The Santa Barbara Chamber Players are pleased to announce a special Benefit Concert featuring renowned musicians Gene Pokorny, Principal Tuba of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and pianist Mi-Young Kim. The concert will take place on Sunday, February 23rd, at 3:00 PM at Trinity Lutheran Church, 909 N. La Cumbre Road, Santa Barbara.
This unique performance will showcase Gene Pokorny, principal tuba of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, with Mi-Young Kim on piano. The concert is a fundraiser to support the Santa Barbara Chamber Players, whose mission is to provide high-quality classical music performances and outreach programs for the Santa Barbara community.
Gene Pokorny – Principal Tuba, Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Gene Pokorny is widely regarded as one of the finest tuba players in the world. As Principal Tuba of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1989, Pokorny has performed under the baton of some of the world’s most esteemed conductors. In addition to his work with the CSO, he has held principal tuba positions in the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and the LA Philharmonic. He has played on the soundtracks to Jurassic Park, The Fugitive, and other motion pictures.
He has recorded several solo and educational discs, and assisted Rolling Stones trombonist Michael Davis in recording several educational workbook CDs. He received an Outstanding Alumnus Award from the University of Southern California and an honorary doctorate from the University of Redlands. He currently lectures and teaches at Roosevelt University, Northwestern University and the Pokorny Low Brass Seminar.
Mi-Young Kim – Pianist
Mi-Young Kim is a versatile musician and educator specializing in collaborative piano, solo performance, and music direction. Based in Santa Barbara, California, she has cultivated a diverse and fulfilling career in performance and education. Mi-Young currently serves as the Director of Music at Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Santa Barbara and is a faculty member at Westmont College.
In her ongoing pursuit of musical excellence, Mi-Young is ABD for a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree at the University of California Santa Barbara, where she studies under Professor Robert Koenig. She holds a Master’s degree in Collaborative Piano from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master’s in Piano Performance from the University of Hartford.
Tickets for this exceptional event are $25 for general admission. Purchase Tickets here!
Subscribe to our newsletter to get more news about our next season:
The Santa Barbara players aim to provide low-cost tickets for all concerts and complementary tickets for K-12 students. Ticket sales only cover about 30% of our costs, so please support our mission by donating. We are a 501(c)(3) organization, and your donation may be tax deductible.
If you have a vehicle to dispose of, you can donate it to benefit the Santa Barbara Chamber Players here using CARS
Our Mission
The Santa Barbara Chamber Players (“SBCP”) was created during the pandemic when local musicians joined together to play for each other as live performances were cancelled throughout the region. Our aim is to grow audiences for chamber and orchestral music by bringing affordable, professional-quality musical performances of listener-accessible music to Santa Barbara County, especially for those under-served by other higher-cost options, such as students, seniors, and families. We offer free tickets to K-12 students and invite experienced high-school musicians to play with our orchestra. All concerts will be presented with local musicians taking advantage of the deep pool of talent in the Santa Barbara area.
Our Conductors
Conductor and composer Emmanuel Fratianni is a Santa Barbara resident who has led major ensembles worldwide such as the San Francisco Symphony, Boston Pops, National Symphony, Detroit, Houston, Baltimore Symphonies, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Spanish and Czech National Symphony Orchestras. An award-winning composer and arranger his music for interactive media has been performed by some of the finest orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.
Emmanuel Fratianni is an Italian and US citizen, fluent in English, French and Italian. He is also an active guest lecturer in both American and European music institutions in the subjects of music composition for film and visual media as well as multimedia symphonic music direction.
Mary Beth Rhodes-Woodruff grew up in Southern California and attended the New England Conservatory of Music and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, majoring in both chemistry and music. She then studied with Andres Cardenes, concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony at Carnegie Mellon University. Upon receiving her master’s degree, she began teaching at Biola University Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles and was Head of Chamber Music Studies, leading students on a chamber music concert tour of mainland China and soloed with the Biola Symphony Orchestra on a concert tour of Italy, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.
Since moving to Santa Barbara County, Ms. Woodruff founded Santa Barbara Strings where she is currently artistic director and conductor. She has performed with the Mainly Mozart Festival, the Pacific Symphony, Santa Barbara Symphony, Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, was concertmaster of the Santa Maria Philharmonic.
Siegwart “Zig” Reichwald holds the Adams Chair of Music and Worship at Westmont College. Previously, he was the Charles E. Daniels Distinguished Professor of Music at Converse College, where he served as the conductor of the Converse Symphony for 18 years. Dr. Reichwald is the author of The Genesis of Felix Mendelssohn’s Paulus (Scarecrow Press 2001) and Mendelssohn and the Genesis of the Protestant A Cappella Movement (Cambridge University Press, 2023). He also edited Mendelssohn in Performance (Indiana University Press, 2008), a collection of essays that, according to Choice, “does a superb job explaining the 19th-century sound environment of Felix Mendelssohn and his audiences,” and Nineteenth-Century Music Review suggests that it “should be on the shelf of every performer, scholar, and devotee of Mendelssohn’s music.” Dr. Reichwald is known as a pedagogue who has helped numerous students enter some of the finest graduate programs.
The Santa Barbara players aim to provide low-cost tickets for all concerts and complementary tickets for K-12 students. Please support our mission by donating. We are a 501(c)(3) organization, and your donation may be tax deductible.
Please subscribe to our newsletter to keep up-to-date with the SBCP and hear about future concerts
SBCP acknowledges the generous support of The Towbes Fund for the Performing Arts, a field of interest fund of the Santa Barbara Foundation, the Santa Barbara Bowl Foundation, the Music Academy, and CARS (Charitable Adult Rides & Services).
