Individual giving
Thank you for keeping the song alive
Individual donations make up more than 50% of our operating budget. We gratefully appreciate all our donors at every giving level for their support; every donation we receive, however large or small is important to us. Ticket sales underwrite only a fraction of the cost of performance, preparation, and operations, and your generous support ensures choral music will continue as it has for over 75 seasons!
Please consider a donation in celebration of our 75th Season!
Passionata – $25,000+
Special thanks goes to our primary season sponsors who make up the Passionata level of giving. Their generosity allows us to continually present the highest quality choral performances.
Todd and Allyson Aldrich
Brooks and Kate Firestone
Dick and Marilyn Mazess
Stanza – $10,000+
Stanza members’ contributions help pay for our accompanist, soloists, section leaders, and orchestra members.
Baton – $5000+
Baton donations underwrite our rehearsal hall for the season, and other operating expenses.
Soli – $2500+
Soli members help pay for the photography, videography, and lighting costs for a performance.
Canto – $1000+
The Canto Society, our largest group of donors, makes up the core of our financial giving opportunities. Among other things, their contributions fund marketing expenses, purchases of vocal scores for major choral works each season, and provide music scholarships for young singers.
To express our appreciation, each level of giving comes with a host of benefits, including VIP concert receptions, your name on the cover of the concert programs and in the press, free concert tickets, admission to a closed Choral Society rehearsal at the Music Academy of the West, and more.
American baritone, Ralph Cato has travelled the world extensively, telling stories in song with his warm, clarion baritone voice.
Tenor, Benjamin Brecher has performed over fifty operatic roles with many of the world’s most prestigious opera companies, specializing in the high lying lyric tenor repertoire. He has performed 16 roles with New York City Opera alone. Career highlights include performances with Opera Orchestra of New York, L’Opera de Nice, Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, L’Opera de Montreal, Santa Fe Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, among many others. His orchestral solo repertoire includes Mozart, Handel, Orff, Bach, Haydn, as well as many performances of Britten. In 2000 he began performing the great Irish Tenor songs in a concert produced for him entitled A Celtic Celebration, Twenty years later, the show has become a North American hit with performances with 45 Symphonies in North America. Ben continues his discography having added his twelfth recording in 2016 Forgotten Liszt, with pianist Robert Koenig, and will record a new release in 2022 entitled “Three Centuries of Thomas Moore” including the music of Britten, Berlioz, and Sarah Gibson on MSR Classics. He is a Professor of Voice at University of California Santa Barbara, where he has served as the Head of Voice.
Born and raised in Southern California, April Amante is a versatile soprano with expertise and facility in repertoire spanning from early music to contemporary musical theater.
Tracy Van Fleet is pleased to return to the Santa Barbara Choral Society. As a soloist, she has performed with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Lüneburg Symphony in Germany, Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río in Mexico, Pasadena Symphony, Naples Philharmonic, Los Angeles Bach Festival, San Diego Chamber Orchestra, Colorado Philharmonic, USC Symphony and Chorus, and others. She has had many appearances with the Los Angeles Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Opera Pacific, San Diego Opera and Opera Colorado.