Good afternoon. It’s so great to see you here at our third Saturday afternoon concert of the 2021-2022 Music Club season.

This is a highly emotional time for me and I will try hard to keep it together. My Mom’s family came from Kyiv. My Dad’s family came from Zhitomer, a city about 2 hours west of Kyiv via E40. So I am of 100% Ukrainian descent and you can imagine how horrified and angry I am at Putin’s self-indulgent invasion of my ancestral homeland. I am at the same time thrilled to see the Ukrainians come together to protect their home with such ferocity and intelligence and to rally around their duly elected president.

In these times, I find solace and inspiration in music. The power of music to inspire, energize, and heal cannot be overestimated. For example, I am thrilled that the Ukrainians have blocked Russian propaganda broadcasts and replaced them with Ukrainian songs.

This, of course, underlies the mission of the Music Club. I’ve recently upgraded the Music Club website. My eventual goal is to concstruct an archive of every concert presented by the Music Club over its 50 years of existence. For now, I am working backward and am loading in concerts from the 2017-2018 season. I noted that the concert of January 13, 2018 needed to be postponed to January 20, 2018 due to the devastating Thomas fire and subsequent deadly debris flow. Some of the musicians literally couldn’t get to Santa Barbara to perform, but eventually the music prevailed and we gave the concert.

More recently, we were forced to cancel the Spring component of our 50th anniversary season, and we weren’t able to schedule concerts for the entire 2020-2021 season. We are back though, in this beautiful and welcoming church, and will continue our concerts here starting in April, at the conclusion of the the Lenten season. We are taking things very carefully to protect our audience members—that’s why we have continued our vaccination and masking policies.

Aside from the pure joy of listening to wonderful music, this concert has quite a bit of relevance to current events. Johannes Brahms lived in a relatively comfortable bourgeois constitutional monarchy. However, when the Trio you are about to hear was written, the German Empire was ruled by Kaiser Willhelm II, a malignant narcissist not unlike the former president. Barbara Tuchman shows us that a combination of paranoia and the need for narcissistic supply led him to invade Belgium and touch off the first world war. Let’s hope that Putin doesn’t touch off a third one.
On the other hand, Prokofiev was constrained by the maniacal vicissitudes of Stalin’s reign, seeing his works alternately praised and banned. His death was virtually unnoticed, having occurred on the same day as Stalin’s. Now, the fate of Ukraine and the world is hanging at the whim of an unhinged Stalinist with nuclear capabilities.

Finally, as a Jew, Darius Milhaud was forced to flee France in 1940 to escape the puppet government of another unhinged maniac with military powers. France’s loss was our gain, and I was able to study with him at Aspen in the summer of 1969. This occurrence affected me deeply and led me to pursue my higher education as a composer. If you go to our website, the concert listing features a picture of Milhaud that I took in his studio back then.

As you can see, today’s performance is very meaningful to me. I thank you for your indulgence in hearing about my personal connection to the pieces to be performed today.
If you can indulge me just a bit further, I’d like to remind you that the Music Club is a non-profit organization that benefits from the contributions of its members to present music free to the community.

Also, I’m thrilled to announce that our scholarship program will be taking place this Spring. This program is fully funded through contributions—and the more money you donate, the more scholarship funds we can disburse to our talented young performers—the future of music in this community and even the world. The Music Club has licensed new software and you will soon be able to contribute by credit card, e-check, or personal check. Of course, cash donations are always welcome and we have our contribution boxes set up at the back of the church.
Thank you once again for your attention and enjoy the concert!

Updated: 7 April 2020. The remainder of the season has been cancelled.

Dear Music Club Concert Goers:

We had great plans for our 50th Anniversary season. Our performing members outdid themselves in submitting proposals for challenging and unusual works, including many by the excellent living composers in our community. Our Concert Committee did a stellar job of curating the programs. By all indications, this was to be our best season yet.

Unfortunately, global events didn’t see it that way and we have been forced to confront the harsh realities of COVID-19. Our overarching desire is to keep our membership healthy and safe. The Board had been weighing the merits of attending a performance against the danger of being in close proximity to other audience members for an hour. Just as we decided to cancel the March 21 concert, we received word from our co-sponsors, the Santa Barbara Public Library, that they would follow California Department of Public Health guidelines and cancel all public events through the end of April. I know this will come as disappointment to you but to some it’s probably a relief to know that you can stay home and not miss out on the concerts. I know it will be a disappointment to the performers. I particularly know this because I had planned to play on all three of the cancelled performances.

As it stands, the following Saturday Afternoon concerts are cancelled:

• March 21, Kim Holmquist and Kirsten Becker (and me) and Marilyn Drandell Gilbert
• April 4, Westmont Chamber Singers, Adelle Rodkey (and me), Alicja Dutkiewicz and Natasha Kislenko
• April 18, Takako Wakita and Betty Oberacker, Jordan Warmath and Marc Evanstein, and me

There is some talk by the library of live-streaming concerts without audience. You’d be able to watch them on YouTube or Facebook. I’ve performed like that years ago in a television studio. It was very weird, very much like being in a recording studio except people are watching what you’re doing. I’ve also watched my son live-stream from Oberlin. When it worked, it was very nice to see him, but it didn’t always work. We will let you know if something like that will happen. We will also consider holding the performances at a later date, but it is too early to think about that now.

Until then, please don’t come to the Faulkner Gallery until further notice and by all means, wash your hands assiduously, don’t touch your face, and stay as healthy as possible.

Much love to all of you,
Eric Valinsky
President, Santa Barbara Music Club

Through the generous donation of resources by Inlineos LLC, we are happy to present a bolder, cleaner Website that is easier to use. The new design features a bolder look, easier navigation, a concert calendar (in progress) that is easier to use and that makes our concert locations easier to find, online donations and newsletter sign-up, and best of all, complete support for mobile devices.

Thanks to Eric Valinsky, our board Vice President and Chief Architect at Inlineos LLC, and to all the other board members who helped with their information and feedback.

Greetings Members! The Music Club Board has elected me as your new President, a role I promise to fulfill to the best of my ability. This is our 45th season, and we are one of the longest-lived cultural organizations in our county, an achievement we can all be proud of!

Here’s a listing of our current Board of Directors. You’ll find more about each of us under About Us / Your Board Members

OFFICERS

• William (Bill) Berry – President
• Mary Jo Hartle – Vice President
• Christopher Davis – Vice President, Concerts
• Monica Donne – Treasurer
• Ann Dwelley – Recording Secretary
• Laurence Young – Corresponding Secretary

MEMBERS AT-LARGE

• Robert Else
• Steven Hodson
• Hal Isbitz
• Betty Oberacker

We were very sad to learn of the recent late-September passing of Roger Herren, who faithfully and energetically supported the SBMC for years by preparing the Faulkner Gallery prior to each concert and restoring it afterwards. Besides rolling our 9-foot Steinway out of storage and placing it precisely, Roger set up and took down close to 200 chairs before and after each concert. He took pride in having everything ready in time for early-arriving performers to warm up. Those of us who interacted with him enjoyed the pleasure of his broad interests and knowledge, lively conversation, positive energy, and genuine caring for the Music Club and our endeavors. His chair rows were always perfectly aligned, and he kept watch over the crowd with a sharp eye for anything out of place. We will always remember Roger as a kind and intelligent man who always strived to do his best.