Josef Woodard

Santa Barbara

Music Writer at Freelance

music, writing, in that order.

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Articles

Review: L.A. Phil Shines, as Expected, in Home and Away Games

15 hours ago | independent.com | Josef Woodard

It may be fair to say the most reliable and renewable pleasure, in terms of live orchestral culture in Santa Barbara over the past 100+ years, has come courtesy of the increasingly important Los Angeles Philharmonic. ( I’ve only been privy to the past 35 or so concert years, but am making an educated guess with this assertion.) The orchestra shares with the hosting organization CAMA a birth year of 1919, and has performed under CAMA’s auspices at least once a year in our fair town.
Embracing the “Viva,” with Access for All

1 day ago | independent.com | Josef Woodard

Embracing the Viva, with Access for AllAs the Idealistic ¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara! Latin Music Series Nears the 20-Year Mark, an Endowment Project Signals the Final Goal of Retiring Arts & Lectures Director Celesta BilleciBy Josef Woodard | May 15, 2025Las Guaracheras performs at the Marjorie Luke Theatre.
Shaham in the Symphonic House, Times Two

6 days ago | independent.com | Josef Woodard

Adele Anthony | Photo: Marcia CirielloThe Santa Barbara Symphony closes out a healthily diversified and intriguing season in high style, blessed by the presence of the most celebrated soloist of its season at The Granada Theatre — and in double-header fashion. Renowned violinist Gil Shaham will be the spotlighted guest with maestro Nir Kabaretti’s orchestra for two separate programs, showcasing the Grammy-winning and lavishly accoladed violinist’s multitalented mastery.
Paying Filmic Respects to a Jazz Trailblazer, on Screen and Stage

6 days ago | independent.com | Josef Woodard

Paying Filmic Respects to a Jazz Trailblazer, on Screen and Stage Jazz Legend Wynton Marsalis Heads to the Arlington to Give the West Coast Premiere of the Modern Silent Film ‘LOUIS’, with Extra Music on the Side By Josef Woodard Fri May 09, 2025 | 2:26pm Add to Favorites Wynton Marsalis | Photo: Courtesy Fortunately for fans of jazz and important music of any classification, Santa Barbara has long been a regular stopping place for influential trumpeter/bandleader Wynton Marsalis, usually...
Artistic Sub-Texts

6 days ago | independent.com | Josef Woodard

Words, and fragments thereof, have been sneaking onto local gallery walls of late. Earlier this year, a large and “wordy” exhibition at UCSB’s AD&A Museum filled walls and floors with Public Texts: A Californian Visual Language. One of the pieces in the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s In the Making: Contemporary Art at SBMA was a Jenny Holzer, for whom texts have been a primary art material.
ON the Beat | Frivolity in Serious Clothing

6 days ago | independent.com | Josef Woodard

It started with a sad clown and proceeded with two seriously funny riffs on the theme of marital follies. Now that the current Opera Santa Barbara (OSB) season has wrapped, with last weekend’s juicy and bold production of Donizetti’s 1840-vintage The Daughter of the Regiment, we can get a general overview of the season’s threesome landscape.
Feelgood to Go Festivaling

1 week ago | independent.com | Josef Woodard

First, are you illuminated? Have you ever been illuminated? Well, I have. We’re talking about the Illuminate Film Festival, bearing the marketing mantra “looking through the lens of love.” The festival blew through Santa Barbara last weekend for a tapestry of film screenings, panel discussions, meditations, parties, and networking ops, all neatly-organized in a two-block radius downtown.
CAMA Unveils Season 107, with a Change at the Top

1 week ago | independent.com | Josef Woodard

The formidable classical music presenter CAMA’s (Community Arts Music Association, founded in 1919) 106th season closes out with much-anticipated concerts by the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Granada on May 9, and pianist Garrick Ohlsson at the Lobero on May 21. CAMA’s 2025-26 roster has been unveiled, and it’s an embarrassment of riches.
ON the Beat | Sublimity, in Slices

1 week ago | independent.com | Josef Woodard

Brahms’ A German Requiem is unique in the family of great requiems, in part because it doesn’t neatly fit into the family rules of order or lineage. Brahms’ moving work, putatively penned in response to the deaths of his friend Robert Schumann and his mother, steers clear of the standard Latin text of the requiem form, instead drawing on various Biblical sources from both testaments and written in German.
Doggedly Tasteful Guitar Hero’s Return

1 week ago | independent.com | Josef Woodard

Of the many artists whose music registers with a particular symbiotic and ambient resonance at the historic Lobero Theatre, gentle-spirited guitar hero Bill Frisell ranks high on the list. Frisell’s remarkable and genre-bounding career spans some 40 years and countless albums and projects. At the outset, he shook up the jazz guitar world with his welcome lyricism, subtle tone, and playful sense of adventure and evolved outward and upward into many different musical areas.