WESTMONT NEWS
Artistic Endeavors Enrich the Community
Westmont’s 20th Christmas Festival featured two glorious concerts at the Granada Theatre celebrating the birth of Jesus through music and narrative old and new from around the world. This year’s theme, Dwelling Place, reflects God’s invitation to live in him as he makes his dwelling among us. Two Westmont professors directed the performance. Ruth Lin, who has worked with orchestras and conductors worldwide, leads the Westmont Orchestra and chairs the college’s music department. Professor Daniel Gee ’13 directs choral activities at Westmont and the Santa Barbara Youth Symphony and conducts the Westmont College Choir and Chamber Singers.
Gee led the Westmont College Choir and Orchestra in the premiere performance of his 20-minute commissioned work, “Cantata for the Restless,” in September at a Vespers service for the National Conference of the Lilly Network of Church-Related Colleges and Universities (see related story on page 14). He used texts from Augustine’s “Confessions” and Proverbs to present contemporary teaching and learning experiences as a journey toward wisdom and life with God. Westmont voice instructor Christina Ramsey and baritone Matthew Peterson performed solos, and political science professor Jesse Covington, who directs Westmont’s Augustinian Scholars Program, collaborated with Gee in writing the libretto for the composition. The Concert Choir from Xavier University of Louisiana joined the Westmont choir for the performance.
The college welcomed eight California high school choirs and more than 250 singers to Westmont’s annual Fall Choral Festival, where they received coaching from music professors, ate a massive pizza dinner and joined together in song. Each choir performed, and the evening ended with more than 300 singers presenting Gee’s composition “Cuán Bueno,” a Spanish setting of Psalm 133.
Gee traveled to Jundiaí, Brazil, in July 2024 to help train hundreds of church musicians from more than 50 Assemblies of God congregations at a Simpósio de Música. He coached singers in several works presented at a culminating concert, working with other U.S. music instructors. He also participated in the 2018 symposium.
In December 2023, the Westmont Chamber Singers became the first choir to sing carols at the magnificent Bellosguardo estate in Santa Barbara formerly owned by Huguette Clark, daughter of “Copper King” William A. Clark, and recently opened to the public. The ensemble returned in December 2024 for a repeat performance.
THEATER STAGED A COMIC PLAY
The Westmont Theatre Arts Department staged a hilarious version of John Buchan’s “The 39 Steps,” which featured an unrelenting barrage of creative set-design gags and physical comedy. Director Mitchell Thomas masterfully squeezed out every laugh while navigating a plot that doesn’t take itself seriously and offers good, lighthearted fun. More than 600 people attended the six performances at Porter Theatre.
“There’s a saying in theater: ‘Dying is easy, comedy is hard,’” Thomas says. “While it certainly challenged the actors, crew and creative team to produce the play, it surprised me how joyful it was for me and the entire team to work on this show. In a season of ‘elections, wars, and talk of wars,’ going to rehearsal was a balm of connection, laughter, creativity and joy. While we’re all proud of the final production and deeply enjoyed playing for audiences, I remain grateful for the process of working on ‘The 39 Steps.’”
Bravo to the fine cast of Joel Michelson, Kieran Williams, Alaina Dean, Jake Siaki and Tucker Howard who adeptly switched between numerous characters, each with a distinct accent. The Westmont theater staged a reading of Larissa Fasthorse’s “The Thanksgiving Play” in November. Madeline Fanton, a visiting assistant professor, directed the free performance, which follows a group of theater makers as they try to write a politically and historically correct play about the first Thanksgiving.
MUSEUM OFFERS STUNNING SHOWS
More than 30 members of the Oak Group, a collection of landscape artists passionate about nature and committed to preserving local lands, each exhibited a painting in “The Oak Group Presents the Grace of the World” at the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art in November and December. “I’ve always appreciated the work of the Oak Group artists,” says Judy L. Larson, Askew professor of art history and museum director. “They celebrate the splendor of nature in our coastal community and remind us to be protective and respectful of the pristine landscapes that surround us.”
The artists included: Meredith Brooks Abbott, Whitney Brooks Abbott, Marcia Burtt, Chris Chapman, John Comer, Wm. B. Dewey, Rick Drake, Michael Drury, Karen Foster, Rick Garcia, Carrie Givens, Kevin Gleason, Whitney Brooks Hansen, Jeremy Harper, Kerri Hedden, Tom Henderson, Ray Hunter, John Iwerks, Larry Iwerks, Manny Lopez, William Mitchell, Linda Mutti, Hank Pitcher, Rob Robinson, Ann Sanders, Richard Schloss, Skip Smith, Ray Strong, Arturo Tello, Thomas Van Stein, Sarah Vedder and John Wullbrandt.
Duncan Simcoe, a Southern California artist and former chair of the College of Architecture, Visual Arts and Design at California Baptist University in Riverside, offered his signature limited-palette paintings on dark construction-grade tar paper in “Night Visions: The Black Drawings of Duncan Simcoe, 2014-2024” last fall in the museum. Simcoe’s paintings, monochromatic oil washes with sketch-like delineation, resemble large-scale drawings. “Rather than focusing on particular subjects, his work explores personal and historical situations, often through a spiritual lens. The resulting images are extraordinary,” Larson says.
“The imagery is often quirky, causing the viewer to pause and ponder the content, striving to understand the meanings behind his juxtaposed images,” says Chris Rupp, curator and collections manager at the museum. “The content may at first seem ordinary, but there is an inexplicable presence in his works as well.”
Alumnus Casey Underwood ’14 exhibited his diverse talents as an outdoor wildlife artist in “Fins and Feathers: The Art of Casey Underwood” during the fall in the downstairs gallery. An illustrator and outdoorsman living in southern Montana, Underwood has become a recognizable artist in the outdoor space. He frequently collaborates with outdoor recreation industries to create fishing reels, hunting knives and apparel embellished with his wilderness-inspired designs. He has a growing print collection of more than 100 fish and wildlife species, which convey respect and appreciation for nature.
An impressive exhibition at the museum last summer, New Acquisitions: Selections from the Modern and Contemporary Collection, featured 45 works by three dozen artists, including Americans Richard Artschwager, Laddie John Dill and Louisiana Bendolph of the Gee’s Bend quilters, contemporary Chinese artist Yue Minjun, and numerous local artists.