NEWS
A Canvas of Sound and Stage
Music
The Westmont Orchestra toured Iceland for nine days in May, visiting tourist sites, performing at Hof Cultural Center and sharing a concert and dinner with the University Choir of Iceland. Lin Wei, a Chinese-born violinist with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, hosted a masterclass with Corrie Bascom ’26, Sophia Chan ’25 and Jesse Nieman ’25. The tour program featured works by Aaron Copland, George Whitefield Chadwick, Morton Gould, Leroy Anderson, Steve Heitzeg and John Williams.
The College Choir joined the Santa Barbara Symphony Chorus to perform the complete “German Requiem” by Brahms with the Santa Barbara Symphony in April.
The College Choir and Chamber Singers embarked on a three-day tour in Southern California in February, singing at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Thousand Oaks and Vallejo Drive Seventh-day Adventist Church in Glendale.
Creatively combining two operas, “The Fairy Queen” (Henry Purcell) and “Venus and Adonis” (John Blow), the Music Department presented an innovative production set in a 1959 restaurant catering to celebrities. The plot follows Purcell’s work and the antics of Titania, Oberon, and Philostrate with “Venus and Adonis” appearing as an opera within an opera; the three leads played Venus, Adonis and Cupid. Professor Ruth Lin conducted the orchestra, and alumna Christina Jensen ’09 served as stage director.
Theater
Fringe Festival 2025, “Home Up Close,” featured three dozen performances during four days in April around campus and downtown Santa Barbara. The annual smash-up of experimental theatre, dance, film and performance art allowed audiences and artists to challenge themselves in fresh, new ways.
Famed theater arts professor John Blondell, who retired after 37 years (see story on page 14) directed Kenneth Grahame’s “The Wind in the Willows” this spring. His adaptation of Grahame’s celebration of nature, friendship and loyalty broached profound contemporary issues. “In a time when the clamor of life gets all too loud, the character’s tender meditation on friendship and home arrives as balm for the soul,” he says. “On the surface, it’s a simple story about the fascinations of several animal friends. On a deeper level, however, the play engages many compelling questions: What is home? What does it provide us? Why do we leave it? What happens to us when we leave it? How do we change when we leave it? What happens when we neglect or are careless with it? Would we fight for it? Yes, it’s deep and compelling.”
Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art
The Tri-County Juried Exhibition: On The Edge featured 41 works. San Diego-based artist Adam Belt, the juror, selected the pieces from a record 458 entries by 216 artists. All works were for sale, with 30 percent benefiting the museum.
Graduating art majors displayed their capstone projects in “Twelve-fold: Westmont College Graduate Exhibition 2025” this spring, with themes focused on identity, relationships and place. The artists included Amélie Barrero, Creed Bauman, Mia Brooke, Jaycee Felkins, Erika Harrison, Tucker Howard, Julia Jachetta, Gray Mohon, Juliana Moore, Ryan Speight, Rebekah Steele and Laurea Wanner.
A large crowd gathered for the multifaceted exhibition of “WILDLAND: Ethan Turpin’s Collaborations on Fire and Water” in January, which explored the complex relationships between fire, water and ourselves.
Living Earth: A Family Day of Exploration in March, offered fun, free activities with food, crafts, games, music and storytelling. Hundreds of people enjoyed adventures such as a birdwatching walk; a scavenger hunt exploring nature and a petting zoo.
An outdoor event in February included stories, poems and live classical music about the significance of the 2008 Tea Fire. Turpin and Jonathan PJ Smith created an installation in the formal garden, “Ember Trees,” that used video projectors to make scarred pine trees appear to glow with fire.
This is a story from the Spring 2025 Westmont Magazine