Love Love Love at the Granada

Choral Society and State St. Ballet Team with George Martin

Valentine’s Day is perfect for falling in love again, and that’s what happened at Love Love Love at the Granada on Saturday night. Some already well-loved music, including Felix Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Beatles songbook, and some of our favorite people, like JoAnne Wasserman and the Santa Barbara Choral Society, the State Street Ballet Company, and Beatles’ producer George Martin, all got together, and the result was like falling in love again.

Hallelujah Syndrome : Like clockwork, Handel's ‘Messiah’ shows up at Christmas-time, as it did in the Santa Barbara Choral Society's wonderful performance at The Granada over the weekend

JOSEF WOODARD, NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT

There may be an operative irony in the fact that the greatest and deepest cultural tradition of the Christmas season, Handel's oratorio "Messiah," wasn't originally intended for the season. And it is an irony that is trotted out annually, like Aunt Zelda's fruitcake, and moves us still.

JOSEF WOODARD, NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT

Though immortalized as one of history's greatest opera composers, in Requiem, Guiseppi Verdi created one of the greatest and most enduring classics of the choral music repertoire, particularly among major 19th century choral works. Even so, as requiems go, Verdi's has flexible functions.

The concert brings renewed power and emotion to a piece sang 65 years ago by Nazi prisoners

By Margo Kline, Noozhawk Contributor | Published on 05.19.2009

The Santa Barbara Choral Society’s presentation of Giuseppi Verdi’s Requiem last weekend at the Granada Theatre was dedicated to the memory of the prisoners who sang it 65 years ago while held captive by the Nazis.