The Score | Santa Barbara Streaming

After months of safety preparations, in October California’s Santa Barbara Symphony opened a seven-concert virtual 2020-21 season at the Granada Theatre with 22 musicians performing music from the Great American Songbook, led by Music Director Nir Kabaretti (right and below). For the cabaret-style event, musicians were filmed onstage of the 1924 Granada Theatre, socially distanced, without an audience and with plexiglass shields in place; breaks every 30 minutes allowed the theater’s filters to recirculate fresh air. The show—hosted by actor Leslie Zemeckis and with Broadway vocalist Lisa Vroman—included backstage interviews with musicians and a pre-show cocktail demonstration from a local catering company. The orchestra reported that one-quarter of the nearly 1,000 households that tuned in for the opening-night concert and rebroadcast came from outside Santa Barbara; the stream was later offered on-demand. Interim CEO Kathryn Martin described the event, the orchestra’s first onstage performance since March, as “one that will be remembered forever.”