Adriana Arriaga, known artistically as adriana la artista, is a passionate local artist rooted in the 805. At 16 years old, she discovered her interest in graphic design and recognized the ethical responsibility in her work. She earned a BA in Art/Design Studies from San Jose State University with a minor in Chicano Studies, and later completed her MFA in Design from the University of California, Davis, where she explored contemporary Chicana poster designs — a pivotal experience that gave rise to “adriana la artista.”
Inspired by the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and blending those ideals with present-day themes, Adriana creates bold, thought-provoking illustrations that celebrate her culture, community, and life experiences. While she is widely recognized for her powerful self-portraits, she is also known for her protest posters, which address pressing social and political issues. Though her work is widely accessible online, Adriana has also been showcased in several exhibitions and actively engages with her community by distributing posters at protests, leading design workshops, and sharing her art freely at local pop-up events. She has also been featured in print and online publications and participated in many artist talks centered around her creative journey.
Today, Adriana continues to shape her community through her creative contributions by serving on the Board of Trustees for the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara and using her design expertise to amplify important causes and tell meaningful stories.

A fifth generation Santa Barbara native, Teresa Kuskey grew up dancing, starring in innumerable ballet productions on local stages. She performed nationally with San Francisco Ballet, American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet before raising her six children. She is the mother of a special needs adult, which has inspired her commitment to inclusion, as a dance teacher in schools and for La Boheme.

Kuskey started La Boheme Dance in 2014 with the goal to uplift our community and spread joy by offering community members of all ages and abilities the opportunity to express themselves through dance. That first year, 30 dancers shared Teresa’s ground-breaking cabaret/jazz fusion choreography at the 40th annual Santa Barbara Summer Solstice parade and festival. Ten years later, La Boheme led the 50th Solstice Festival parade with over 150 dancers, performers, and volunteers.

Teresa earned a Santa Barbara Local Hero honor from The Santa Barbara Independent (2017) for her early commitment to dance excellence and for offering authentic dance and performance opportunities for the community regardless of age, experience, ability to pay, or any other barrier to participate. She was named Saint Barbara for Old Spanish Days Fiesta in 2020 for her work with veterans as a member of Native Daughters of the Golden West’s Reina del Mar Parlor No. 126. She continued the rich tradition of Fiesta through the COVID-19 pandemic, producing a video-version of a traditional Fiesta Festival at a historic Santa Barbara County ranch. She also kept the Solstice tradition alive through the pandemic by producing a Marie Antoinette-themed film version of a parade and festival at a beautiful Montecito estate with 80 dancers, which screened at the Arlington Theater for a community reeling from lockdowns, loss and isolation.

La Boheme dancers have been seen at 10 Solstice parades, 10 years of Fiesta events, public performances by rock legends Chubby Checker and Skip Martin — lead singer for Kool and the Gang and the Grammy-winning Dazz Band – countless nonprofit fundraisers and galas, holiday parades, and private events. La Boheme has been honored with numerous “Best of Santa Barbara” awards.

Frances Moore, a long-time resident of Santa Barbara, was born and raised to a family of sharecroppers in Pine Flat, Alabama. At the age of 12, Frances moved to Montgomery, Alabama in the 1950s, where Dr. King began the Civil Rights movement. After graduating high school, Frances moved to Columbus, Ohio, attended business school, and secured a job for the state of Ohio. In 1960, she relocated and worked for the City of Los Angeles as a data entry operator.  
 
In the early 1980s, Frances accepted a challenging position working with the Shuttle Test Group at Vandenberg Air Force Base, preparing to launch the space vehicle the Challenger. She then went on to obtain a data entry position with the County of Ventura’s Child Protective Services where the social workers saw her potential and passion and encouraged her to do social service work with vulnerable people within the community. She began working with at-risk youth, mentoring them, and helping them see their full potential and value. She went on to obtain a BA in psychology from Antioch University Santa Barbara, and further expanded her impact in her community by studying non-violent communication and obtaining certification in alcohol and drug counseling.   
 
She is the co-founder, with Mark Ravitz, of the Santa Barbara Ring Shout project. Ring shout is a tradition of the African enslaved people’s style of worship known as “call and response.”  Since its inception 17 years ago, The Ring Shout Project has performed at many events including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Juneteenth celebrations and programs throughout California. Its greatest achievement was to be invited to Washington DC by the Gullah/Geechee group to perform the largest Ring Shout ceremony for the Lorenzo Dow Turner’s exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution.  

Frances is currently retired and attending SBCC’s Adult Extension Program for creative writing. She is still active with the Ring Shout Project. She has two adult children and six grandchildren.  

Melinda Palacio is the City of Santa Barbara’s 10^th Poet Laureate (2023-2025). She holds two degrees in Comparative Literature, a BA from UC Berkeley and an MA from UC Santa Cruz. Palacio is a 2007 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellow and a 2009 poetry alum of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. Her poetry chapbook, Folsom Lockdown, won Kulupi Press’ Sense of Place 2009 award. She is the author of the novel, Ocotillo Dreams (Bilingual Press 2011), for which she was awarded the Mariposa Award at the 2012 International Latino Book Awards and a 2012 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature. Her first full-length poetry collection, How Fire Is a Story, Waiting, (Tia Chucha Press 2012) was a finalist for the Milt Kessler Award, the Paterson Prize, and received First Prize in Poetry at the 2013 International Latino Book Awards. In 2015, her work was featured on the Academy of American Poets, Poem-a-Day Program. Her latest poetry collection is Bird Forgiveness, published by 3:A Taos Press. In addition to her literary work, Melinda has had a long career in journalism as a freelance writer for the East Valley and Scottsdale Tribune and a staff reporter for the Goleta Valley Voice. She was an editor and publisher of Inkbyte Magazine and has been a regular contributor to La Bloga for over a decade. She also writes a poetry connection column for The Santa Barbara Independent. Palacio is also a musician who taught herself to play ukulele online during the COVID-19 lockdown. She has participated in the “100 Days of Ukulele” project for the past four years and the “ukesnotnukes” flashmob for peace. Three years ago, she joined Santa Barbara’s Ladies Social Strumming Club and performs in the group, playing guitar and ukulele. Palacio started singing and writing songs in her late forties and began incorporating her original songs and music into her poetry presentations.

JoAnne Wasserman has held the baton as Music Director and Conductor of The Santa Barbara Choral Society since 1993. As conductor she is the catalyst that brings the music to life, unifying over 100 musicians on stage to create a moving experience for the audience. Joanne’s journey into conducting began during her teenage years in Los Angeles, and she went on to earn a master’s degree in Choral Conducting from California State University at Northridge, with doctoral work at USC. Her mastery developed further under the guidance of renowned conductors John Alexander and Rodney Eichenberger, Paul Salamunovich, Robert Shaw, and Roger Wagner, at a time when few women held roles as conductors.

Over 32 seasons with The Choral Society, Joanne has conducted numerous major choral works, including Verdi’s Requiem and Bach’s B-minor Mass, and introduced fresh programming. Notably, she collaborated with Sir George Martin at The Granada and brought the a cappella group Voctave to local audiences. For decades, Joanne has prepared choruses for Santa Barbara Symphony. Her teaching includes faculty positions at Cal State Northridge, Moorpark College, and Westmont College, as well as serving as chorus master for Opera Santa Barbara. In 2008, she collaborated with State Street Ballet to premiere William Soleau’s original ballet for Orff’s Carmina Burana at the Granada Theatre.
 
Thanks to her professional connections, Santa Barbara hosted the West Coast premiere of the Rain Sequence by renowned African-American composer Dr. Rollo Dilworth, and The Choral Society’s first Community Choral Workshop at the Music Academy of the West, conducted by acclaimed maestro Dr. Eugene Rogers.
 
Ms. Wasserman has led The Choral Society on four international performance tours. Through her vision and dedication to the choral arts, Ms. Wasserman has become a local legend, continuing to inspire The Choral Society as it enters its 77th season.