The Department of Music at UC Santa Barbara has an extensive, rich history of excellence and innovation. During his time at UC Santa Barbara, Professor Emeritus and former Chair of the department, Carl Zytowski (1921-2018), put much of the department's history into writing. Explore the links below for a more detailed history of certain areas of the department.
What eventually became a campus of the University of California in Santa Barbara had its distant origins in 1891 as the Anna S.C. Blake Manual Training School, a private institution founded in 1891 for the teaching of cooking, sewing, and sloyd (Swedish system of manual training using wood carving as a means of training in the use of tools) to the children of Santa Barbara. These subjects were later designated as household science, art, and manual arts. In 1909, after formal organization by Governor Gillette as the Santa Barbara State Normal School of Manual Arts and Home Economics, the institution became the first in the United States to be devoted exclusively to teacher training in these subjects, and the first in California to offer a major in home economics. By 1913, the institution had moved from downtown Santa Barbara into a new campus on the Riviera (now Santa Barbara Middle School) above the Santa Barbara Mission. A Department of Music was established in that year, under the chairmanship of Raymond Mosher, to provide training in support of the Special Secondary Certificate, a professional four-year degree.
In 1921, the school was designated the Santa Barbara State Teacher’s College, establishing for some years to come the teaching function of the Department. A degree in music was authorized for 1922, though a full degree program was not established till the 1940’s when the campus became part of the University of California. The music program continued, now to provide supplementary training for other degree granting departments. The number of music faculty, directors of choral and instrumental groups, grew slowly, only two or three through the 1930’s.
In 1935, the institution changed its name again, to be called the Santa Barbara State College, with a growth in faculty and programs directed toward teacher training. The Music Department’s mission was to offer the Special Secondary Teaching Credential in Music. The music faculty had grown to four members and by 1940-41 included four who continued to serve through the next couple decades: Helen Barnett, Van A. Christy, Lloyd Browning and Maurice Faulkner.
In 1943, the State Legislature took action to establish the Santa Barbara State College as the Santa Barbara College of the University of California, to begin the following year. The war delayed further expansion, but at its conclusion, plans were developed to accommodate the expected increase of students and expansion of academic programs. In 1941, a new campus had been opened on the Santa Barbara mesa to house the manual training program of the State College (now Santa Barbara City College), but it, together with the Riviera campus, would be inadequate for the expected growth.
During the war, the Marine Corps had appropriated a ranch owned by the Storke family on a mesa in Goleta, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and had built an air-training base next to a slough which was partially filled in to provide an airfield. At the end of the war, the base became redundant and the Regents of the University of California were persuaded to buy the property to house the newest and final location of UCSB. Plans to build proceeded, and while classes continued on the Riviera and Mesa campuses in town, the first two permanent buildings on the new campus were begun, a library and a science building. Late in January 1954, UCSBC was moved, almost overnight, to begin the spring semester in February. Remnants of the airfield can be seen on the bluffs overlooking campus point.
At first, particularly for those who had served in the military, the new campus was a dismaying sight: two-story wooden buildings, formerly officer barracks, sited around perimeter roads, in the midst of sandy acreage, which blew over the campus in dust clouds when the wind came off the sea. There was no landscaping, only rows of eucalyptus trees which had served as windbreaks for the original ranch; the survivors now line parking lots 7 and 9. A few relics of the original buildings still survive, such as the Arts and Lectures Building, the Old Little Theater, and the Old Gym.
Music was assigned to two buildings, just off to the edge of the present building, with Art and Speech, and Drama as our neighbors. For a theater/concert hall, there was a large wooden (G.I.) theater, near the lagoon and on the present site of Storke Plaza. Parking, at least, was convenient: one merely pulled up on the dirt next to the building.
The third new building to be constructed on the new campus, was, to Music’s good fortune, Music Unit I. The original architects intended for the building to serve as the model for the campus style, Spanish Mediterranean, with specially-designed bricks made of volcanic ash. Thus the early buildings of the campus can be distinguished; later it proved too expensive. The Regents also ordained that the Music Building area should be fully landscaped with mature trees, as an example of how the campus might appear in the future. The pepper tree overlooking the Music Bowl is an original settler. The building, in roughly a large L shape, included faculty offices surrounding a small outdoor amphitheater, a two story wing with teaching rooms and practice studios, and large rehearsal hall at either extremity of the building, one for chorus practice and lectures (Music 1145) and the other for orchestra and band (now Geiringer Hall).
In 1958, UCSB was designated a general campus of the university, and what had been an undergraduate institution quickly expanded into graduate programs. Thus in 1960, the Master of Arts degree in Music was approved, followed shortly by the arrival of the eminent Bach, Haydn and Brahms scholar, Karl Geiringer in 1964. We were now a fullyfledged program, on par with the offerings of UCLA and Berkeley. Though choral and instrumental groups had existed as early as 1919, music performance, from the early years, has been a central and unique feature of our program. The Department had offered private instruction in performance as part of the regular curriculum. Such instruction was not available at any of the other campuses of the University of California, who regarded us with some suspicion -- and later with active opposition -- as we developed further graduate programs. In 1966, the MA program was expanded to include a degree specifically in music performance.
For several years, the Department had been involved in planning the second unit of the Music Building. The new unit, attached to the old to form a new courtyard, housed new faculty offices and studios, practice rooms, and recording studio. The new unit also featured a library to house the art and music collections, and a theater/recital hall/lecture hall, initially seating 490 people. The stage was fully equipped for opera productions, recitals, and concerts, with an orchestra pit extending partly under the stage to accommodate an orchestra of approximately 40 players. To one side of the stage was an enclosed chamber to accommodate a pipe organ when funds could be found. On February 12, 1969, the concert hall was officially dedicated and named after Lotte Lehmann, the famous singer who was a long-time resident of Santa Barbara. The opening performance was Mozart’s The Magic Flute; Mme Lehmann was present for a performance of the opera in which she had made her own debut many years before.
Adjacent to the new music unit, on the site of the wooden theater which in earlier years had served the Department as a concert hall, the Storke Tower and Student Publications Building was erected in 1968. Atop the tower was installed a unique 61 bell, five octave fully chromatic carillon. The Department appointed a carillonneur, and for a time, instruction on the instrument was offered. At the same time, an organ was ordered for the space in Lehmann Hall. $60,000 partly a gift from the Regents and partly from individuals in the community, was budgeted for an instrument to be built by the noted Dutch firm of Flentrop. Finally, on October 8, 1972 the dedication concert was played by Dr. Lawrence Moe from the Berkeley campus. The instrument is a two manual, 18 rank, tracker-action organ.
In 1976 the Bachelor of Music degree was offered, the first of the professional degrees in music, with Santa Barbara the only campus of the University to offer such a program of study. In the next decade, several other important programmatic developments were made: a major emphasis in composition included the growing interest in electronic music, spurring the eventual establishment of the Center for Computer Music Composition, now known as CREATE.
The Music Library, from the time of the arrival of Karl Geiringer, began an impressive growth into what is now one of the finest research collections on the West Coast. Supplementary to the collection is one of the largest archives of recorded vocal music. In 1982, through the efforts of Dolores M. Hsu, the Department acquired a gift of the Henry Eichheim Collection of Musical Instruments from the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, which has now been expanded to more than 900 examples of instruments from all over the world.
In 1990, the last of the two professional degrees, the Master of Music and the Doctor of Musical Arts, completed the Department’s profile as a major undergraduate and graduate program, comparable to such west coast institutions as USC and the University of Washington. It was achieved after an extended period of submission and review, and against some opposition from other UC campuses, some of whom have since adopted comparable programs.
Recognition of the research and performance aspects of the Department’s program has come in several ways. In 1984, the Chancellor’s office began funding of the Young Artists String Quartet, which provides support for four advanced string students, who have made a major contribution to the Department’s ensemble program and to the Santa Barbara musical community. Similarly, a gift from Margaret Mosher has established the Mosher Wind Quintet, and a gift from Mrs. Maurice Faulkner has established the Faulkner Brass Quintet.
In 1965, a continuing and most fruitful relationship with the community began with the organization of the Music Affiliates. Their interest and hard work on behalf of the Department’s students have made a major contribution to scholarship support. In addition, gifts from faculty, former students, and interested friends have made possible a growing list of fellowships, scholarships and grants-in-aid to support student research and performance. Most recently, the annual Karl Geiringer Lecture Series brings noted scholars and performers to the campus for short residences.
The Department has been particularly enriched by the generosity of the Corwin family. In the 1970’s they began the Corwin Awards in Distinguished Achievement in Music Composition, and in 1987 endowed the Sherrill and Dorothy Corwin Chair in Music Composition; the first holder was the distinguished British composer and member of the faculty, Peter Racine Fricker.
Consistent with the University’s mission as a research and teaching institution, the Department faculty from early days began to establish national and international reputations as scholars and performers. From their publications in book and scholarly journals, widely-performed prize-winning compositions, and performances as concert artists worldwide, the faculty have served as experienced mentors to their students. Similarly, the students have been involved in significant creative work and performance.
The opera program, in addition to presenting standard literature, has presented a number of American premieres and first performances; the various choral groups have developed an international reputation through touring, recordings, television and radio concerts and festival appearances. Students have been involved in presentations at national conferences; instrumentalists and singers have achieved professional recognition elsewhere.
From early years, the Department has made its presence known in the local community and beyond. For many years, Maurice Faulkner and others on the faculty led the annual All-California High School Symphony, which brought hundreds of talented secondary school musicians to Santa Barbara for training and a concert; many of these students later came to UCSB.
The formation of the Santa Barbara Symphony in the early 50’s came about through the efforts of such faculty members as Clayton Wilson and Stefan Krayk, who, along with others of our faculty and students, have been principal players in the orchestra. In 1960, with the addition to our faculty of Erno Daniel, pianist and conductor, the Department began a long cooperative arrangement with the Symphony to share the appointment of conductors, ending only in 1990 when the growing programs of the two institutions dictated independence.
From an institution that began life dedicated to teacher training to what is now a fully established research and professional graduate program, our graduates have distinguished themselves, nationally and internationally. A number have gone on to teaching, either privately or in outstanding secondary school positions, and in more recent years, our graduates have joined the faculties of important colleges and universities in this country and abroad. A number have become widely recognized and published scholars; some are now prize-winning and much performed composers, some writing for television and films. Some are establishing fine reputations as conductors of orchestras, opera and choruses. Our instrumentalists have gone on to solo careers and as members of leading orchestras, and our singers are to be heard in opera companies around the world.
Now, at the end of the century and over a relatively short span of time, the Department has established a program of scholarly and creative study fully comparable to other major institutions. The program, which derives from traditional and historical foundations of the discipline, also has begun to take a leading position in the technological advances in music research and composition, as well as the growing study of world music.
Peter Racine Fricker 1979
Carl Zytowski 1959-60
Roger Chapman 1961-62
Michael Ingham 1979-80
Ronald Copes 1983-84
JoAnn Kuchera-Morin 1988-89
Jacques Chailley, composer, conductor
Arthur Jacobs, critic, writer
Thea Musgrave, composer
Denes Bartha, musicologist
Colin Slim, musicologist
1970 Joan Cross, opera singer and director
1987 Stephen Paulus, composer
1988 Martin Bernheimer, critic
1991 Papa Bunko Susso, griot, koro player
1995 Robert Craft, conductor, composer
2005 Roberto Diaz, violist, Director, Curtis School of Music
The choral tradition at UCSB has been central to the department's program from the earliest beginnings. The history of the campus on the Santa Barbara Riviera dates from 1919 when the Santa Barbara State Normal School was established, followed in 1921 with its designation as the Santa Barbara State Teachers College.
First established was a Girl's Glee Club, under the direction of Raymond Mosher, who by 1921 had also organized a Men's Glee Club. In 1924, Helen Barnett had joined the faculty to take over the direction of the two groups, which were essentially the only departmental offerings for a school that was oriented to teacher training. Mrs. Barnett remained an important influence in the direction of the department, serving as chairman, and teaching on the faculty until her retirement in the 1950's, after we had become a campus of the University of California.
In the 1920's the choral groups began the tradition of touring schools in California. On campus they sang separately and in 1928 presented a concert as a mixed chorus. By the 30's, the groups had grown, the women to sixty singers and the men, now directed by the band leader, toured with the concert band. In 1935, the department was host to the Southwest Intercollegiate Association for a choral festival.
In 1939, the A Cappella Choir was organized, directed by Anita Priest. In 1940, Van A. Christy joined the faculty to teach voice and to direct the A Cappella Choir and the men and women's choruses; he, like Mrs. Barnett, remained to build the department and its choral program through the transition to the University of California.
By 1942, male enrollment had dropped because of the war, and so the Men's Chorus was suspended, not to be revived until several years following the war. The Women's Glee Club and the A Cappella Choir remained active under the direction of Dr. Christy.
In 1944 by action of the Legislature, Santa Barbara College of the University of California was established, and with Dr. Christy as chairman, the department offered the B.A. in Music and credential programs. By 1950, campus enrollment was nearly 2000, and with the return of male students, particularly under the G.I. Bill, the Men's Glee Club was revived under the direction of Walter Buchanan; there was a women's choir, the Treble Ensemble under Mrs. Barnett, and a mixed group, the Modern Madrigal Singers under Dr. Christy. In 1951, Carl Zytowski joined the faculty to direct the Men's Glee Club.
With the move in 1954 from the Riviera and the Mesa campuses to the new, as yet unbuilt campus on a former Marine air base in Goleta, enrollment began a steady growth, with an enrichment of vocal talent for the choral program. The Men's Glee Club (as it was then called) made annual tours to schools and churches in California. Following Mrs. Barnett’s retirement, the Women’s Glee Club was directed by Carl Zytowski, and subsequently by Shirley Munger, a member of the piano faculty.
In 1959, UCSB became a general campus of the university and a year later the M.A. in music was introduced. The following decade meant a growth in the department program and faculty. A new member, Dorothy Westra, organized the Chamber Singers and became the director of the Women’s Glee Club; in 1964, the men's chamber chorus, the Schubertians, was formed, and the next year, a similar women's group, Les Girls (later to be named the Dorians), was organized. Both of these groups were drawn from the larger men's and women's choruses (now grown to over 60 members each) to offer highly qualified singers more demanding repertoire.
With the retirement of Dr. Christy, and addition of new faculty, the Modern Chorale became the Repertory Chorus, at various times under the direction of Roger Chapman and Michael Livingston. Later, the mixed chorus was named the University Singers, when Dorothy Westra became the director, and even later, under the direction of Michael Ingham, who also took over the women's choruses, now the Dorians. In 1982, Carl Zytowski assumed the direction of the large mixed chorus, now named the Collegiate Chorale.
Prof. Westra's Chamber Singers, and Prof. Zytowski's Schubertians from the 60's on were the major touring ensembles. The Chamber Singers initiated a series of extensive and successful tours to the Far East and Europe in the early 70's, followed soon after by the Schubertians, who made eleven European tours up to their retirement in 1995, making a number of radio broadcasts and singing at several important festivals. In 1969 and again in 1990, the Men’s Chorus hosted on campus the National Seminars of the Intercollegiate Men’s Choruses.
On his retirement in 1995, Carl Zytowski was succeeded as Director of Choral Activities by Michel Marc Gervais. The choral program was reorganized to feature the UCSB Chamber Choir, a Faculty and Staff Choral Ensemble, the Young Soloists Ensemble, and the University Singers, now a women's chorus. The tradition of touring continues with tours to France and the state of California.
In 1977 Alejandro Planchart, a specialist in early music, joined the faculty, and formed the Capella Cordina, which emphasizes repertoire primarily up to the Renaissance, often in new scholarly editions by the director. In the 1980's, responding to the increasing concerns on campus for minority issues, and concurrent with our own developing program in ethnomusicology, a popular Gospel Choir was organized, initially directed by graduate students and more recently by a succession of part-time staff.
From the beginning, repertoire of the various choral groups reflected the tastes of the period and interests of the conductors. At first, it emphasized the usual collegiate mix of lighter music with some of the standard choral literature, for a departmental program that essentially served the teacher training mission of the College. After the second World War, with the establishment of an undergraduate major in music and with greater vocal resources available, new faculty changed the character of the choral program. Change of the designation “glee club” to men’s and women’s choruses indicated a wish to explore a greater variety of the standard literature.
The choruses, either singly or together, under the direction of Carl Zytowski, regularly presented major works with orchestra, such as Honegger’s King David, Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, and a series of Handel oratorios. From the 60’s, they also began a long association with the Santa Barbara Symphony, regularly featured in such works as Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Verdi’s Rigoletto, and with their conductor, Ronald Ondrejka, who also was the conductor of the UCSB Symphony, in such works as the Berlioz Requiem, the Verdi Requiem, and Brahms’ Rinaldo.
The choruses also sang first performances of specially commissioned works by faculty member Peter Racine Fricker (Magnificat), Jacques Chailley (Trois Chansons), Sir Lennox Berkeley (Three Songs for Male Chorus), and Grayston Ives (Five Chinese Miniatures), as well as many works by faculty composers Emma Lou Diemer, Dorothy Westra, Carl Zytowski and Edward Applebaum. Student composers were also frequently featured.
From the ranks of choral singers at UCSB have come a number of former students who have developed distinguished careers of their own in choral music, including directors of choral programs at such collegiate institutions as Harvard, and New York State University Cortland, many as church music directors, directors of community choruses, and as singers in such professional choirs as Chanticleer and the William Hall Chorale.
The choral tradition at UCSB is long, varied and rich, through a series of conductors nationally and internationally known, who have developed a rich program of wide interest and reputation.
Founded in 1964 by Carl Zytowski, Professor Emeritus of Music when he was on the faculty, the Schubertians were a male chamber choir of talented students who made a specialty of performing on a professional level. Throughout the course of the group’s 31-year tenure at UC Santa Barbara, more than 200 men participated in the performance of 355 works by 125 composers, in over 140 venues across the United States, Canada, and Europe.
On the occasion of their 20th Anniversary Concert on February 19, 1984, Schubertian alumni established the Carl Zytowski Vocal Award in honor of their director and mentor, Carl Zytowski. Through the years this fund has awarded many vocal students in UCSB’s Department of Music. In November of 2019, almost a year after Carl’s passing, the Schubertians came together to celebrate their beloved professor with a memorial concert in his honor. Many Schubertian alumni travelled across the country to UC Santa Barbara, to pay their respects to Carl and sing together in their group’s original venue, Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall. They also came together to create renewed interest in the Carl Zytowski Vocal Award, paying homage to Carl and his support of Music students throughout his years of teaching and beyond. Continue Carl Zytowski’s legacy by making a contribution to this award, and view photos from the 2019 memorial concert.
Pictured: Professor Carl Zytowski and the UCSB Schubertians
Opera productions at UCSB began in the early 1950’s with the arrival on the music faculty of Carl Zytowski, although an earlier production of Gershwin’s musical, Of thee I Sing, had been produced by Van Christy. Menotti’s The Telephone was given “in the round” in a large rehearsal room on the Riviera campus in 1953 and the next year a fully staged production of Scarlatti’s Triumph of Honor (on a budget of $100!) was given in what is now the Riviera Theater. Subsequent productions have been given in a wide variety of venues: the Lobero Theater, the Alhecama Theater, Campbell Hall, the campus auditorium ( a wooden building dating from the Marine base days, now torn down), the Old Little Theater, the Main Theater (now Hatlen) of the Drama Department, the Music Bowl, and (since 1969) in our own Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall.
Performances over the years have been conducted by Stefan Krayk, Erno Daniel, Ronald Ondrejka, Heiichiro Ohyama, Alejandro Planchart, Michael Ingham, Carl Zytowski, and more recently Jeffrey Schindler; from time to time, graduate student conductors have also led performances. In the early years, staging was done almost exclusively by Carl Zytowski, although significant guest directors included Joan Cross, former member of the English Opera Group and Sadler’s Wells Opera, London, and Ruth Michaelis, Kammersängerin of the Bavarian State Opera; student directors were also given an opportunity occasionally. Subsequent stage directors have included Michael Ingham, Sterling Branton, and Simon Williams. Stage design has come from Carl Zytowski, Paul Brohan, Mark Somerfield, and guest designers from the Drama Department.
Choice of repertoire and casting was dictated by student singers available, or, as in the earlier years, what faculty or local guests could be invited. Singers studying with faculty of the Music Academy of the West were sometimes guests, several of whom have gone on to international careers, permitting us to do more vocally demanding works. Most opera productions were sung in English, although Pagliacci and La Favola d’Orfeo were in Italian, the latter with projected supertitles, the first university production in the US to do so. A number of our own students have gone on to significant operatic careers: Jean Cook of the Zurich Opera, Reveka Mavrovitis of the Metropolitan Opera; Kevin Smith now general director of the Minnesota Opera; Teri Murai, conductor at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music; and William Lumpkin, music director of the Boston University Opera Institute.
| Dominic Argento | The Boor | 1972 |
| Jeffrey Babcock | Mirrors (1st Performance of A Doctoral Dissertation) | 1972 |
| Georges Bizet | Carmen | 1971 |
| Benjamin Britten | Albert Herring | 1966 |
| Curlew River | 1969 | |
| The Beggar's Opera | 1973 | |
| The Little Sweep | 1957 | |
| The Prodigal Son | 1978 | |
| The Rape of Lucretia | 1958 1974 | |
| The Turn of the Screw | 1961 1998 | |
| Francesco Cavalli | Ormindo | 1975 |
| Domenico Cimarosa | The Music Master | 1961 |
| Gaetano Donizetti | Don Pasquale | 1960 |
| The Elixir of Love | 1969 | |
| The Night Bell (Il Campanello) (Eng. CZ) | 1955 1956 | |
| Vernon Duke | Mistress Into Maid (First Performance) | 1958 |
| Carlisle Floyd | Susannah | |
| John Gay (Austin) | The Beggar's Opera | 1960 |
| Gilbert & Sullivan | Pirates of Penzance | 1962 |
| Trial by Jury | 1975 | |
| The Gondoliers | 2004 | |
| G.F. Handel | Julius Caesar | 1967 |
| Semele | 1977 | |
| Xerxes (Serse) | 1959 | |
| Joseph Haydn | Orlando Paladino (American Premiere) (Eng. CZ) | 1967 |
| The Songstress (Eng. CZ) | 1974 | |
| Paul Hindemith | Round Trip (Hin and Zuruck) | 1958 |
| Gustav Holst | Savitri | 1969 |
| Engelbert Humperdinck | Hansel and Gretel | 2002 |
| William Kraft | Red Azalea (Premiere) | 2003 |
| Ernst Krenek | The Leap Over the Shadow (American Premiere) | 1995 |
| Ruggero Leoncavallo | I Pagliacci | 1974 |
| Albert Lortzing | The Poacher (Der Wildshütz) (Eng. CZ) | 1979 |
| Jules Massenet | Werther | 2000 |
| Giancarlo Menotti | Amahl and the Night Visitors | 1954 1962 |
| The Consul | 1957 | |
| The Old Maid and the Thief | 1963 2005 | |
| The Medium | 1954 1955 1968 | |
| The Telephone | 1953 1954 1955 | |
| The Unicorn, The Gorgon and The Manticore | 1963 | |
| Darius Milhaud | The Poor Sailor (Le Pauvre Matelot) | 1955 |
| W.A. Mozart | The Abduction from the Seraglio | 1966 |
| Bastien and Bastienne | 1956 | |
| Cosi Fan Tutte | 1973 1986 | |
| La Finta Giardiniera | 1999 | |
| The Impressario | 1961 | |
| The Magic Flute | 1969 | |
| The Marriage of Figaro | 1963 1978 1997 | |
| Claudio Monteverdi | The Coronation of Poppea | 1970 |
| La Favola d'Orfeo | 1985 | |
| Otto Nicolai | The Merry Wives of Windsor | 1964 |
| Jacques Offenbach | Daphnis and Chloe (Eng. CZ) | 1981 |
| Barbe-bleue | 2001 | |
| Carl Orff | Carmina Burana | 1961 |
| The Moon (Der Mond) | 1965 | |
| The Wise Woman (Die Kluge) | 1968 | |
| Stephen Paulus | The Village Singer | 1986 |
| G.B. Pergolesi | The Brother in Love (Lo Frate 'nnnamorato) (Eng. CZ) | 1971 1984 |
| La Serva Padrona | 1957 1971 | |
| Francis Poulenc | Les Mamelles De Tiresias | 1981 |
| Henry Purcell | Dido and Aeneas | 1954 1974 |
| Giacomo Puccini | Gianni Schicchi | 1968 |
| Tosca | ||
| Alessandro Scarlatti | The Triumph of Honor (Il Trionfo Dell 'Onore) (Eng. CZ) | 1954 1968 |
| Franz Schubert | The Conspirators (Die Verschworenen) (Eng. CZ) | 1972 |
| Stephen Storace | The Comedy of Errors (Gli Equivoci) (American Premiere) | 1980 |
| Johann Strauss | Die Fledermaus | 1964 |
| R. Vaughn Williams | Riders to the Sea | 1954 |
| Giuseppe Verdi | Macbeth | 1967 |
| La Traviata | ||
| William Walton | Façade | 1983 |
| Carl Zytowski | A Medieval Triptych (First Performance) | 1989 |
| Thomas of Canterbury (First Performance) | 1981 | |
| Children's Operas | ||
| Seymour Barab | Chanticleer | |
| Mozart/Zytowski | The Emperor's New Clothes (First Performance) | 1975 |
| F. Schubert/Zytowski | The Town Musicians of Bremen (First Performance) | 1976 |
| G. Rossini/Zytowski | Pinocchio (First Performance) | 1979 |
| S. Foster/Zytowski | Johnny Appleseed (First Performance) | 1983 |
Born in Vienna on April 26, 1899, Karl Geiringer studied art history and musicology at the University of Vienna, the latter with Guido Adler and with Curt Sachs at the University of Berlin, completing his doctoral degree in Vienna in 1923. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1940, and was eventually appointed professor and director of graduate studies in music at Boston University, a position he held for the next 21 years. In 1962, he arrived at the University of California at Santa Barbara, in order to establish the graduate program in musicology.Geiringer also helped make the UCSB music library one of the most comprehensive in the UC system. Karl’s wife, Bernice Geiringer, established the Geiringer Lecture Series in 1994. As part of the program, top names in music scholarship are invited to speak and perform at UC Santa Barbara.
The Henry Eichheim Collection of Musical Instruments, one of the leading university collections in the United States, was acquired by the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1982. Eichheim, an American composer and violinist, was among the earliest 20th century Western connoisseurs of Asian music. Between 1915 and the mid-1930s he made five trips to Asia, meeting with musicians, notating the music he heard, and collecting musical instruments of the finest quality, beautiful in both sound and appearance. At the time of his death in 1942 Eichheim's musical estate consisted of some 350 instruments, several of his compositions, scrapbooks documenting his travels and musical activities, programs of his concerts, lecture notes, and a large trove of photographs. After 40 years the entire collection, originally held by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, was generously donated to the Department of Music at UCSB.
Over the years the collection has continued to grow in number and quality with acquisitions made possible through grants and numerous donations. Highlights include the acquisition in 1986 of 57 Indian instruments which had been given to the Exploratorium Museum of Science and Technology in San Francisco by the government of India for display during the International Festival of India. The gamelan, Kiyahi Selamet ("The Venerable Peaceful One"), a superb example of late 19th century Javanese craftsmanship, came to the collection in 1993. The Seymour Oppenheimer Collection of 320 bells, gongs, lithophones, and rattles was given to the university in 1997. Collected from throughout the world in instruments include rare specimens from China--jade and bronze pieces from the second century BCE through the Qing Dynasty in the 18th century; West African, Middle Eastern, and fine old English bells are also represented. Most recently, five rare musical instruments from West Africa, Turkey, and Japan have greatly enhanced the holdings of the collection. Now numbering more than 900 instruments, the Henry Eichheim Collection, which is global in scope and unique in quality, serves both the research and teaching functions of the university.
Prominent Chicago businessman and avid art collector, Seymour Oppenheimer (1905-1980), devoted many years to the acquisition of fine musical instruments. He traveled extensively and from the early 1950s focused his attention primarily on acquiring bells, gongs, lithophones, and rattles--idiophones of every sort from throughout the world. Many of the rarest instruments are from East Asia including numerous Chinese jade stone chimes and bronze bells dating from the Han, Sui, Ming, and Qing dynasties. There are rare Benin pieces cast in the lost wax method as well as bells and rattles from many different areas in West Africa. Old folk instruments from Mexico and Central America, early European and American bells, and a series of Middle Eastern bells, some of them dated as early as 1000 B.C.E., are represented in Mr. Oppenheimer's splendid collection.
Of particular interest is the carefully documented, illustrated notebook in which Mr. Oppenheimer recorded each acquisition, complete with simple hand-drawn illustrations. Dimensions are frequently included together with details concerning acquisition and, in some cases, accounts of subsequent exhibition of the instruments. Though his notes are often brief, the inclusion of invoices and detailed descriptions with provenance from dealers such as J.J. Klejman of New York and Spink & Sons of London are a testimony to the seriousness with which Mr. Oppenheimer pursued his avocation. The last entries in his notebook date from 1979 shortly before his death.
The collection remained in the Oppenheimer family until 1997 when heirs to the estate, knowing of the Eichheim Collection at UCSB, donated the instruments to the university. In doing so they honored Mr. Oppenehimer's wishes to have the collection reside in an institution where it would be displayed and contribute to the research, teaching and performance activities of faculty, visiting scholars and students alike. An exhibition, "Bells from around the World: Selections from the Seymour Oppenheimer Collection" was held in Davidson Library at UCSB from December 1997 through February 1998. On-going research projects involving the collection include the sampling of the sounds of the instruments by the Music Department's interdisciplinary Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology (CREATE). The initiative to establish an archive of unique acoustic sonorities is being expanded to include sound samples from the entire Eichheim Collection.