Fall 2020 Virtual Concert Series

Students from the UC Santa Barbara Chamber Choir meet with Sorensen Director of Choral Music Dr. Nicole Lamartine over Zoom in Fall 2020 (Dr. Nicole Lamartine pictured second from left in top row)

Faced with another quarter of remote instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic, directors of the Department of Music’s chamber and large ensembles found creative ways to share the work of their students with new virtual audiences. By compiling pre-recorded performances from their students, directors were able to create virtual concerts and multi-media programs that were shared as YouTube Premieres on the Department of Music’s YouTube channel.

Under the direction of Dr. Nicole Lamartine, the Sorensen Director of Choral Music, the UC Santa Barbara Choirs presented a special multi-media concert, titled “Home: A Postcard from UCSB Choirs,” on December 7, 2020. For her first concert at UC Santa Barbara, Dr. Lamartine crafted a program of singing, poetry, and visuals representing the idea of what “home” means to us in this tumultuous time. The video included testimonials from students, plus performances by the UC Santa Barbara Chamber Choir, led by Dr. Lamartine, and Lumina (formerly the UC Santa Barbara Women’s Chorus), led by David Torres, a Doctor of Musical Arts student in Choral Conducting. By including music from a wide array of cultures from around the world—including music from Basque Country, Northern Mexico, Moldova, Hawaii, and Bluegrass music from the Appalachian region in the United States—the UC Santa Barbara Choirs hoped to offer a sense of belonging to all through their culture of singing.

For her first concert as Director of the Ensemble for Contemporary Music, Assistant Teaching Professor Dr. Sarah Gibson curated a program, titled “Finding Your Place,” that included thirteen world premieres of compositions written specifically for the Ensemble for Contemporary Music’s performers by UC Santa Barbara’s student composers. In their collaborative solo works, the composer and performer responded musically to the theme of “Place,” with performers and composers ranging from undergraduate to doctoral students. The concert aired as a YouTube Premiere on December 8, 2020 via the Department of Music’s YouTube channel, and is available to view here. Each member of the Ensemble for Contemporary Music also collaborated in a performance of inti figgis-vizueta’s form the fabric, a piece which provides a flexible lead sheet for group-oriented improvisation and music making. The title derives from NMAI [National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian)] archaeologist Ramiro Mato’s phrase describing the cosmological understandings of the Incan and Andean peoples through description of the Inca Road as “threads interwoven to form the fabric of the physical and spiritual world.”

On December 10, 2020, the UC Santa Barbara Chamber Players and Chamber Orchestra presented a joint concert as a YouTube Premiere via the Department of Music’s YouTube channel. Directed by Dr. Maxim Kuzin, the UC Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra opened the concert with the fourth movement, “Gewitter, Sturm,” of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68 “Pastoral.” Directed by Jonathan Moerschel, the Chamber Players program included works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Igor Stravinsky, Katherine Hoover, Johannes Brahms, Nadia Boulanger, and more.

In addition to the programs presented by the department’s ensembles, several students accepted the challenge of producing their degree recitals in the new virtual format, and had them premiered on the Department of Music’s YouTube channel. Graduate violinist Gulia Gurevich, a student of UC Santa Barbara faculty member Ertan Torgul, presented a virtual master’s recital with pianist Erik Lawrence on November 30, 2020. The program included Johann Sebastian Bach’s Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D minor for Solo Violin, BWV 1004; Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in G major, Op. 30 No. 3; and the “Allegro non troppo” from Johannes Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77.

Graduate cellist Chenoa Orme-Stone gave a virtual lecture recital, titled “Cello Teaching Methods: An Analysis and Application of Pedagogical Literature,” in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts degree on December 1, 2020. The program included cello duets by Friedrich August Kummer, Jacques Offenbach, and Jean-Baptiste Barrière, and featured performances by students from OrmeStone’s private cello studio. Orme-Stone is a student of UC Santa Barbara Professor Jennifer Kloetzel.

Mezzo-soprano Terra Giddens, an undergraduate student in the studio of UC Santa Barbara Associate Professor Dr. Isabel Bayrakdarian, presented a virtual recital with pianist Erik Lawrence on December 6, 2020. Giddens and Lawrence performed “Près des remparts de Seville” from Georges Bizet’s Carmen; Manuel de Falla’s Siete Canciones Populares Españolas; Kurt Weill’s Youkali; “Le spectre de la rose” Op. 7, No. 2 from Hector Berlioz’s Les nuits d’eté; “O del mio amato ben” from 36 Arie di Stile Antico, No. 18 by Stefano Donaudy; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Als Luise die Briefe ihres ungetreuen Liebhabers verbrannte, K. 520; and “Sein wir wieder gut” from Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos.

All performances can be viewed on the Department of Music's YouTube channel.