Concerted Effort

Down the hill, the ninth annual Santa Barbara International Jazz Festival--heavy on the groove this year--was producing its thumping rumble on Leadbetter Beach. Up at Santa Barbara City College overlooking the beach, a more refined local institution got underway last Friday night as the Camerata Pacifica kicked off its eighth season.

This ambitious chamber music group has grown considerably in the past few years, expanding its season to eight concerts, with two in the fall added to the usual batch of spring performances.

By standard terms of classical music protocol, Camerata Pacifica flutist and founder Adrian Spence fudges the rules without apology, freely exercising his gift of gab during concerts. But Spence makes it work, and that amiability ties in with the particular recipe for the group’s success.

At City College’s Fe Bland Forum, before the performance of John Adams’ 1979 Minimalist work “Shaker Loops,” Spence wittily warmed up the crowd--as he usually does when 20th century music is on the bill.

Spence’s agenda has been both to make classical music accessible to the uninitiated and to make the area safe for chamber music. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re making the area safe for music of our century, although Spence offers up small doses of new music each year.

The Adams piece, an elegant and mesmerizing construction of undulating rhythmic fragments--set into “loops”--was the clear highlight of the show. It has dated well, serving as evidence for the defense of Minimalism, which, in its best moments, is more than a fashionable blip on the screen of 20th century musical thinking. Adams tends to be a younger, antsier Minimalist, and his title is typically punning, referring to both “shaking” musical parts and the austerity of the Shaker religion.

On Friday, the musicians gave the Adams a fine reading, as they did C.P.E. Bach’s Concerto for Flute and Strings in D minor, showcasing Spence, who has an easy command, on flute. But the most convincing and assured music-making came with Faure’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Opus 15, featuring pianist Joanne Pearce Martin.

The field report from the outset: They’re off to a good start. Like last year, the season includes four performances of each program, at the Music Academy, the Fe Bland Forum, Ventura Temple Beth Torah and the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. The group comes to Temple Beth Torah in Ventura on Saturday.

* The Camerata Pacifica, Saturday at 8 p.m. at Temple Beth Torah, 7620 Foothill Road in Ventura. Tickets are $23; 800-557-BACH.

Down Beat: Ventura County music lovers know about the upheaval in the symphonic scene here, when the Ventura County Symphony and the Conejo Valley Symphony merged to become the New West Symphony, which opens its third official season Oct. 17.

The revitalized Conejo Valley Symphony may be down, but hardly out. They’re kicking off their four-concert season Saturday at the Ascension Lutheran Church in Thousand Oaks. A populist musical program is in store, under conductor Howard Sonstegard.

* Conejo Valley Symphony, Saturday at 8 p.m. at Ascension Lutheran Church in Thousand Oaks. Tickets are $25; 241-7270.