The Planets
The Planets
Saturday, January 23, 2027 | 7:30 PM
Sunday, January 24, 2027 | 3:00 PM
The Granada Theatre
Concert Duration: Approximately 100 minutes (including intermission)
LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS PROGRAM
Saturday Pre-Concert Chat | 6:30-7:00 PM
Sunday Pre-Concert Chat | 2:00-2:30 PM
Program Notes & Digital Program
Coming in January
Majestic in scope. Dazzling in sound. Nothing matches the experience of hearing The Planets live. Nir Kabaretti and The Symphony launch the New Year with Holst’s celestial showpiece, presented by Emmy-nominated astronomer Dr. José Francisco Salgado with stunning HD NASA images. Plus, beloved violín virtuoso Anne Akiko Meyers returns, soloing in Daugherty’s vibrant Blue Electra. “Old-world glamour… high gloss, singing sound,” declares The New York Times.
The Artists
Nir Kabaretti, conductor
Anne Akiko Meyers, violin
Dr. José Francisco Salgado, narrator
Repertoire
DAUGHERTY | Blue Electra
for violin and orchestra
HOLST | The Planets
with projected HD images!
Anne Akiko Meyers, violin
is a GRAMMY® Award–winning violinist whose four-decade career has established her as one of the most influential voices in classical music today. Hailed by The Strad as “the Wonder Woman of commissioning,” she has forged an extraordinary legacy of new works through visionary collaborations with many of the world’s leading composers, including Arvo Pärt, Einojuhani Rautavaara, John Corigliano, Arturo Márquez, Philip Glass, Michael Daugherty, Mason Bates, Adam Schoenberg, Billy Childs, Jakub Ciupiński, Ola Gjeilo, Morten Lauridsen, Wynton Marsalis, Somei Satoh, and Eric Whitacre.
Read more about Anne Akiko Meyers
As the first-ever Artistic Partner of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Meyers is redefining what it means to be a modern soloist—through dynamic collaborations, new commissions, and a powerful recording legacy.
In the 2025–26 season, she premieres and releases The Pacific Has No Memory by Eric Whitacre, in collaboration with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Colorado Music Festival, and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, as well as with Pacific Strings, commemorating the first anniversary of the fires that devastated the Palisades and Altadena communities.
Her recent album Beloved, featuring In the Arms of the Beloved by Pulitzer Prize finalist Billy Childs alongside works by Ola Gjeilo and Eric Whitacre with Grant Gershon and the Los Angeles Master Chorale, received a GRAMMY® nomination for Best Choral Performance. Other notable releases include Michael Daugherty’s Blue Electra with the Albany Symphony and David Alan Miller, and works by Philip Glass, including New Chaconne and the Violin Concerto No. 1, with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
In 2024, her recording of Arturo Márquez’s Fandango with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic earned two Latin GRAMMY® Awards (Best Classical Album and Best Contemporary Composition) and two GRAMMY® nominations. Since its 2021 premiere at the Hollywood Bowl, the work has been performed more than 40 times with 16 orchestras worldwide, including the LA Phil’s triumphant return to Carnegie Hall after a 32-year absence. Meyers reprised the work at the Hollywood Bowl in September 2025 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Giancarlo Guerrero.
Meyers has appeared twice on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, NPR’s Tiny Desk, CBS Sunday Morning, Evening at Pops, Great Performances, The View, and the Emmy Awards, as well as in a Countdown with Keith Olbermann segment that became the program’s third most-watched story of the year. She has graced the covers of Gramophone, Strings, and The Strad, and performed at landmark events including the John Williams Hollywood Bowl Stage Naming, Australia’s Bicentennial Celebration, the opening of the Arvo Pärt Centre, GRAMMY Legends honoring John Williams, performances for Emperor and Empress Akihito of Japan and Queen Máxima with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and renditions of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at T-Mobile Park and Dodger Stadium.
A passionate advocate for living composers, Meyers’s discography now numbers more than forty recordings, many of them world premieres. Her performance of Somei Satoh’s Birds in Warped Time II from her East Meets West album was featured in the winning presentation for the World Trade Center Memorial design; a remastered vinyl edition is slated for release this fall.
Meyers is the recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Distinguished Alumna Award, and an Honorary Doctorate from The Colburn School, and is a member of the Asian Hall of Fame. She serves on the Boards of The Juilliard School and the Dudamel Foundation. She performs on the legendary 1741 Ex-Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesù violin.
Born in San Diego and raised in Southern California, Meyers traveled eight hours round-trip from the Mojave Desert to Pasadena for lessons with Alice Schoenfeld and Eleonore Schoenfeld, often practicing in the front seat of the family Volkswagen Beetle. At 14, she moved to New York to study at The Juilliard School with Dorothy DeLay, Masao Kawasaki, and Felix Galimir; signed with management at 16; and recorded her debut album at 18 at Abbey Road Studios.
Dr. José Francisco Salgado, narrator
José Francisco Salgado, PhD is an Emmy-nominated astronomer (BS in Physics, Univ. of Puerto Rico; PhD in Astronomy, Univ. of Michigan), experimental photographer, visual artist, and public speaker who creates multimedia works that communicate science in engaging ways. As the Executive Director and co-founder of KV 265, a non-profit science and arts education organization, Dr. Salgado collaborates with orchestras, composers, and musicians to present films that provoke curiosity and a sense of wonder about the Earth and the Universe.
Read more about Dr. José Francisco Salgado
His Science & Symphony films have been presented in more than 254 concerts and 205 talks and have reached a combined audience of more than 474,000 people in concert halls, museums, and lecture halls spanning more than 100 cities in 21 countries. Some of the orchestras that have presented these works include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops, the San Francisco Symphony, New World Symphony, and the Orchestra Teatro Regio Torino. His first two films were named by the International Astronomical Union and UNESCO as Special Projects for the International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009). In 2012 his film Gustav Holst’s The Planets was chosen for Ravinia Festival’s One Score, One Chicago initiative. In 2014, his collaboration with composer Chris Theofanidis, “The Legend of the Northern Lights” was premiered with Grant Park Orchestra to critical acclaim in front of 32,000 people. In 2016, his short film Carol of the Lights was commissioned by Keith Lockhart and Boston Pops and presented 33 times to almost 75,000 people.
From 2006 until 2008 Salgado hosted “Nuestra Galaxia”, a weekly astronomy news segment on Univision Chicago (WGBO) for which he received an Emmy nomination. Dr. Salgado also produces and presents short science films with musician/composer Tom Bailey (from British pop group Thompson Twins) as part of the audiovisual ensemble Bailey-Salgado Project, and with harp duo Beyond Pluck.
As an experimental photographer, Salgado has visited more than 30 scientific sites in places including the South Pole, the Atacama desert, the French Pyrenees, and the South African Karoo and has contributed visuals to documentaries produced for the History, Discovery, BBC, and National Geographic channels. As a public speaker, he has given presentations about science and art in all seven continents, including a presentation at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.
Nir Kabaretti
is The Santa Barbara Symphony's world-renowned Music & Artistic Director
Nir Kabaretti has worked with some of the world’s most sought-after musicians. Some of his most well-known collaborators include Lang Lang, Placido Domingo, Joyce Di Donato, Angel Joy Blue, Vadim Repin, Gilles Apap, Hélène Grimaud, and André Watts.
Nir Kabaretti
is The Santa Barbara Symphony's World-Renowned Music & Artistic Director
Nir Kabaretti has worked with some of the world’s most sought-after musicians. Some of his most well-known collaborators include Lang Lang, Placido Domingo, Joyce Di Donato, Angel Joy Blue, Vadim Repin, Gilles Apap, Hélène Grimaud, and André Watts.
A very warm and special thank you
to our 2026/27 season donors and the sponsors making
this event possible!
Sponsors
Principal Sponsor
Dan & Meg Burnham
Artist Sponsors
Roxana Anson
Susan & Adam Berger
Selection Sponsors
Carla A. Amussen
George Konstantinow & Helene Segal
Judd* & Susan Lundt
Duncan & Suzanne Mellichamp
* in memoriam
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