The Lobero Theatre, founded by José Lobero, is a historic building in Santa Barbara, California

Santa Barbara, California

Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...

. It is at the corner of Anacapa and Canon Perdido Streets, less than a block away from the historic Presidio of Santa Barbara

Presidio of Santa Barbara

The El Presidio Real de Santa Bárbara, also known as the Royal Presidio of Santa Barbara, was a military installation in Santa Barbara, California. It was built by Spain in 1782, with the mission of defending the Second Military District in California...

.

History

Built in 1873 as an opera house

Opera house

An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building...

, the theater was rebuilt to Spanish Colonial Revival style designs by architects George Washington Smith

George Washington Smith (architect)

George Washington Smith, , was an American architect and painter. He is noted particularly for his work around Santa Barbara, California, and for popularizing the Spanish Colonial Revival style in early 20th Century America....

 and Lutah Maria Riggs

Lutah Maria Riggs

Lutah Maria Riggs, FAIA was an American architect who worked for several decades in the Southern California region...

 for the Community Arts Music Association

Community Arts Music Association

Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara is the oldest arts organization in Santa Barbara, California, USA.CAMA began in the fall of 1919 when a group of community-minded Santa Barbarans came together in the years following World War I to create the Civic Music Committee...

 in the early 1920s, and opened in August 1924, during a period in which civic groups in Santa Barbara were beginning to unify the town's architectural look around a Spanish Colonial style.

Present day

The theatre continues to host arts and cultural events on 250 or more days per year.

Because of its live acoustics and relatively small size it is particularly suited to chamber music

Chamber music

Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...

.

The Music Academy of the West

Music Academy of the West

The Music Academy of the West is a music conservatory located in Montecito, California near Santa Barbara, California. Every year, it hosts a summer music festival for the community highlighted by concerts and workshops directed by famous composers, conductors, and artists.A yearly maximum of 135...

 holds many of its summer concerts in the Lobero.

External links

• Official Lobero Theatre website
• Lobero Theater Records, at the University of California, Santa Barbara
  University of California, Santa Barbara
  The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...
  
  Library.