Written by Mary Dan Eades on March 28, 2018

Two for One
Montecito Journal/Montecito Miscellany, Richard Mineards
March 2018

Santa Barbara Choral Society has plenty to sing about as the tony troupe celebrates its 70th anniversary and the 25th anniversary of its director JoAnne Wasserman.

To mark the double-header, long-time supporters Gary and Kate Rees hosted a sunset soirée for premier Canto donors at their charming mountainside home before next month’s anniversary concert at the First Presbyterian Church with tickets selling for, appropriately enough, $70 in the VIP section and $25 for open seats.

To celebrate its septuagenarian status, JoAnne plans to invite all choral society alumni to join the chorus in concert to sing one selection from the last of composer Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Five Mystical Songs. The program will also include Haydn’s Missa in Angustiis – “Mass for Troubled Times”, better known as the “Lord Nelson Mass” – especially poignant in light of the recent catastrophes we have suffered.

(from left) Santa Barbara Choral Society Board Secretary Claudia Scott with Marilyn Gilbert, Diane Dodds Reichert, Masterworks Concert sponsor; honoree, JoAnne Wasserman, Conductor and Artistic Director; Brooks and Kate Firestone, SBCS Board President, Karen Williams; KarenBrill, SBCS Director EricaDiBartolomeo, DonJeske, SBCS Past President Debra Stewart, hostess Kate Rees, SBCS Board VP, Mary Dan Eades, Michael Eades, Bob Lally, and Mikki Caparrelli Lally (photo by Priscilla)

In the garden and Santa Barbara wind are Linda Shobe, Jeanne Warlick, Debra Stewart, SBCS Board Directors, Jeffery Warlick and Deb Rosique, Jody Dolan Holehouse, Ross Williams, honoree JoAnne Wasserman and her husband, Gary. (photo by Priscilla)

Chef Phillipe Sautot with hosts Kate and Gary Rees and honoree SBCS artistic director and conductor JoAnne Wasserman (photo by Priscilla)

Among those turning out for the boffo bash were Barbara Burger and Paul Munch, Brooks and Kate Firestone, Steve and Debra Stewart, Dick and Marilyn Mazess, Ross and Karen Williams, Marilyn Gilbert, Bob and Mikki Lally, Michael and Mary Dan Eades, Robert and Joan Renehan, Erica DiBartolomeo, and Gary Wasserman.