The Santa Barbara Music Club offers its eagerly anticipated annual Holiday Concert and Reception, 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec.14, at First United Methodist Church, 305 E. Anapamu St.
Like the majority of Music Club events, this one is free, although donations are always welcome, especially in this season, and always easy to do.
Club members participating in the concert are flautist Andrea Di Maggio; pianist Erin Bonski; and the a-cappella choral ensemble the Adelfos Ensemble, with guest conductor Erin Bonski.
The Adelfos's playlist includes seasonal melodies from the fifteenth century to our own, while Di Maggio and Bonski will perform the "Flute/Keyboard Sonata in g-minor" by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-88); and the "Fantaisie for Flute and piano" (1912) by Philippe Gaubert (1879-1941).
From the club's notes we learn that "The Adelfos Ensemble was founded in 2004 as a men's a-cappella ensemble and pursued that path until 2010, when it became a mixed voice choral ensemble. Temmo Korisheli took over direction of the group from Dr. Michael Eglin in 2008.
"Their goal is to offer the best of a cappella and other choral music to audiences in the Santa Barbara area through live performances, radio broadcasts, and recordings. The group programs a broad repertoire of music spanning more than a millennium, from ancient chant and Renaissance motets to folksong arrangements and contemporary works."
Of all of Johann Sebastian Bach's musical children -- imagine the family concerts -- I find Carl Philipp Emanuel the most interesting and attractive.
He is sometimes identified as a "baroque" composer, though he never set foot in the seventeenth century, and his music, when you hear it, is much more likely to make you think of Haydn than of CPE's august father. It flows, smooth and sparkling, with what we might call an Italian accent (a reaction against the stern, Teutonic father?).
Philippe Gaubert, according to Wikipedia, "became one of the most prominent French musicians between the two World Wars. After a prominent career as a flautist with the Paris Opéra, he was appointed in 1919, at the age of forty, to three positions that placed him at the very centre of French musical life: Professor of flute in the Conservatoire de Paris, Principal conductor of the Paris Opéra, and Principal conductor of the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire."
Gaubert's music is sweet, lively and undemanding (for the listener).