It is somehow civically and culturally affirming to report that last Saturday's big finale of the Music Academy of the West’s summer and season nearly packed the house. Drilling down into relevant numbers, this was the Big House, the 1,500-seater Granada Theatre, and a categorically big meal of a program, being Mahler's 75-ish minute epic “Symphony No. 3.” By the gushing conclusion of the intermission-less evenings, the crowd went duly wild and many of us felt enthralled to be part of a collective musical extravaganza.
Yes, classical music is very much alive and well during Santa Barbara summers, thanks to the Academy's movable feast of a festival.
This take on the Third Symphony was given a bold and nuanced rendering by noted guest conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya (returning to the Academy after a few years since his last appearance) and the technical finesse and finery of the tender young Academy fellows — in more ample numbers than usual — filling the Granada stage, alongside a women’s chorus and, eventually, the young charges of the Sing! chorus.