Santa Barbara Strings Winter Chamber Recital

Santa Barbara Strings is pleased to announce a Winter Chamber Recital and the tenth annual Winter Concert. The events will feature more than 50 participants from area elementary, junior high, high, and home schools. The Winter Chamber Recital will take place on Sunday, December 9 at 3 pm at The Samarkand, 2550 Treasure Drive. Admission is free.

The Winter Concert is on Sunday, December 16 at 6 pm at Hahn Hall, 1070 Fairway Road. Adult admission is $10 at the door and young people under the age of 18 are free. For more information, please visit santabarbarastrings.org.

Founder and Artistic Director of Santa Barbara Stings Mary Beth Woodruff said, “It is a pleasure to welcome professional trumpeter Bill Williams from our community to join our Vivace ensemble of advanced string musicians in Tartini’s Concerto for Trumpet in D Major. The program concludes with a combined, large string ensemble performing traditional holiday favorites.”

A comprehensive classical music program for young string players, Santa Barbara Strings offers young musicians experience string orchestras and chamber music ensembles. The program supports students ages 5-19 in their development with a team of music educators and coaches. There is a professional music educator for every six students in the orchestras, and one for every 3-4 students in chamber ensembles.

Mary Beth Woodruff’s pedagogical approach for Santa Barbara Strings teaches the students following the natural progression of music history from the Renaissance and Baroque eras to contemporary music, with careful attention paid to matching repertoire with the technical proficiency of each string ensemble. The young musicians train through three levels of progressive string orchestras and can also participate in chamber music ensembles with their peers. The students have the opportunity to develop high-level sight-reading skills, compose music, and study and perform masterworks each year.

Mary Beth Woodruff, Founder and Artistic Director

Mary Beth Woodruff founded Santa Barbara Strings in 2009. An established teacher and accomplished artist, Ms. Woodruff has been on the faculties of the Interlochen Center for the Arts, Songfest International at the Colburn School, and the Westmont Academy for Young Artists. In addition, Ms. Woodruff was a professor of violin/viola at the Biola University Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, where she served as head of chamber music studies, lectured in music history, strings literature/repertoire, and strings pedagogy for seven years. She soloed with the Biola Symphony Orchestra on a concert tour of Italy, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, and on tour to China. She has performed with the Boston Philharmonic, the New England Chamber Orchestra, Emmanuel Music of Boston, the Jerusalem International Symphony Orchestra Winter Festival in Israel, as well as the Santa Barbara Symphony, Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, and Opera Santa Barbara. Ms. Woodruff is the Concertmaster of the Santa Maria Philharmonic.

Ms. Woodruff earned her Master’s Degree in Violin Performance at Carnegie Mellon University on a full scholarship, following undergraduate studies at the New England Conservatory of Music and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in music and chemistry. Her principal teachers have included Julia Bushkova, Ronald Copes, Andres Cardenes, and John Harbison. She currently serves on the MIT Educational Council, is the Santa Barbara center representative for the Royal Conservatory of Music Development Program and maintains a private violin and viola studio.

Bill Williams, Guest Artist

Bill Williams has performed as principal trumpet and soloist with orchestras and festivals internationally. His activities have included an extensive range of performances, recordings, and tours with major orchestras including the San Francisco Symphony, the Berner Symphonieorchester and many other orchestras in the US, Europe, and Asia. He has performed chamber music at a variety of festivals internationally and with leading ensembles including the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Frankfurt Germany-based Ensemble Modern and Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. During the summers, he has served as a faculty member at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California and performs as the solo trumpet of the Gstaad/Menuhin Festival Orchestra in Gstaad, Switzerland.