Had the pandemic scourge not showed up, the planned 2020 performance by the British Chineke! Orchestra would have valiantly broken a cultural color barrier in Santa Barbara. The intrepid and important British orchestra, dedicated to musicians and composers of Black and underserved origins, was COVID-forced to cancel their American tour, including the CAMA-hosted Santa Barbara stop. The “makeup gig” for the Chineke!, last week at the Granada, was thus all the more moving and reaffirming.
Interestingly, though, the subsequent five-year period has seen a welcome and dramatic upswing of Black classical culture, both generally and locally. CAMA brought the similarly Black and underserved charges of the Detroit-based Sphinx Virtuosi ensemble. Meanwhile, Black composers and musicians have become much more common in programming by the Music Academy of the West, UCSB Arts & Lectures, and also the Santa Barbara Symphony, which only last month featured music by composers William Grant Still and Jessie Montgomery — who has also been a Music Academy artist-in-residence.
Racial and cultural parity remains an issue in the classical world, but conditions are decidedly improving.