In May of 1970, Cal Poly music professors got together to brainstorm the possibility of starting a summer music festival in San Luis Obispo. The SLO Mozart Festival happened the next year, and more than 50 years later, that festival lives on as Festival Mozaic, which hosts year-round events as well as a two-week summer festival.
This year’s summer fest will run from July 23 through 30, featuring chamber music concerts, orchestra performances, crossover artists, jazz, folk artists, mini concerts, wine tastings, film presentations, dinners, lectures, and more. Some of the events—like Baroque in the Vines—are already sold out, but there’s plenty to see, taste, and listen to, if you’ve got some spare time to get cultured.
Find your way to See Canyon Fruit Ranch in Avila Beach on Sunday, July 24, to check out modern folk musician Kinsey Lee (2 p.m.; $67 to $87; festivalmozaic.org). Lee has written, toured, and performed with The Wild Reeds for the last 10 years, but during quarantine a solo project blossomed with the help of some Carole King records and King’s memoir. Festival Mozaic compares Kinsey’s raw vocals to Bonnie Raitt, Lucinda Williams, and Brandi Carlile.
And if one concert that Sunday isn’t enough, you can always attend the evening show—eight-time Grammy Award-winner bassist Christian McBride is one of the “most in-demand jazz musicians of his generation,” according to Festival Mozaic. He moved to New York to study classical music at Juilliard, before being recruited to the road by saxophonist Bobby Watson. “Call it a change in curriculum: a decade’s worth of study through hundreds of recording sessions and countless gigs with an ever-expanding circle of musicians. He was finding his voice, and others were learning to listen for it,” press materials state.
McBride has performed on more than 200 recordings and collaborated with legends like Sonny Rollins, James Brown, and Kathleen Battle. He will combine his deft musicianship with an innate ability to communicate his enthusiasm to an audience on Sunday, July 24, at Cuesta College’s Harold J. Miossi Cultural and Performing Arts Center (7:30 p.m.; $57 to $97; festivalmozaic.org).
As part of the festival’s Late Night Series collaboration, American composer, performer, and producer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith will bring her Buchla 100 synthesizer to SLO Brew Rock on Thursday, July 28 (9:30 p.m.; $30 in advance, $35 at the door). Her most recent synth album, Tides: Music for the Meditation and Yoga, was released in 2019. She uses visual aids as inspiration for her music: “Sometimes I let the sound create the image for me and then I build off that. Or vice versa: I come up with imagery that is inspiring to me, or I see something that is inspiring, and then create sounds that I feel match it.”
You can also catch chamber music at the Cuesta performing arts center on Monday, July 25, and Thursday, July 28, as well as at Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa on Wednesday, July 27 (all concerts start at 7:30 p.m.; $20 to $97; festivalmozaic.org). Or attend a free “midday mini-concert.” Festival Brass Quintet plays in Paso Robles City Park on Wednesday, July 27, and LA Philharmonic Assistant Principal Violist Ben Ullery will perform at the Community Church of Atascadero on Thursday, July 28. Midday minis start at noon and run for an hour (for a full listing of events, visit festivalmozaic.org).
Mid-State saunter
As mentioned in last week’s column, the Mid-State Fair is upon us, ushering in more concerts than you can count.
Nashville-based country powerhouse Old Dominion takes the Chumash Grandstand Arena stage at the Paso Robles Event Center on Friday, July 22 (7:30 p.m.; $40 to $85; midstatefair.com). Since their start in 2014, the band has put eight No. 1 singles on country radio. In 2020, the band received its first two Grammy Award nominations for Best Country Duo/Group Performance and Best Country Song for their single “Some People Do.” In 2021, the band released Time, Tequila & Therapy, with singles “No Hard Feelings” and “I Was on a Boat That Day.”
Afro-latin-blues-rock legend Carlos Santana plays the arena on Saturday, July 23 (7:30 p.m.; $40 to $175; midstatefair.com). He’s won 10 Grammys and three Latin Grammys, received the Billboard Century Award, has a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors Award. The man is No. 15 on Rolling Stone‘s list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of all Time and has had albums reach the Top 10 in every decade since the 1960s. In 2021, he released Blessings and Miracles, which features collabs with Rob Thomas, Chris Stapleton, and Steve Winwood.
Catch country/pop superstars Dan and Shay on Sunday, July 24 (7:30 p.m.; $35 to $125); Skid Row, Warrant, Quiet Riot, and Kip Winger bring their Live To Rock Tour to Paso on Monday, July 25 (7:30 p.m.; $20 to $50); and Georgia singer-songwriter-rapper Colt Ford plays a free 7:30 p.m. show on Tuesday, July 26. The world’s most influential Mexican band, Los Tigres Del Norte, takes the arena stage on Wednesday, July 27, and Kane Brown—aka, the “future of country”—will be there on Thursday, July 28. For more shows and to see who’s rocking the Frontier Stage, visit midstatefair.com.
More music …
But wait! There’s more.
The Siren is, of course, also hosting a bevy of concerts with a special shoutout to the free show on Thursday, July 21, when Dubbest lands in Morro Bay (7:30 p.m.). Originally from the East Coast, the Boston-raised band of four has a unique sound inspired by early passions for punk and ska and a newfound love for experimental dub and jam. The band frequently throws in expanded dub sections to their original songs while performing roots reggae tracks in their own style. Roots-reggae songwriter and guitarist Devin Morrison—aka Man-Like-Devin—will join them.
Liliac—a five-piece family “vamp metal” band consisting of siblings from 12 to 21 years old that was on season 15 of America’s Got Talent—is going to rock The Siren’s world on Tuesday, July 26 (7 p.m.; $15 to $20; eventbrite.com). Starting out performing on the Santa Monica pier, large crowds would gather to watch them play. They then began covering well-known rock and metal songs, which went viral, before releasing their first EP, Chain of Thorns in 2019. In 2020, Liliac released a 13-song album, Queen of Hearts.
Acoustic guitarist Leo Kottke will strum in the Fremont Theater on Tuesday, July 26 (8p.m.; all ages; $37 to $64).
Dante Marsh & the VibeSetters will fill Mission Plaza in SLO with island soul and funk for Concerts in the Plaza on Friday, July 22, with opener Jineanne Coderre (free; 4:30 to 8 p.m.).
Bob and Wendy with Paul Griffith play Don’s String Shop in Los Osos on Saturday, July 23 (7 p.m.; $10 at the door; reserve your spot by calling (805) 235-5456). “We have a small sit-down and listen concert coming up. It is at the intimate Don’s String Shop in Los Osos, which is run by National Resophonic Guitars founder Don Young’s widow, Hilary Young,” explained Bob Liepman, cellist of Bob and Wendy. “It is mostly known by guitar nerds and has walls covered in exotic and rare instruments. They are typically only open on Saturdays. This will be their first post-pandemic show.”
Vocalist Sarah Pillow (SLO native, New York-based) is joined by vibraphonist Marc Wagnon (NYC) and upright bassist Tony Green (Los Angeles) for an evening of jazz standards and original compositions at Linnaea’s on Thursday, July 21 (6 to 7:30 p.m.). Δ
Editor Camillia Lanham is filling in for Glen Starkey this week. Send complaints to gstarkey@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Jul 21-31, 2022.