New West Effort Nurtures Interest in Operatic Form on County Scene

Although Ventura County boasts a healthy supply of classical music in a given season, opera isn’t much a part of it.

It’s an understandable omission, the medium being logistically and fiscally difficult to mount, and an acquired taste besides. Operaphiles from the area make their way down to Los Angeles or perhaps up to Santa Barbara to satisfy their hunger.

But the New West Symphony has shown some commitment to making opera a living thing in the county, putting on one per season over the past few years. This year, the needle drops on Rossini’s comical “Barber of Seville.”

It originally was slated to be a fully produced affair, but a downsizing was in order (again, the fiscal bugaboos come to haunt) and it will be presented as a concert staging. The barber in question will be sung by an impressive and familiar voice in the area, baritone Nmon Ford-Livene. We heard him last year in “Tosca” and in performances of the “Messiah.” This time out, the comic muse will be required.

DETAILS

“Barber of Seville” by the New West Symphony, 8 p.m. Friday at the Oxnard Performing Arts Center, 800 Hobson Way, and 8 p.m. Saturday at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 Thousand Oaks Blvd. Tickets are $8-55; 497-5800.

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Voices Galore: At this tender stage, Los Robles Chamber Choir Festival is a modestly scaled affair, with but one official concert. But it’s growing. The second annual festival took place last week at Moorpark College, already adding a two-day choral competition to the fest, with a performance slot in the concert going to the winner.

And the winner was: the Royal High School Chamber Singers, directed by Bonnie Graeve. The young charges performed wonders in a short, radiant set that ranged from the liturgical luster of Noel Goemanne’s “Cantate, Sing to the Lord” to the rapid-fire tongue-twisting of the Russian folk tune “Veniki.”

The concert’s visiting dignitaries this year were members of the Roger Wagner Chorale, led since 1992 by the founder’s daughter, Jeannine. This is one of the finer choral groups around and its performance was an inspiration. They covered a sizable range, from Bach to Copland confections. There were beauteous 16th century works, from the worshipful glow of Jacob Handl’s “Pater Noster” to the playful turns of Pierre Passereau’s “Il est bel et bon.”

Roger Wagner’s own arrangement of the Stephen Foster song “Beautiful Dreamer,” with soloist Mark Kelley, refreshes an oft-heard classic, and a quirky encore of “Polly Wolly Doodle” was agreeably absurd.

One of the real highlights of the evening came early, when Los Robles Chamber Singers performed “O sacrum convivium!” by Olivier Messiaen. It’s a piece built on hushed dynamics, warm of spirit but with glints of harmonic tension along the way. The group gave a respectable treatment to that familiar Messiaen harmonic weave, exuding a yearning quality that embodies the late composer’s twin passions: Catholicism and Modernism.

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New Music Alert: When composer William Kraft took a post as chairman of the UCSB Music Department many years ago, he immediately launched a New Music Festival. Over the years, the festival has brought to Santa Barbara many notable musical ideas, themes and guests-of-note.

Next week’s ninth annual festival is less thematically driven than it is simply a compact dose of the music of our time. Hence the general-purpose festival title, “New Music for a New Century.” Its special guests, the Esbjerg Ensemble from Denmark, will be in concert next Wednesday and Thursday, giving a special emphasis to Scandinavian music. They’ll also be on hand April 22 to perform scenes from Kraft’s new opera, “The Red Azalea,” with the UCSB Opera Workshop.

DETAILS

UCSB New Music Festival, “New Music for a New Century,” Wednesday through April 22 at UCSB’s Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall. All performances start at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10 for general admission and $7 for students.

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Percussion on Parade: Evelyn Glennie, a charismatic and virtuosic percussionist from Scotland, knows how to put on a show.

Her performances tend to mix gymnastic abandon and exacting musicality, and her tastes, though based on contemporary musical sources, are accessible to listeners who normally might shy away from works written in the modern era--which is precisely why Glennie has built up a fanatical following over the past few years. She’ll be making her only Southland appearance in the intimate confines of the Lobero Theater next Tuesday night, on and all over the stage.

DETAILS

Evelyn Glennie, 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Lobero Theater, 33 E. Canon Perdido St. in Santa Barbara. Tickets are $28 and $38; 963-0761.

Josef Woodard, who writes about art and music, can be reached by e-mail at joeinfo@aol.com.