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Join us for an intimate and casual performance in Lehmann Hall
A new chamber music curriculum pairing fellows with Academy artists for intensive coachings results in five unique evening concerts. Each event stars the fellows in a curated program of full-length masterworks to music of the 21st century.

As a part of the experience, guests are invited to enjoy complimentary wine during the performance.

An Original Cabaret
Hahn Hall is transformed in a daring new presentation by award-winning music director Craig Terry and phenom director James Darrah.
The originally devised cabaret of thrilling music+theater that transports audiences to 1922 in an original story inspired by the politically charged Weimar German Republic and Berlin cabaret culture. The production uses the hall’s new 2022 upgrades of enhanced video and lighting technology, generously funded by the Hind Foundation.

Join us for an intimate and casual performance in Lehmann Hall
A new chamber music curriculum pairing fellows with Academy artists for intensive coachings results in five unique evening concerts. Each event stars the fellows in a curated program of full-length masterworks to music of the 21st century.

As a part of the experience, guests are invited to enjoy complimentary wine courtesy of Montgomery Vineyard during the performance.

Entrepreneurial musicians compete by pitching their most innovative ideas.
The Fast Pitch Awards are an opportunity for fellows to develop and share ideas for new ventures poised to advance the classical music ecosystem.

Each finalist has earned a $1,000 cash prize and competes for the $5,000 grand prize in the final round.

Part of the Innovation Institute curriculum.

Led by Jorja Fleezanis (Jun 21), Frank Almond (Jun 28), Rainer Honeck (Jul 5), Sibbi Bernhardsson (Jul 19), Martin Beaver (Jul 13 & 26), Glenn Dicterow (Aug 2) & Philip Setzer (Aug 3)
Public masterclasses have been at the heart of the Academy experience since its inception
Cheer on the fellows and learn more about the music and the art of performance.

Have you ever wanted to hear from a conductor about how they put a program together and what you should listen for?

This is your rare opportunity to hear directly from our Academy Festival Orchestra conductors about each concert. Enjoy wine or beer and bites while the conductors share their stories and welcome you to ask questions.

Academy Festival Orchestra
Conducted by Stéphane Denève
The evening features Maurice Ravel’s masterpiece plus Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Third Symphony.

“Bee” sure to buzz on over to your AG Museum to celebrate National Honey Bee Day! During our normal 11am-5pm hours visitors can stop by our observation hive to welcome our new bee colony to the neighborhood. Afterwards you may choose to browse a mini-boutique of bee-themed merchandise from local Ventura County vendors, check out our newly-installed ‘Save the Pollinators’ art exhibit by C.R.E.W.’s Green Valley project, and explore our beautiful bee-friendly gardens. Enjoy a free plant giveaway from our Master Gardeners.

Then from 12pm-2pm join us for a special celebration of our pollinator pals and the role they play in supporting agriculture! Volunteers will help kids and adults make their own craft honey bee out of pipe cleaners or choose to craft a rolled-beeswax candle, while visiting beekeepers share fun facts and samples of delicious honey. From 1:00pm-1:45pm, families can participate in a honey bee-themed sing-and-dance-along. Kids will learn a few things about “Bee-havior” while earning some delicious honey sticks (with parental permission, of course)!

The Museum is open from 11am-5pm, admission is FREE, and our observational honey bee hive can be experienced on National Honey Bee Day or any other time you visit the AG!

For novelist Melina Sempill Watts and artist Jeff Sojka, falling in love with a landscape means interconnecting the lives of the plants and animals that make it alive. Watts’ first novel Tree is an exploration of 229 years in the life of a California live oak from the point of view of … the tree. Sojka dove into the book and painted his vision of the tree’s reality, each painting honoring the aliveness and richness of California’s landscapes. This multimedia experiment, with the exhibit being available both on-site and virtually, will offer the audience the opportunity to expand their imagination, stepping into the life of a tree from multiple vantage points. Consider the world from the plants’ perspective: begin going wild.

From childhood in Topanga, California, Melina Sempill Watts interconnected with the outdoors. After UCLA, (B.A., history,) Watts worked in Hollywood for Peter Horton, Ed Zwick, Kathleen Kennedy and Dreamworks before moving into conservation. Published in Sierra Magazine, Earth Island Journal and the New York Times, Tree is her first novel.

Jeff Sojka grew up in the Bay Area, sailing, hiking and painting. Earning an art scholarship after high school, Sojka toured the great museums of Europe, studying and painting. After UCSB, then SDSU, he joined an ad agency, leaving to paint iconic California landscapes that glow with an internal luminosity.

The show starts on Friday, August 26, 2022 and runs through October 2, 2022.
The exhibit is held in tandem with an event series.

Made possible in part by Arts Ventura

With the return of a full-blown Santa Barbara Old Spanish Days Fiesta in 2022 also comes a full-scale “Project Fiesta!”, the annual Santa Barbara Historical Museum exhibition that celebrates the traditions of this beloved citywide celebration. Due to pandemic restrictions, the Museum presented limited Fiesta exhibits during the past three years, including one held entirely outdoors. This year’s “Project Fiesta!” is back inside the Museum and features displays of beautifully restored costumes, shawls, posters, artwork, artifacts, historical photos, and some surprises.

For more about the exhibit, which is on view through September 11, 2022, visit www.sbhistorical.org. For information about Old Spanish Days Fiesta visit www.sbfiesta.org.


“We want to go all-out for a major Fiesta exhibition for its hundredth anniversary in two years,” says Harwood. “Our collection is vast, but there are some gaps, so we are asking the public for their help. For example, we want to exhibit the colorful posters from every year that they were made, and more film and home movies from past Fiesta events would be terrific as well.”

The Museum’s collection of Fiesta posters includes those from 55 of Fiesta’s 93-year history, including the very first poster from 1924. Thirty-eight posters are still to be acquired. Those interested in helping complete the collection should contact the Museum’s library at archivist@sbhistorical.org.

The pieces on view in this exhibition are drawn from the Museum’s varied collection of items related to Fiesta. The entire collection includes 40 pieces of fine art, thousands of photographs, hundreds of oral histories, official badges from every Fiesta, hundreds of souvenir pins, trophies, plates, and dolls – plus the head of a steer which drew a cart in the first parade, stuffed and mounted by artist Ed Borein.

The Santa Barbara Historical Museum is located in downtown Santa Barbara at 136 East De la Guerra Street. Admission is free. Hours are currently Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. and Thursdays from noon to 7 p.m. Visit www.sbhistorical.org.