Music Academy of the West

The academy hosts an annual eight-week summer music festival, highlighted by concerts and workshops directed by famous composers, conductors, and artists. The festival hosts 140 pre-professional musicians who receive merit-based full scholarships. Programs of study are vocal piano, voice, collaborative piano, solo piano, and instrumental.[3] The academy is partnering with the UC Santa Barbara to preserve historic audio and video recordings of concerts, masterclasses and recitals held at Music Academy of the West.[4] In 2017, 400 early recordings have been digitized, among them recordings of Lotte Lehmann, Marilyn Horne, and Jerome Lowenthal.[5]

The first impulse to establish a summer music festival in Santa Barbara came from soprano Lotte Lehmann in 1940.[6] In 1947 the Music Academy of the West was founded by Southern California arts patrons, musicians, conductors and composers.[4] In addition to Lotte Lehmann, founders of the academy where conductor Otto Klemperer, violinist Roman Totenberg, harpsichordist Rosalyn Tureck, baritone John Charles Thomas and composers Ernest Bloch, Darius Milhaud, Roy Harris and Arnold Schoenberg, who served as the academy's first composer in residence.[7] Among the first scholarschip funders where singer-actors Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, violinist Jascha Heifetz and movie producer Daryl F. Zanuck.[8]

From 1954 to 1980 the academy's music director was Maurice Abravanel.[9] Martial Singher was head of the Voice Department from 1962 till 1981.[10] In 1997 Marilyn Horne was named director of the voice program[11] and remained in this position till 2018.[12] In 2018, Horne became the honorary voice program director.[13]

Since 2010, the academy has held the annual Marilyn Horne Song Competition, formerly known as the Marilyn Horne Foundation Vocal Competition.

In the same year, Scott Reed became the academy's president and chief executive officer.[14] Past presidents have included David Kuehn[15] and NancyBell Coe.[16]

In 2014, the Music Academy of the West began an educational partnership with the New York Philharmonic. Under the collaboration, music director Alan Gilbert and orchestra members maintained residencies in Santa Barbara during parts of the festival, and selected Music Academy fellows trained with orchestra members in Santa Barbara and New York City.[17]

In 2018, the academy launched a four-year partnership with the London Symphony Orchestra with music director Simon Rattle,[18] and a free after school choral program called Sing! for children ages 7–11 taking place in elementary schools in Santa Barbara County. Participants perform at the Music Academy of the West and collaborate with the London Symphony Orchestra.[19]

Alumni of the Music Academy of the West are former attendants of the conservatory programs. Many of them fill important professional music positions around the world, performing in top-tier orchestras, opera houses, and teaching on music school faculties. Others have gone on to leadership roles in other institutions. Notable alumni include:

Music students using the facilities for music training or performing with visiting orchestras without being enrolled are not considered alumni.[35] Among those students are:

• Susan Allen (with the Santa Barbara Youth Theatre, 1963)
• Judith Beckmann (singing lessons with Harold Reed and Lotte Lehmann)
• Katy Perry (singing lessons at facilities)[36]

• Randel, Don Michael (1996). Randel, Don Michael (ed.). The Harvard biographical dictionary of music. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674372999. Retrieved 18 January 2020.

• Music Academy of the West