Sir Simon Rattle & London Symphony Orchestra Perform Three Programs in Santa Barbara

Sir Simon Rattle & London Symphony Orchestra Perform Three Programs in Santa Barbara (March 24–27), Crowning Music Academy of the West’s Four-Season LSO Partnership

DOWNLOAD PDF The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) will be in residence this March at Santa Barbara’s Music Academy of the West to perform three programs under the leadership of its Music Director, Sir Simon Rattle (March 24–27). Marking the eminent conductor’s Music Academy debut, the residency will culminate with a once-in-a-lifetime community concert, featuring selected Academy alumni playing in tandem with the legendary British orchestra. Representing some of tomorrow’s finest orchestral musicians, these 39 alumni were chosen by audition to train with Sir Simon and the orchestra in London, but many were prevented from doing so by the pandemic. The conductor’s newly scheduled Santa Barbara visit is expressly designed to redress this balance, while also crowning the Academy’s unprecedented four-year LSO partnership and kicking off its 75th anniversary celebrations. Conceived as a four-year program starting in 2018, the LSO-Academy partnership saw the principal members of the orchestra and its family of conductors in residence at the Academy during its summer program, teaching and mentoring its young fellows at the Academy’s annual Summer Festival and School in 2018 and 2019, before the pandemic hit. Additionally, as part of the Academy’s ongoing Keston MAX program, LSO musicians auditioned and selected Academy fellows each year from 2018 through 2021. The successful 2018 fellows were invited to travel to London for intensive training with Sir Simon and the LSO, taking part in orchestral and chamber rehearsals and performances, attending mock auditions, receiving lessons, and gaining invaluable insight into the life of a world-class orchestral musician. In 2019, the Academy welcomed the full LSO to Santa Barbara as part of the partnership. Classical Music magazine noted that year: “A good partnership requires solid foundations, and mutual investment from all sides. … This one has both: from the involvement and enthusiasm of the local community, to the LSO’s genuine passion for education, to the diligence of the Academy fellows.” Sadly, because of COVID restrictions, those fellows selected in 2019, 2020 and 2021 were unable to travel to London as planned and the LSO could not return to Santa Barbara in summer 2021; as a result, the upcoming March visit by Sir Simon and the LSO is especially welcomed and anticipated by everyone concerned, on both sides of the Atlantic. Co-presented with Santa Barbara’s Community Arts Music Association, the LSO’s first public performance of the upcoming March residency will showcase the orchestra in music by Berlioz, Ravel, Sibelius, Bartók and Women of the Future Award-winner Hannah Kendall (March 24). Next follows “How to Build an Orchestra,” one of the LSO’s signature family concerts; as in the orchestra’s book and recording of the same name, this will feature music and arrangements by LSO Animateur Rachel Leach, who will be in attendance to present it (March 26). The residency concludes with a major event to mark the Academy’s milestone anniversary next year. This time the performers will include 39 Keston MAX “All-Stars,” drawn from those Academy alumni selected over the past three seasons for the partnership’s special program. Placing the “All-Stars” on stage alongside the full LSO, this festive 75th Anniversary Community Concert will feature more than 150 musicians in a pairing of works by Grainger with Bruckner’s magisterial Fourth Symphony, “Romantic” (March 27). As part of the Academy’s commitment to community access, all tickets for “How to Build an Orchestra” and the 75th Anniversary Community Concert are generously subsidized, and will be available for $10 each, or free of charge to children accompanying ticketed adults