10 Over 40: A Salute to the Survivors

What’s not to love about a century-old arts organization with roots in a group of artists who called themselves the Jolly Daubers? Back then, about 26,000 people lived in the county, and there were only two incorporated cities: Watsonville and Santa Cruz. But thanks to those happy painters, the Santa Cruz Art League has a long history of supporting artists. In its present incarnation, it operates an art center near downtown Santa Cruz (526 Broadway) that presents 12 to 15 shows a year and offers art classes for all skill levels. A gift shop features work by local artists, and the group also operates the Broadway Play House, a 62-seat black-box theater. 

Santa Cruzans whose memories stretch back a few decades will remember that the Art League once housed a bona fide tourist attraction: a life-sized wax reproduction of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper, created by mother-daughter artists and commissioned by showman Harry Liston, who carted the work around to county fairs and carnivals before it came to be housed by the Art League from 1951 to 1983. But that wasn’t the end of the story: the piece now is under the care of Santa Cruz Memorial, a family-owned funeral home.

Reading about the history of this local institution, one feels transported to another time in another seaside town—but one that still lives on in memories of longtime Santa Cruzans. The symphony was founded in 1958 by Matilda Dedrick, a local music teacher and former WAC during World War II (learn more about Dedrick in this Santa Cruz Sentinel article headlined “From Needlepoint to Counterpoint”). Among the names that stand out in the symphony’s six-plus decades are Wally Trabing (the longtime Sentinel columnist played timpani), Marilyn Liddicoat (the controversial former supervisor cofounded the Watsonville Symphony Guild in 1968), and George Barati (the celebrated conductor helmed the symphony from 1971 to 1981 and was the first to bring on professional musicians who were paid for their services). And composer and longtime Aptos resident Lou Harrison wrote “Suite from The Marriage at the Eiffel Tower” for the symphony in 1961.

The Santa Cruz Symphony’s 2022-2023 season kicks off in September. Visit santacruzsymphony.org for program information.

The towering figure that is Lou Harrison also appears in the earliest days of the Cabrillo Music Festival—or as it was first known, the Sticky Wicket Concert Series. In 1961, composer Robert Hughes arrived on the scene, intent on studying with Harrison. Along with the proprietors of the Sticky Wicket in Aptos, Vic and Sidney Jowers, he began to present concerts at the coffeehouse. When Cabrillo College opened a year later, they joined forces with Gene Hambelton and Bud Kretschmer to launch the Cabrillo Music Festival.

Now marking its 60th season, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music is the country’s longest-running festival of new orchestral music. The first in-person season since the pandemic, the 2022 season runs July 24-Aug. 7. "Our hearts are full of joy, anticipation, and optimism to return to making incredible music together again in Santa Cruz, and to finally reuniting with Festival audiences," Music Director Cristi Măcelaru tells Broadway World.

A separate nonprofit organization from the Santa Cruz Symphony, the Santa Cruz County Youth Symphony has its roots in a summer music camp back in 1965, founded by Norman Masonson, James Eachus, Ken Larson, Hayden Dryden, and Craig Johnson. Masonson served as its first conductor, but the one who served longest was John Larry Granger, who held the baton from 1993 to 2011, while at the same time serving as music director of the Santa Cruz Symphony. The current artistic director is Nathaniel Berman, and the symphony is accepting applications for 2022-23.

UCSC professor Linda Burman-Hall brought the Santa Cruz Baroque Festival into being in 1974, back when the early keyboard specialist was still completing her music theory doctorate. This organzation dedicated to early music does more than just produce concerts. It also helps aficionados put the music of the medieval, Renaissance and Baoque periods into a historical context and learn about the artists who composed the music and the iinstuments they used. In addition to live shows, the festival’s performances are also featured on KSQD’s Community Concert Hall program (the first Monday of the month on 90.7 FM).

The festival’s next live event is a celebration of Beethoven’s 250th birthday on Nov. 19, and early-bird tickets for the 2023 season are already on sale.

The message is clear on Tandy Beal and Company’s Facebook feed. Its most recent program, described as a Moroccan spectacle with the group AZA performing Berber music, is titled Keep on Truckin’. Dancer Tandy Beal and musician/composer Jon Scoville have done just that since 1974, touring 120 works “from Anchorage to Zurich, Zagreb to Atlanta, Aptos to Zayante.” In a piece about the troupe’s 40th anniversary, Good Times editor Steve Palopoli writes, “Beal is probably best known for being the first artist to remake the Nutcracker in a modern style with ‘Mixed Nutz,’ which debuted in 1982, and for running the Pickle Family Circus. Beal and Scoville also ran Café Zinio, the Santa Cruz coffee shop immortalized in Cracker’s song ‘Big Dipper.’”

Formed in 1975 by Tim Jackson, Rich Wills and Sheba Burney, Kuumbwa Jazz Society is still going strong. Other than an 18-month hiatus during the pandemic, which ended in September 2021, the club has continued to bring some of the biggest names in jazz to its intimate stage on Cedar Street. Jackson still serves as artistic director, booking multiple shows a week with big names in jazz and blues coming up on the calendar. 

Kuumbwa’s website offers a concise timeline of jazz highlights. And for those with an appetite for more history can check out director Ken Koenig’s documentary Santa Cruz Swings: A History of Jazz in Santa Cruz, which can be viewed free on YouTube.

Like many of the organizations featured here, New Music Works owes its continued existence not only to its many followers but also to a single guiding force. That force at New Music Works is Philip Collins, who cofounded the group with four other composers (Tim Bell, Ron Elfving, Richard Freeman-Toole, and Gene Lewis) and has served as its artistic director and conductor since 1982. In an insightful piece written on the occasion of NMW’s 25th anniversary, Metro Santa Cruz writer Scott MacClelland quotes Collins: “The primary incentive to create and sustain NMW has been my unwillingness to live in a community that is bereft of a professional-level outlet for contemporary music." Its next concert offering, titled “The Future is Female” and featuring pianist Sarah Cahill performing music by 12 women composers, takes place Sept. 10 at Peace United Church of Christ.

Bringing hope to the Pajaro Valley, this nonprofit folklórico dance group is dedicated to preserving the danzas, sones, and huapangos of Mexico. Founded in Watsonville in 1980 by Janet Johns and Frances Urbina , Esperanza Del Valle marked its 40th anniversary in 2020 but had to wait to mount live shows. That happened in November 2021 at the Crocker Theater at Cabrillo College in Aptos and this past month with a Father’s Day weekend show at the Mello Center in Watsonville. Though these shows already happened, one can watch footage of the group’s 30th anniversary courtesy of Community Television of Santa Cruz, found on the Internet Archive.

Treading the boards in the San Lorenzo Valley since 1982, Mountain Community Theater began its history with a miracle—specifically, its own version of Miracle on 34th Street that was penned by two of MCT’s co-founders, Peter Troxell and Rita Wadsworth. What followed was a long struggle for the rights to publish and produce the play, which are detailed on the group’s website. Since then MCT has produced several productions a year—minus the “plague years” of 2020 and 2021. The curtain rose again in 2022 for a five-play season taking place in downtown Ben Lomond’s Park Hall. Next up is New Works Weekend on Aug. 12-14.

This troupe made its debut on the UCSC campus in 1981, and 40 years later Santa Cruz is still enjoying innovative takes on the Bard’s ouevre. However, now the plays are produced by Santa Cruz Shakespeare. It’s more than just a name change, which is why neither organization can lay claim to 40 consecutive years. But under its new name, Santa Cruz Shakespeare has proudly maintained the legacy of founding artistic director Audrey Stanley. As Traci Hukill wrote on Hilltromper.com back in 2014, “this festival is clearly the spirited child of its beloved predecessor, laid to rest in December 2013 after the university dissolved the 32-year partnership.” Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s 2022 season continues through August.