Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestra
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The Santa Barbara Symphony is a part-time professional symphony orchestra based in Santa Barbara, California.
The orchestra was founded in 1953. Music directors have included Erno Daniel (1960-1967), who also taught piano at the University of California, Santa Barbara; Ronald Ondrejka (1967-1979), who taught conducting at UCSB; Frank Collura (1979-1984); Varujan Kojian (1985-93); Gisèle Ben-Dor (1994-2005); and Nir Kabaretti (2006- ). Nir Kabaretti was selected as the new director after a well publicized search.
In the 1990s the orchestra began making recordings, some of which achieved some success. One of them was the world-premiere recording of the Symphony No. 10 by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, which received some attention in the press.
Typically the orchestra performs a series of about seven concerts during a season, plus additional concerts (for example, a pops concert on New Year's Eve). Their regular concert venue is the Arlington Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Santa Barbara.
