); the venerable Rotterdam Philharmonic, with pianist Nelson Freire (March 26, Granada Theatre); London’s groundbreaking Chineke! Orchestra (April 14, Granada Theatre); virtuoso mandolinist Avi Avital with Québec’s superb Les Violons du Roy (April 28, Granada Theatre); and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (May 18, Granada Theatre).

For more information, call (805) 966-4324 or email info@camasb.org.

CAMA is Santa Barbara’s oldest arts organization, and is presenting its 101st concert season in 2019-20 amid continuing celebrations of the organization’s centennial. CAMA’s mission is to enrich the city’s cultural life by bringing live performances by world-renowned classical artists and orchestras of the highest artistic excellence to our community, and by providing creative, focused music education programs for individuals of all ages.