Santa Rosa Symphony

E.T. The Extra Terrestrial In Concert
2024-01-18 00:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Tickets

Tickets can be purchased through the Green Music Center’s website or by calling, (707) 664-4246.The Santa Rosa Symphony is not selling tickets to this event.

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Listen to the E.T. The Extra Terrestrial Soundtrack Watch the Trailer

Health & Safety

Please read the Green Music Center’s current COVID-19 protocols here. Please note: COVID-19 protocols are subject to change. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial is a trademark and copyright of Universal Studios. Licensed by Universal Studios Licensing LLC. All Rights Reserved. Available on Blu-ray and DVD from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.

Free Community Concert featuring Villalobos Brothers
2024-01-18 00:00
Presented by the Green Music Center and Santa Rosa Symphony

Tickets available through the Green Music Center.

Event has passed

Seating is general admission and available on a first come-first served basis. Get there early for best seats.

Program

Leonard Bernstein/Maurice Peress, Arranger : Overture to West Side StoryScott Joplin/d.S. Desisle, Arranger/gunther Schuller, Editor : The EntertainerAlberto Ginastera : concerto for Harp and Orchestra, Opus 25Son Veracruzano [traditional]/Luis Villalobos/Eduardo Magallanes, Arranger : El PijulErnesto Villalobos : AttackLuis Villalobos/Marcos Barilari, Arranger : Sin MiSon Veracruzano [traditional] : La BrujaAlberto Villalobos/Eduardo Magallanes, Arranger : El San LorenzoPatricio Hidalgo/Alberto Villalobos : La GallinaLuis Villalobos/Marcos Barilari, Arranger : Somos

Tickets

This concert will be general admission and seating is on a first come-first served basis.

LIMIT 8 per household.

Tickets are requred for entry.

Tickets available online at the Green Music Center

All seating for this event is general admission and on a first-come, first-served basis. Seating in Weill Hall and outdoor tables is limited and not guaranteed. Patrons who wish to sit inside Weill Hall or at an outdoor table, should plan to be seated by 6:40 p.m. so the performance can begin on time. All guests will be welcome to sit on the lawn after that time.

Concert-goers may bring in food and non-alcoholic beverages to enjoy a picnic on the lawn or at terrace tables. Food and beverages may also be purchased on site. Water bottle filling stations will also be available.

For the safety of all guests, all items brought into the Green Music Center including coolers, picnic baskets, bags, backpacks and purses are subject to search upon entry. Patrons who choose not to subject their personal belongings to a security search will not be permitted to enter the grounds.

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Supported in part by

Programs, dates, artists, and prices are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

Photo of Francesco Lecce-Chong by Susan and Neil Silverman Photography

My Kind of Broadway
2024-01-18 00:00
Click here to see full program

Pre Concert Talk

Join Principal Pops Conductor Michael Berkowitz one hour prior to every concert for a discussion of the afternoon’s concert, along with personal anecdotes and memories from his storied career working on Broadway and with Liza Minelli, Henry Mancini, and Marvin Hamlisch among many others.

How to Purchase Tickets for The Pops!

Although the Santa Rosa Symphony is performing, the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts is selling the tickets for this concert.

To purchase tickets, click here.LBC Box office: (707) 546-3600

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Tues – Sat, 10am – 6pm | closed Sunday and Monday(Open 2 hours before performances on Sundays and Mondays)

We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:

“My Kind of Broadway: Mike Berkowitz Finale” underwritten by The Heck Foundation Mike Berkowitz underwritten by Michael and Nancy Hall

Programs, dates, artists, and prices are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

A John Denver Rocky Mountain Christmas
2024-01-18 00:00
About the Concert

Since 2002 the combined talents of Curry and his band have brought John’s music back to thousands of people. He also works behind the scenes to preserve Denver’s music. Most notable is Curry’s collaboration with Lee Holdridge in rebuilding and preserving Denver’s original symphony arrangements. Curry was a key performer in the induction of John Denver to the Colorado Music Hall of fame show hosted by Olivia Newton John. He also was the host of the official John Denver Estate show, which toured the United States and Australia. Curry’s latest project is titled, “Such a Wild Place,” which was produced by two of John Denver’s band members, Pete Huttlinger and Chris Nole. It includes four original songs co-written by Jim Curry and also includes three unreleased songs written by John Denver.

Pre Concert Talk!

Join Principal Pops Conductor Michael Berkowitz one hour prior to every concert for a discussion of the afternoon’s concert, along with personal anecdotes and memories from his storied career working on Broadway and with Liza Minelli, Henry Mancini, and Marvin Hamlisch among many others.

How to Purchase Tickets for Pops!

Although the Santa Rosa Symphony is performing, the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts is selling the tickets for this concert.

POPS! Subscription Form

New subscriptions on sale June 10Individual tickets on sale August 17

To purchase tickets, click here.LBC Box office: (707) 546-3600Tues – Sat, 10am – 6pm | closed Sunday and Monday(Open 2 hours before performances on Sundays and Mondays)

Plan Your Visit

Learn more about the Discovery Rehearsal Series

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Before the Concert

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We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:

“Rocky Mountain Christmas” underwritten by Gordon BlumenfeldMike Berkowitz underwritten by Michael and Nancy Hall

Programs, dates, artists, and prices are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

There are no program notes for this concert.

Playing for Peanuts: The Music of Vince Guaraldi
2024-01-18 00:00
About the Concert

Launching Michael Berkowitz’s final season, Playing for Peanuts: The Music of Vince Guaraldi represents the world premiere of brand new orchestrations of Guaraldi’s genius, inspired by local legend Charles M. Schulz, his quirky Peanuts characters, and the comic strip itself. GRAMMY®-nominated pianist David Benoit, who composed music for the Peanuts TV specials for more than 10 years, will perform enduring favorites with his trio, including “Linus and Lucy,” “Christmas Time Is Here,” “You’re in Love Charlie Brown,” “Great Pumpkin Waltz,” “The Red Baron March,” “Cast Your Fate to The Wind,” plus other Peanuts favorites.

For four decades, the GRAMMY®-nominated pianist/composer/ arranger David Benoit has reigned supreme as one the founding fathers of contemporary jazz. He has served as conductor with a wide range of symphonies, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Dresden Philharmonic, London Symphony, and the Asia America Symphony Orchestra, to name a few. Piano performances have included Claude Bolling’s” Suite for Flute & Jazz Piano,” “Suite for Cello & Piano,” “Concerto for Guitar & Jazz Piano Trio,” with Angel Romero; guest soloist with Lalo Schifrin and his orchestra; and, as a tribute to Charles M. Schultz, the Peanuts Piano Concerto and the music of Vince Guaraldi in conjunction with his recording of Here’s to You, Charlie Brown: 50 Great Years. Be a part of the music of Charlie Brown at this special tribute, here in the hometown of Charles M. Schulz himself.

Pre Concert Talk

Join Principal Pops Conductor Michael Berkowitz one hour prior to every concert for a discussion of the afternoon’s concert, along with personal anecdotes and memories from his storied career working on Broadway and with Liza Minelli, Henry Mancini, and Marvin Hamlisch among many others.

How to Purchase Tickets for Pops!

Although the Santa Rosa Symphony is performing, the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts is selling the tickets for this concert.

Event has already passed.

New subscriptions on sale June 10Individual tickets on sale August 17

To purchase tickets, click here.LBC Box office: (707) 546-3600Tues – Sat, 10am – 6pm | closed Sunday and Monday(Open 2 hours before performances on Sundays and Mondays)

Plan Your Visit

Learn more about the Discovery Rehearsal Series

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Before the Concert

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Dining & Hotels

We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:

“Playing for Peanuts: The Music of Vince Guaraldi” underwritten by The Redwood Empire Ice Area (Snoopy’ s Home Ice)Mike Berkowitz underwritten by Michael and Nancy Hall

Programs, dates, artists, and prices are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

There are no program notes for this concert.

Opera in Concert: Mozart's Magic Flute
2024-01-18 00:00
ArtQuest Staff and Instructors

Katie Loomis, Program CoordinatorMarla Tusa, Vocal MusicLea Brown, DanceJereme Anglin, Theatre ArtsJason Pedri, Video ArtsLauren Frost, Digital ArtsBrooke Delello, Visual Fine ArtsJanet Fisher, Visual Fine ArtsTim Decker, Instrumental MusicJohn Sappington, Photography

San Francisco Conservatory of Music students

Victor Cardamone, TaminoEllen Leslie, PaminaHyesoo Kim, PapagenaErica Thelen, First Lady/Child-SpiritTaylor See, Second Lady/Child-SpiritHope Nelson, Third Lady/Child-SpiritJackson Allen, Monostatos/First Armored ManJoe Hack, Temple Speaker/Second Armored Man

Tickets

Single tickets available now.

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We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:

Lead Sponsor: Victor and Karen TrioneConductor Francesco Lecce-Chong Sponsored by David and Corinne ByrdArtQuest Santa Rosa High School sponsored by Willow Creek Wealth ManagementEllen Leslie sponsored by Pauline FisherEfraín Solís sponsored by Jack Dupre and Marsha Vas DupreShawnette Sulker sponsored by Irene Sohm

Programs, dates, artists, and prices are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), K. 620 (abridged)
COMPOSER: born January 27, 1756, Salzburg, Austria; died December 5, 1791, ViennaWORK COMPOSED: between April and July 1791, on a libretto by Emanuel SchickanederWORLD PREMIERE: Mozart led the premiere at the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna on September 30, 1791INSTRUMENTATION: Tamino (tenor), Papageno (baritone), Pamina (soprano), Queen of the Night (coloratura soprano), Sarastro (bass), 3 Ladies (sopranos), Monostatos (tenor), 3 Child-Spirits (treble, alto, mezzo-soprano), Speaker of the Temple (bass-baritone) 3 Priests (tenor, bass, speaker), Papagena (soprano), 2 Armored Men (tenor, bass), 3 Slaves (2 tenors, bass), SATB chorus, 2 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and stringsESTIMATED DURATION: 90 minutesDuring the summer and fall of 1791, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart juggled several projects: his final opera, La clemenza di Tito; the singspiel The Magic Flute, the Requiem (which Mozart left unfinished at his death), and the Clarinet Concerto. In September 1791, as Mozart raced to complete The Magic Flute, he was also opening La clemenza in Prague. This hectic schedule resulted in long days, sleepless nights, and hours traveling between Vienna and Prague, in less than comfortable conditions. After he premiered La clemenza, Mozart fell ill; he spent the final two months of his life frantically trying to complete as much music as possible while he could still work. He died on December 5, 1791, seven weeks before his 36th birthday.

Both the story and music of The Magic Flute reflect Mozart’s style and personality; conductor Bruno Walter called it “Mozart’s own spiritual will and testament.” Written in German, Mozart’s mother tongue, the fanciful tale incorporates many of the Enlightenment ideals to which Mozart aspired: noble virtue, the universality of mankind, integrity, and the heroic striving for knowledge. These lofty aspirations combine with unapologetically lowbrow humor to make The Magic Flute a true masterpiece, one Mozart wrote for everyday people rather than the aristocracy or the Church.

In technical terms, The Magic Flute falls into the category of singspiel (speech-song) rather than opera, as it incorporates spoken dialogue rather than recitatives between songs. Singspiels, a form of German comic opera, were quite popular in Mozart’s time. He was familiar with the style, having previously composed several singspiele, including Bastien und Bastienne, written at the tender age of 12, and The Abduction from the Seraglio, the first large-scale stage work he wrote after moving to Vienna in 1782. Singspiele are especially well-suited for plots that feature magical, whimsical, or “exotic” elements. Librettist, actor, and theatrical impresario Emanuel Schikaneder no doubt had singspiel in mind for The Magic Flute, whose story combines elements of several earlier tales. Research suggests Schikaneder may have been influenced by a 12th-century roman, Yvain (Owain, a knight of King Arthur’s Round Table), as well as the 1731 fantasy novel Life of Sethos, Taken from the private Memoirs of the Ancient Egyptians. Schickanader’s theatrical company was also known for its productions of Zauberoper (fairy-tale operas), particularly Oberon and The Philosopher’s Stone.

In 1784, Mozart became a Freemason, drawn as he was to the group’s belief in Enlightenment and humanist values. Many of Mozart’s friends and colleagues were also Masons, including Schikaneder, who found in Masonic symbology a perfect vehicle for telling a fanciful tale. The Magic Flute abounds in Masonic references. The number three has particular Masonic significance; the overture, set in the key of E-flat (three flats), begins with three bold chords, meant to represent the three knocks that open secret Masonic rites. These chords return later in the overture, and recur at pivotal dramatic moments in the opera.

Opera plots are known for their convoluted storylines, particularly comic operas, with their reliance on misdirection, deception, and mistaken identity. Schikaneder’s story is less purely complicated and more puzzling, however. Prince Tamino is given a quest by the Queen of the Night to rescue the Queen’s daughter, Pamina, from the evil clutches of the wicked sorcerer Sarastro. This sets up the premise that Tamino, Pamina, and the Queen are “good” characters, while Sarastro is presented as “bad.” Halfway through the story these assumptions are turned upside-down. During his travels, Tamino, accompanied by the half-man, half-bird Papageno, finds Sarastro and comes to understand that Sarastro was rescuing Pamina from the Queen, who is actually the evildoer in this story. Along the way, as Sarastro charges them to perform three “trials” to prove their bravery, loyalty, and honesty, Tamino and Pamina fall in love (Papageno eventually finds love himself in the form of the adoring half-woman half-bird Papagena), and the Queen is defeated.

Musicologist Luke Howard offers an intriguing explanation for this narrative about-face. “These plot peculiarities can be understood in terms of a larger universal story that untangles the complexities of façade and inner truth,” he writes. “In this interpretation, The Magic Flute is a sophisticated symbolic vehicle, a lesson in epistemology that represents a philosophical exercise commonly known in German as Sein und Schein (Reality and Appearance). It invites the viewer to look past first appearances, and examine the premises and assumptions on which those appearances are based. In other words, it takes the story much further than a mere fairy tale – where characters are “types” and the distinction between good and evil usually well-marked – and turns it into a more meaningful and profound allegory … the audience … discovers the true Sein (Reality) beneath the deceptive Schein (or Appearance). This makes the first part of the opera an intentional deception, trying to convince Tamino that good is evil, and evil good. The second Act then pulls the curtain back and reveals the Truth that the Queen had hidden in the opera’s opening.”

© 2023 Elizabeth Schwartz Elizabeth Schwartz is a writer and music historian based in the Portland area. She has been a program annotator for more than 20 years, and works with music festivals and ensembles around the country. Schwartz has also contributed to NPR’s “Performance Today,” (now heard on American Public Media).

NOTE: These program notes are for Santa Rosa Symphony patrons and other interested readers. Any other use is forbidden without specific permission from the author, who may be contacted at classicalmusicprogramnotes.com.

Two Piano World Premiere
2024-01-18 00:00
What’s Special About Concert?

Join us for the Festival of Masks, presented by the Santa Rosa Symphony League.

A treasure trove of decorative masks created by some of the finest artists in Sonoma County will be auctioned at the Santa Rosa Symphony’s concerts on May 6, 7 & 8, 2023.

Doors open on Saturday and Monday at 6:00 PM and on Sunday at 1:30 PM, so you have time to shop for your perfect gift, wall decoration, or mask for that masquerade ball you may be attending! You can bid at a silent auction or purchase your favorite mask outright. Bidding will take place before the concert and during intermission. Your winning bid will be packaged and waiting for you immediately after the concert. For more information, please visit the Santa Rosa Symphony League’s website

Your purchase supports the Symphony’s Music Education programs.

Concert Conversations with Francesco Lecce-Chong

Concert Conversations are general seating and free to Classical Series concert ticket holders. Approximately 30 minutes in Weill Hall.

Saturday, May 6, 2023 at 6:30 PM

Sunday, May 7, 2023 at 2:00 PM

Monday, May 8, 2023 at 6:30 PM

Tickets

Buy Now!

Youths 7-17 years of age may receive one complimentary ticket with every paid adult. Request tickets through Patron Services at (707) 546-8742. Classical Series concerts only.

$10 student rush tickets for college students with a valid student ID. Available starting 1-1/2 hours prior to the concert, at the door only. Classical Series concerts only.

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Listen on Spotify

We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:

Classical Concert Series underwritten by Anderman Family FoundationSponsored in memory of Jim and Charlotte LambConductor Francesco Lecce-Chong sponsored by David and Corinne ByrdCommissioned Work, Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (World Premiere) supported by The Clarence E. Heller Charitable Foundation and the National Endowment for the ArtsGuest Artist Christina Naughton sponsored by Sara and Edward KozelGuest Artist Michelle Naughton sponsored by Nancy and Robert NovakDiscovery Open Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardPre-concert Talks sponsored by Jamei Haswell in memory of Richard GrundySeason Media Sponsor: The Press Democrat

Programs, dates, artists, and prices are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

Photo of Christina and Michelle Naughton by Lisa Marie Mazzucco

Blue Danube
2024-01-18 00:00
Concert Conversations with Francesco Lecce-Chong

Concert Conversations are general seating and free to Classical Series concert ticket holders. Approximately 30 minutes in Weill Hall.

Saturday, March 25, 2023 at 6:30 PMSunday, March 26, 2023 at 2:00 PMMonday, March 27, 2023 at 6:30 PM

Tickets

Buy Now!

Youths 7-17 years of age may receive one complimentary ticket with every paid adult. Request tickets through Patron Services at (707) 546-8742. Classical Series concerts only.

$10 student rush tickets for college students with a valid student ID. Available starting 1-1/2 hours prior to the concert, at the door only. Classical Series concerts only.

Plan Your Visit

Learn more about the Discovery Rehearsal Series

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Seating Map

Before the Concert

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Listen on Spotify

We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:

Classical Concert Series underwritten by Anderman Family FoundationSponsored by Viking CruisesSupporting Sponsor by The E. Nakamichi Foundation Conductor Francesco Lecce-Chong sponsored by David and Corinne ByrdGuest Artist Jennifer Frautschi sponsored by Victor and Karen Trione, in memory of Henry TrioneFirst Symphony project commissioners Nancy and David Berto, Gordon Blumenfeld, Chuck and Ellen Wear, Creighton White in loving memory of Dorothy Bristow White, and Chloe Tula and Francesco Lecce-ChongDiscovery Open Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardPre-concert Talks sponsored by Jamei Haswell in memory of Richard GrundySeason Media Sponsor: The Press Democrat

Programs, dates, artists, and prices are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

Photo of Jennifer Frautschi by Dario AcostaPhoto of Angélica Negrón by Catalina Kulczar

Bruno Returns!
2024-01-18 00:00
Concert Conversations with Bruno Ferrandis

Concert Conversations are general seating and free to Classical Series concert ticket holders. Approximately 30 minutes in Weill Hall.

Saturday, February 18, 2023 at 6:30 PM

Sunday, February 19, 2023 at 2:00 PM

Monday, February 20, 2023 at 6:30 PM

Tickets

Buy Now!

Youths 7-17 years of age may receive one complimentary ticket with every paid adult. Request tickets through Patron Services at (707) 546-8742. Classical Series concerts only.

$10 student rush tickets for college students with a valid student ID. Available starting 1-1/2 hours prior to the concert, at the door only. Classical Series concerts only.

Plan Your Visit

Learn more about the Discovery Rehearsal Series

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Seating Map

Before the Concert

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Dining & Hotels

Listen on Spotify

We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:

Classical Concert Series underwritten by Anderman Family FoundationSponsored by in memory of Jim and Charlotte LambGuest Conductor Bruno Ferrandis sponsored by The Alan and Susan Seidenfeld Charitable TrustGuest Artist Jon Nakamatsu sponsored by Tom and Barbara KonicekDiscovery Open Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardPre-concert Talks sponsored by Jamei Haswell in memory of Richard GrundySeason Media Sponsor: The Press Democrat

Programs, dates, artists, and prices are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

Photo of Bruno Ferrandis by Colin TalcroftPhoto of Jon Nakamatsu by Maggie Estes

RACH & the Hollywood Sound
2024-01-18 00:00
This concert is dedicated to the memory of two prominent Santa Rosa Symphony devotees, Polly Fisher and Dave Badella.

Polly Fisher was the dedicated and much-loved executive director of the symphony from 1978 to 1997. During those 19 years, she worked closely with music directors Corrick Brown and later Jeffrey Kahane. Polly remained a loyal and generous symphony patron until the time of her recent passing.

As the symphony’s stage manager for over two decades, Dave Badella was devoted to our orchestra musicians and to our crew and staff. His conscientious work and attention to detail resulted in the utmost care of all the symphony’s productions.

Polly and David, each in their own way, made many valuable and lasting positive contributions that will long be appreciated. They will be fondly remembered and deeply missed by all of us.

About the Concert

Rachmaninoff’s bold, rich Second Symphony paired with the symphonic splendor from Gone with the Wind.

Concert Conversations with Francesco Lecce-Chong

Concert Conversations are general seating and free to Classical Series concert ticket holders. Approximately 30 minutes in Weill Hall.

Saturday, January 21, 2023 at 6:30 PMSunday, January 22, 2023 at 2:00 PMMonday, January 23, 2023 at 6:30 PM

Tickets

Buy Now!

Youths 7-17 years of age may receive one complimentary ticket with every paid adult. Request tickets through Patron Services at (707) 546-8742. Classical Series concerts only.

$10 student rush tickets for college students with a valid student ID. Available starting 1-1/2 hours prior to the concert, at the door only. Classical Series concerts only.

Plan Your Visit

Learn more about the Discovery Rehearsal Series

Directions & More

Seating Map

Before the Concert

At the Concert

Dining & Hotels

Listen on Spotify

We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:

Classical Concert Series underwritten by Anderman Family FoundationSponsored by The Peggy Anne Covington FundConductor Francesco Lecce-Chong sponsored by David and Corinne ByrdDiscovery Open Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardPre-concert Talks sponsored by Jamei Haswell in memory of Richard GrundySeason Media Sponsor: The Press Democrat

Programs, dates, artists, and prices are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

Photo of Francesco Lecce-Chong by Susan and Neil Silverman Photography

FRANZ WAXMANSuite from The Nun’s Story

COMPOSER: born December 24, 1906, KÃ¶nigshÃ¶tte, Upper Silesia (then Prussia, now ChorzÃ³w, Poland); died February 24, 1967, Beverly Hills, CAWORK COMPOSED: 1958-59WORLD PREMIERE: The film premiered on June 18, 1959, at Radio City Music Hall in New York CityINSTRUMENTATION: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, glockenspiel, chimes, xylophone, muffled “Mahler” chime, celesta, piano, 2 harps, and stringsESTIMATED DURATION: 11 minutes

Composer, arranger, conductor, artistic director: Franz Waxman excelled at them all, but he made a lasting name for himself through the film scores he composed in Hollywood from the 1930s until his death in 1967.

In 1950, Waxman won the first of his two Academy Awards for Best Score for Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, starring William Holden and Gloria Swanson. The following year, Waxman took home his second Academy Award, for George Stevens’ A Place In The Sun, a cinematic version of Theodore Dreiser’s 1925 novel An American Tragedy, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, and Shelley Winters. Including his two wins, Waxman was also nominated for 12 Academy Awards, for Suspicion, Rebecca, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and A Nun’s Story, among others. Waxman also composed scores for The Bride of Frankenstein, Stalag 17, To Have and Have Not, Rear Window, Mister Roberts, Peyton Place, and Taras Bulba.

In addition to his work in Hollywood, Waxman founded and directed the Los Angeles Music Festival from 1947 until his death. During his tenure, the festival hosted the world and American premieres of some 80 works by Igor Stravinsky, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Arnold Schoenberg, among others.

In some ways Waxman was an unlikely choice as a composer for a film based on true events about a Catholic nun in 1920s Belgium who struggles with her vocation. As a German Jew, Waxman had no love for the Catholic Church, particularly because of its official “neutrality” during World War II, and Pope Pius VII’s refusal to condemn the persecution and genocide of European Jews under Hitler. Waxman and Fred Zinneman, director of The Nun’s Story, also clashed over Waxman’s score.

Zinnemann recalled, “While Franz Waxman was scoring the picture, I discovered he had a deep dislike for the Catholic Church, and this was coming across in his music. The theme he wrote for the convent scenes would have been more appropriate for scenes set in a dungeon, so I got him to write another.” Despite his personal feelings about the Church, however, Waxman did more than due diligence with the score, basing the music on Gregorian chants he had researched in the Papal Library in Rome.

In 1959, after it premiered, The Nun’s Story became Warner Brothers’ most financially successful film, grossing more than seven million dollars. Audrey Hepburn, who starred as Gabrielle van der Mal/Sister Luke, was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance. “The music which Franz Waxman has composed for The Nun’s Story bears the same kind of overflowing honesty and womanly emotion that characterizes Audrey Hepburn herself in the role of Sister Luke,” remarked Henry Blanke, the film’s producer. “Waxman’s music tells the story with warmth and understanding. Just as Sister Luke seeks a level of unquestioning obedience and discipline, so has Waxman sought and found the various moods of happiness, dedication, indecision, and agonizing failure in her struggle for perfection. He has carried Ms. Hepburn through her novitiate to the accompaniment of the powerful music of the church, through her hazardous assignment as a nurse in an insane asylum with the music of madness tempered by the dutiful serenity of the nuns.”

The Suite on tonight’s program includes a Finale that Zinnemann ultimately cut from the score. The final scene shows Sister Luke leaving the convent and returning to the world. When Jack Warner asked Zinnemann why he removed the music, Zinnemann shrewdly responded, “What kind of music do you want at the end of the picture? If the music expresses gloom, it will imply that it is too bad that Sister Luke left the convent. If it is joyful, people will think that Warner Bros. is encouraging nuns to leave the convent. And so the movie ends in silence, the way I wanted it to.”

MAX STEINERSuite from Gone With The Wind

COMPOSER: born May 10, 1888, in Vienna; died December 28, 1971, Hollywood, CAWORK COMPOSED: March through May 1939WORLD PREMIERE: Gone With The Wind was first screened in Atlanta, at Loew’s Grand Theatre, on December 15, 1939INSTRUMENTATION: 3 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, piano/celesta, 2 harps, and stringsESTIMATED DURATION: 15 minutes

The life of pioneering film composer Max Steiner would make a terrific biopic; the only problem is that the only person who could do justice to the score for such a project is Steiner himself. Then again, a typical two-hour movie could hardly encompass the events of Steiner’s long life, which stretched from the Vienna of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the sun-drenched Hollywood of the 1960s.

Steiner, dubbed “the father of film music,” was born into a well-connected theatrical family with deep roots in Vienna. Steiner demonstrated prodigal musical talent as a child, and he took piano and music lessons from both Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler; Richard Strauss was the boy’s godfather. Steiner’s father Gabor, a theater manager and inventor (he built Vienna’s iconic Riesenrad, an enormous Ferris wheel in Vienna’s Prater amusement park), encouraged his son’s abilities; when Max became bored with piano, he started improvising, which eventually evolved into full-fledged composing.

Steiner started his professional music career as a teenager conducting operettas in London and moved to that city in 1906. Over the next eight years, he began composing his own works as well as conducting others, including Lehar’s The Merry Widow. When World War I began in August 1914, Steiner was classified as an enemy alien and interred in a camp with other German and Austrian citizens. Fortunately, Steiner had influential friends who were able to get him the documents he needed to move to the United States.

Steiner spent the next 11 years in New York conducting, directing, orchestrating, and arranging music for Broadway. In 1915 he became one of the first music directors for an independent film studio, Fox Films (now 20th Century-Fox). There he wrote what might be the first score to use original music specially written to accompany a film, for 1916’s The Bondman (Steiner’s score required 110 musicians who performed live at each screening). Steiner continued working on Broadway until 1929 when he was hired by RKO to head their music department. In 1933, Steiner’s score for King Kong became his first breakout success; the score’s emotional power dramatizes the admittedly thin plot in a way never seen or heard before in film. Producers who had been unwilling to spend a lot of money on music saw how much Steiner’s score enhanced King Kong’s blockbuster success; soon films in all genres included original music heard throughout the majority of the film’s running time.

For Steiner, King Kong afforded an opportunity to create specific musical themes for each character, a technique he admired in the music of Richard Wagner. These themes, or leitmotifs, became the basic principle around which he composed all his film music over the next four decades.

When producer David O. Selznick asked Steiner to write the music for Gone With The Wind in March 1939, he gave Steiner just three months for the job. Steiner, who was writing scores for several other films at the time, worked upwards of 20 hours a day, popping Benzedrine pills to keep going. The music features leitmotifs for the main characters, but the most memorable music in the film is the theme Steiner wrote for Scarlett O’Hara’s home, Tara; thanks to Steiner, Tara becomes an additional character in the story. The “Tara” theme begins the film, is heard throughout the story and sounds over the final scene and credits. In addition to the original music, Steiner also quotes fragments from “Taps,” “Dixie,” and other music from the Civil War period.

Steiner won three Academy Awards for Best Film Score (for The Informer; Now, Voyager, and Since You Went Away). Gone With The Wind was nominated in 13 categories and won eight; perhaps the only reason Steiner’s music didn’t earn him a fourth Oscar is that one of the other films nominated in 1939 was The Wizard of Oz. The American Film Institute ranks Steiner’s music for Gone With The Wind as the second-best film score of all time, behind John Williams’ Star Wars.

SERGEI RACHMANINOFFSymphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27

COMPOSER: born April 1, 1873, Oneg, Russia; died March 28, 1943, Beverly Hills, CAWORK COMPOSED: 1906-07. Rachmaninoff dedicated it to his composing teacher, Sergei TaneyevWORLD PREMIERE: February 7, 1908, in St. Petersburg, with Rachmaninoff conductingINSTRUMENTATION: 3 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 3 oboes (1 doubling English horn), 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, glockenspiel, snare drum, and stringsESTIMATED DURATION: 43 minutes Artists of all types have a love-hate relationship with critics: they need the exposure criticism brings to their work, but often scorn the critiques themselves. Other artists take criticism too much to heart and let it affect them to a debilitating degree, which was the case with Sergei Rachmaninoff. After the premiere of Rachmaninoff’s first symphony, he was so savaged by critics that he did not dare compose a note for three years. Eventually, Rachmaninoff consulted a doctor, Nicolai Dahl, who used hypnotism to bolster Rachmaninoff’s flagging confidence. Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto was dedicated to Dahl, and it vindicated Rachmaninoff as a composer by becoming one of his most popular works.

After the success of the Second Piano Concerto, Rachmaninoff felt ready to tackle another symphony, and in 1906 he began work on his second. The writing was difficult for him, as he reported in a letter to a friend, and the work proceeded slowly. The final version lasted over an hour, although Rachmaninoff later suggested a number of performance cuts that shorten it by as much as 20 minutes; these cuts have become standard when programming this symphony today. Although Rachmaninoff, out of necessity, agreed to the cuts, which amounted to some 300 measures of music, he later confided to conductor Eugene Ormandy, “You don’t know what cuts do to me. It is like cutting a piece out of my heart.” Rachmaninoff might have appreciated the words of one critic, who wrote at the symphony’s premiere, “After listening with unflagging attention to its four movements, one notes with surprise that the hands of the watch have moved sixty-five minutes forward. This may be slightly overlong for the general audience, but how fresh, how beautiful it is!”

The symphony opens with a darkly murmuring theme played by the lower strings, a theme that forms the basis for the remainder of the first movement, as well as much of the rest of the symphony. The violins contrast with a lyrical melody, followed by a plaintive solo for the English horn. Throughout this movement, Rachmaninoff uses solo instruments as structural signposts, indicating changes in mood or harmonic foundations.

The horns launch the Scherzo with a bold, energetic theme, and the strings continue with a bouncier, skipping melody. These are contrasted by a series of interludes, one unabashedly romantic, and others feverishly intense. As was his wont in many of his orchestral works, including the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Rachmaninoff includes the Dies irae melody (Day of Wrath) from the Requiem Mass; it appears here in the coda to the trio.

In the Adagio, Rachmaninoff’s signature romanticism is heard in the violin’s opening melody, which could easily serve as the love song in a cinematic romance. In fact, 1970s pop singer Eric Carmen wrote a hit song based on this theme, “Never Gonna Fall in Love Again.”

For the Finale, Rachmaninoff unleashes a whirlwind of vibrant joy. Buoyant strings recall the Scherzo, but this music is abruptly interrupted by the stark call of muted horns. We then hear snatches of music from previous movements, especially the Scherzo and the Adagio. The strings, playing in the style of the Italian tarantella, are the foundation for this movement, and its energy drives the symphony forward to a triumphant conclusion. © Elizabeth Schwartz

NOTE: These program notes are published here by the Santa Rosa Symphony for its patrons and otherinterested readers. Any other use is forbidden without specific permission from author, who may be contacted at www.classicalmusicprogramnotes.com.

Beethoven's Ninth
2024-01-18 00:00
Concert Conversations with Francesco Lecce-Chong

Concert Conversations are general seating and free to Classical Series concert ticket holders. Approximately 30 minutes in Weill Hall.

Saturday, December 3, 2022 at 6:30 PM

Sunday, December 4, 2022 at 2:00 PM

Monday, December 5, 2022 at 6:30 PM

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Youths 7-17 years of age may receive one complimentary ticket with every paid adult. Request tickets through Patron Services at (707) 546-8742. Classical Series concerts only.

$10 student rush tickets for college students with a valid student ID. Available starting 1-1/2 hours prior to the concert, at the door only. Classical Series concerts only.

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We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:

Classical Concert Series underwritten by Anderman Family FoundationSponsored by The Donald and Maureen Green Orchestral Works Endowment FundConductor Francesco Lecce-Chong sponsored by David and Corinne ByrdGuest Artist Elizabeth Prior sponsored by Ellen and Chuck WearGuest Artist Abigail Nims sponsored by Joanne and Ed Enemark, in memory of her parents, Robert and Shirley SkeelsGuest Artist Christopher Pfund sponsored by Mark Dierkhising in memory of Karen BrodskyGuest Artist Sonoma State University Symphonic Chorus sponsored by Linda and David Hanes Discovery Open Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardPre-concert Talks sponsored by Jamei Haswell in memory of Richard GrundySeason Media Sponsor: The Press Democrat

Programs, dates, artists, and prices are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

PHOTO CREDITSElizabeth Prior by Caroline WoodhamAbigail Nims by Regina MountjoyChristopher Pfund by Robert KimJenny Bent by Sonoma State UniversityMichael Dean by Ken WeingartLeslie Ann Bradley by Lisa Marie Mazzucco

Jessie Montgomery – Soul Force for Orchestra
COMPOSER: born December 8, 1981, New York CityWORK COMPOSED: 2015. Commissioned by The Dream Unfinished, a benefit for civil rightsWORLD PREMIERE: James Blachly conducted the first performance on July 17, 2015, at the Salvation Army’s Centennial Memorial Temple in New York CityINSTRUMENTATION: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones (1 doubling bass trombone), tuba, timpani, anvil, bass drum, brake drum, chain, cowbells, crash cymbal, frame drum, glockenspiel, hi-hat, kick drum, ride cymbal, snare drum, temple blocks, tom toms, whip, and stringsESTIMATED DURATION: 8 minutes For the past several seasons, the Santa Rosa Symphony has presented works by the acclaimed composer Jessie Montgomery. In this concert, we continue showcasing Montgomery’s innovative voice. Her work combines classical language with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, language, and social justice. The resulting music has earned Montgomery rave reviews for her “vibrantly inventive original works for strings” (ClassicsToday.com) and numerous awards, including the ASCAP Foundation’s Leonard Bernstein Award. Montgomery’s works are performed frequently around the world by leading musicians and ensembles. In May 2021, Montgomery began her three-year appointment as the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Since 1999, Montgomery has been affiliated with The Sphinx Organization, which supports young African-American and Latinx string players, and has served as composer-in-residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, the Organization’s flagship professional touring ensemble. She was awarded a generous MPower grant to assist in the development of her 2016 debut album, Strum: Music for Strings (Azica). In 2019, the New York Philharmonic selected Montgomery as one of the featured composers for its Project 19, which marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment granting American women the right to vote.

“Soul Force is a one-movement symphonic work which attempts to portray the notion of a voice that struggles to be heard beyond the shackles of oppression,” Montgomery writes. “The music takes on the form of a march which begins with a single voice and gains mass as it rises to a triumphant goal. Drawing on elements of popular African-American musical styles such as big-band jazz, funk, hip-hop, and R+B, the piece pays homage to the cultural contributions, the many voices, which have risen against aggressive forces to create an indispensable cultural place.”

“I have drawn the work’s title from Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in which he states: ‘We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.’”

Ralph Vaughan Williams – Flos Campi (Flowers of the Field/I Am the Rose of Sharon) Suite for Viola, Orchestra & Chorus
COMPOSER: born October 12, 1872, Down Ampney, England; died August 26, 1958, LondonWORK COMPOSED: Written for and dedicated to violist Lionel Tertis in 1925WORLD PREMIERE: Sir Henry Wood led the Queen’s Hall Orchestra with violist Lionel Tertis and singers from the Royal College of Music on October 10, 1925 in LondonINSTRUMENTATION: solo viola, small SATB wordless chorus, flute (doubling piccolo), oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, bass drum, cymbals, snare drum, triangle, celesta, harp, and stringsESTIMATED DURATION: 20 minutes “[Ravel] … paid me the compliment of telling me that I was the only pupil who ‘n’Ã©crit pas de ma musique’ [didn’t write my music].” – Ralph Vaughan Williams In the winter of 1907-08, Ralph Vaughan Williams traveled to Paris to study composition with Maurice Ravel. For the next three months, Vaughan Williams, who was three months older than his teacher, undertook an intensive course of study; the two men met several times a week and Vaughan Williams later credited Ravel for helping him find a clearer, less dense, coloristic approach to orchestration. A casual survey of Vaughan Williams’ music bears out the truth of Ravel’s comment, quoted above, that Vaughan Williams, of all his students, did not imitate the French composer’s style.

Vaughan Williams’s music cannot be easily categorized. His best-known early works – The Lark Ascending and Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, for example – have a pastoral, dreamy, folk-music-laden quality. Vaughan Williams’ later works sound entirely different; the raw power, fury, and consummate use of orchestral timbres in the Fourth Symphony, for example, sounds worlds away from the style of the earlier music.

Flos Campi, written in 1925, occupies a category of its own. This unusual work, a quasi-concerto for solo viola, chorus, and orchestra, reflects Ravel’s tutelage, particularly its use of wordless chorus phonating on the syllable “Ah,” (Ravel used a wordless chorus in Daphnis et ChloÃ©), as well as the subtle shadings of its harmonies. But the overall harmonic language is both unexpected and unique; nothing else in Vaughan Williams’ catalog sounds quite like it.

Vaughan Williams used texts from the Biblical Song of Songs as his inspiration for this exotic – and in places erotic – love song. Each of Flos Campi’s six sections, played without pause, is paired with a particular quotation from the Song of Songs. In the original program notes, Vaughan Williams included these quotes, in Latin, for the audience. In his third-person notes for a 1927 performance of Flos Campi, Vaughan Williams explained how the music was received: “When this work was first produced two years ago, the composer discovered that most people were not well enough acquainted with the Vulgate (or perhaps even its English equivalent) to enable them to complete for themselves the quotations from the Canticum Canticorum [Song of Songs]. Even the title and the source of the quotations gave rise to misunderstanding. The title Flos Campi was taken by some to connote an atmosphere of buttercups and daisies, whereas in reality ‘flos Campi’ is the Vulgate equivalent of the Rose of Sharon (Ego flos campi, et lilium convallium: “I am the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valleys.”) The Biblical source of the quotations also gave rise to the idea that the music had an ecclesiastical basis. This was not the intention of the composer.” 1. Lento. (“As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I languish for love.”)2. Andante con moto. (“For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.”)3. Lento, senza misura. (“I sought him whom my soul loveth, but I found him not. I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, tell him that I am sick from love. Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women? Whither is thy beloved turned aside? That we may seek him with thee.”)4. Moderato alla Marcia. (“Behold his bed which is Solomon’s, three score valiant men are about it. They all hold swords, being experts in war.”)5. Andante quasi lento. (“Return, Shulamite! Return, return that we may look upon thee. How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O Prince’s daughter.”)6. Moderato tranquillo. (“Set me as a seal upon thine heart.”)

Ludwig Van Beethoven – Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 “Choral”
COMPOSER: born December 16, 1770, Bonn, Germany; died March 26, 1827, ViennaWORK COMPOSED: Beethoven made preliminary sketches in 1817-18, but most of the music was composed between 1822–24. Beethoven finished his Ninth Symphony in February 1824 and dedicated it to King Frederick William III of Prussia.WORLD PREMIERE: Beethoven conducted the first performance on May 7, 1824, at the KÃ¤rntnerthor Theater in Vienna.INSTRUMENTATION: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass soloists, four-part mixed chorus, piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, bass drum, cymbals triangle and strings.ESTIMATED DURATION: 70 minutes The Ninth Symphony extends beyond the realm of the concert hall and has permeated Western culture on many levels, including socio-political and commercial arenas. The music of the Ninth, particularly the “Ode to Joy” melody of the final movement, is so familiar to us that it has lost its unique character and taken on the quality of folk music; that is, it has shed its “composed” identity as a melody written by Ludwig van Beethoven and simply exists within the communal ear of our collective consciousness.

While some classical works are inextricably linked to the time in which they were written, Beethoven’s profound musical statements about freedom, equality, and humanity resonate just as powerfully today as they did at the Ninth’s premiere. This was evident to the entire world just over 30 years ago, when Leonard Bernstein conducted an international assembly of instrumentalists and singers in a historic performance of Beethoven’s Ninth at East Berlin’s Schauspielhaus (now Konzerthaus) on December 22, 1989, three days after the fall of the Berlin Wall. To emphasize the historic event, Bernstein substituted the word “freedom” for “joy” in the famous lyrics by the poet Friedrich Schiller in the final movement. The performance was broadcast on television worldwide, attracting more than 200 million viewers.

By 1822, Beethoven was completely deaf and emotionally isolated. Five years earlier, at the age of 47, he had written in his journal, “Before my departure for the Elysian fields I must leave behind me what the Eternal Spirit has infused into my soul and bids me complete.” Alone and embittered, Beethoven focused almost exclusively on his musical legacy.

The lofty salute to the human spirit expressed in Schiller’s poem An die Freude (To Joy) had resonated with Beethoven for many years; in 1790 he set a few lines in a cantata written to commemorate the death of Emperor Leopold II; he also included portions of Schiller’s poem in his opera Fidelio. “The search for a way to express joy,” as Beethoven described it, was the subject of his final symphony. To that end, Beethoven edited and arranged Schiller’s lines to suit his musical and dramatic needs, using a melody from the Choral Fantasy he had written 20 years earlier.

The symphony opens with the strings sounding a series of hollow open chords, neither major or minor, which are harmonically ambiguous – what key is this? The fifths build into a massive statement featuring a weighty dotted rhythmic theme. The power and intensity of this movement foreshadows the finale.

As was his wont, Beethoven broke with symphonic convention by writing a second-movement scherzo. The music bursts forth with dramatic string octaves and pounding timpani. The main theme, a contrapuntal fugue, gives way to a demure wind melody. Underneath its playful simplicity, the barely contained agitation of the scherzo pulses in the strings, like a racehorse pawing at the starting gate.

In a symphony synonymous with innovation, Beethoven’s most significant departure from convention is the inclusion, for the first time, of a chorus and vocal soloists in a formerly exclusively instrumental genre. The cellos and basses play an instrumental recitative, later sung by the baritone, which is followed by the unaccompanied “Joy” melody. Beethoven then presents several instrumental variations, including a triumphal brass fanfare. The baritone soloist introduces Schiller’s poem with words of Beethoven’s: “O friends, not these tones; instead, let us strike up more pleasing and joyful ones.” The chorus repeats the last four lines of each stanza as a refrain, followed by the vocal quartet. A famous interlude, the Turkish March, follows (this music was considered “Turkish” because of the inclusion of the triangle, cymbals and bass drum, exotic additions to the orchestra of Beethoven’s time). After a number of variations, the chorus returns with a monumental concluding double fugue.

© Elizabeth Schwartz

NOTE: These program notes are published here by the Santa Rosa Symphony for its patrons and otherinterested readers. Any other use is forbidden without specific permission from author, who may be contacted at www.classicalmusicprogramnotes.com.

Jazz Greats & Tchaikovsky
2024-01-18 00:00
The energy and inspiration of Gershwin, Marsalis and Tchaikovsky in one concert!

Notes About the Music

Gershwin’s Promenade (Walking the Dog) is from the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers’ seventh film together, Shall We Dance. In the film, Fred’s character borrows a dog just so he can meet Ginger during passenger-dog-walking-hour on the cruise ship they are both on.

The Violin Concerto by Wynton Marsalis was composed for Scottish violinist, Nicola Benedetti. The two collaborated on the piece for months often working note-by-note over transatlantic phone calls.

Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 premiered in Saint Petersberg, Russia on October 28, 1893, nine days prior to his death. It was his final completed Symphony.

Concert Conversations with Francesco Lecce-Chong

Concert Conversations are general seating and free to Classical Series concert ticket holders. Approximately 30 minutes in Weill Hall.

Saturday, November 5, 2022 at 6:30 PMSunday, November 6, 2022 at 2:00 PMMonday, November 7, 2022 at 6:30 PM

Tickets

Buy Now!

Youths 7-17 years of age may receive one complimentary ticket with every paid adult. Request tickets through Patron Services at (707) 546-8742. Classical Series concerts only.

$10 student rush tickets for college students with a valid student ID. Available starting 1-1/2 hours prior to the concert, at the door only. Classical Series concerts only.

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We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:

Classical Concert Series underwritten by Anderman Family FoundationSponsored by Judith M. GappaConductor Francesco Lecce-Chong sponsored by David and Corinne ByrdGuest Artist Bella Hristova sponsored by Sigmund Anderman, in memory of Susan AndermanTchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 sponsored by Dr. Larry Schoenrock Endowment FundDiscovery Open Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardPre-concert Talks sponsored by Jamei HaswellSeason Media Sponsor: The Press Democrat

Programs, dates, artists, and prices are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

Photo of Bella Hristova by Lisa Marie Mazzucco

GEORGE GERSHWINPromenade (Walking the Dog) for Orchestra

COMPOSER: born September 26, 1898, Brooklyn, NY; died July 11, 1937, Hollywood, CAWORK COMPOSED: 1937, as part of the score for the film Shall We Dance.WORLD PREMIERE: 1937INSTRUMENTATION: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, glockenspiel, suspended cymbal, triangle, vibraphone, woodblock, and stringsESTIMATED DURATION: 3 minutes George Gershwin achieved a great deal in his too-short life (he died of a brain tumor at the age of 38). In addition to his many Broadway musicals, written in collaboration with his brother Ira, and his groundbreaking orchestral works, Gershwin also composed a handful of scores for Hollywood films. After his death, additional films such as the 1945 biopic Rhapsody in Blue and the 1951 MGM adaptation of An American in Paris also showcased Gershwin’s music.

The 1937 film Shall We Dance is the best known of Gershwin’s film scores and includes the Academy Award-nominated song, “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” The movie features Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in one of their timeless dance fantasies. The excerpt on tonight’s program has become a stand-alone work with a variety of arrangements’ this version for orchestra was first published in 1960. The music corresponds to a scene in which Fred Astaire “borrows” a dog so he can walk it along the deck of a luxury liner as a pretext for meeting Ginger Rogers, who is also walking a dog.

WYNTON MARSALISConcerto in D for Violin and Orchestra COMPOSER: born October 18, 1961, New Orleans, LAWORK COMPOSED: 2015-15, for violinist Nicola BenedettiWORLD PREMIERE: Benedetti performed the solo part with conductor James Gaffigan and the London Symphony Orchestra on November 6, 2015, in Barbican Hall, LondonINSTRUMENTATION: solo violin, 3 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 3 oboes (1 doubling English horn), 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons (1 doubling contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp and strings ESTIMATED DURATION: 44 minutes Wynton Marsalis is an internationally acclaimed musician, composer/bandleader, educator, and a leading advocate of American culture. Born into a famous New Orleans family of musicians and educators, Marsalis began playing trumpet at age six. In his teens, Marsalis studied at Tanglewood and Juilliard and toured with acclaimed bandleader Art Blakey and his Jazz Messengers. In 1983, at age 22, Marsalis became the first and only musician to win Grammy awards in classical and jazz categories in the same year. He repeated his wins in both categories the following year.

As a composer, Marsalis has created and performed an expansive range of music across multiple genres: quartets, big bands, chamber music ensembles, symphony orchestras, and has created music for tap to ballet dancers, all the while expanding the vocabulary for jazz and classical music. In 1997, Marsalis’ oratorio Blood on the Fields became the first jazz composition to win the Pulitzer Prize in Music. Since 1996, Marsalis has served as the director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. In this role, as in his many and varied other activities, Marsalis has become the foremost ambassador for jazz and American music in the United States.

Marsalis composes his solo works for specific performers, rather than instruments. His 2015 Violin Concerto was written for Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti. Marsalis writes, “It takes inspiration from her life as a traveling performer and educator who enlightens and delights communities all over the world with the magic of virtuosity… Nicky asked me to ‘invite a diverse world of people into the experience of this piece’… Finding and nurturing common musical ground between differing arts and musical styles has been a lifetime fascination of mine… It may seem simple enough, but bringing different perspectives together is never easy. The shared vocabulary between the jazz orchestra and the modern orchestra sits largely in the areas of texture and instrumental technique. Form, improvisation, harmony, and methods of thematic development are very different. The biggest challenges are how to orchestrate the nuance and virtuosity in jazz and blues for an ensemble not versed in those styles (a technical issue); and how to create a consistent groove without a rhythm section (a musical/philosophical issue).

Marsalis explored historical cultural and musical connections between Benedetti’s Scottish roots and his own as an African-American bluesman from New Orleans. “I looked for real-life examples in the history of jazz–symphonic collaborations and to the environment and experience that connect Nicky and me. I considered aspects of her Scottish ancestry, the great Afro-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass’ love of legendary Scottish poet Robert Burns, my love and inextinguishable respect for Scottish baritone saxophonist Joe Temperley (and his gleeful recitation of pungent limericks), and the luminous but obscure achievements of Afro-American keyed bugler Francis Johnson, father of the American cornet tradition and one of the first published American composers…who was also a fine fiddler. These sources led me to reconnect with the Anglo-Celtic roots of Afro-American music.”

Each of the four movements is an aspect of a musical journey, as the violinist takes us to an eclectic range of places and soundscapes. “Rhapsody is a complex dream that becomes a nightmare, progresses into peacefulness and dissolves into ancestral memory,” Marsalis writes. “Rondo Burlesque is a syncopated, New Orleans jazz, calliope, circus clown, African gumbo, Mardi Gras party in odd meters. Blues is the progression of flirtation, courtship, intimacy, sermonizing, final loss, and abject loneliness that is out there to claim us all. Hootenanny is a raucous, stomping and whimsical barnyard throw-down. She excites us with all types of virtuosic chicanery and gets us intoxicated with revelry and then… goes on down the Good King’s highway to other places yet to be seen or even foretold. As in the blues and jazz tradition, our journey ends with the jubilance and uplift of an optimistic conclusion.”

PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKYSymphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, “PathÃ©tique”

COMPOSER: born May 7, 1840, Kamsko-Votinsk, Viatka province, Russia; died November 6, 1893, St. PetersburgWORK COMPOSED: 1893; dedicated to Tchaikovsky’s nephew Vladimir “Bob” DavidovWORLD PREMIERE: Tchaikovsky conducted the first performance on October 28, 1893, at the Hall of the Nobles in St. PetersburgINSTRUMENTATION: 3 flutes (1 doubling piccolo) 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, (1 doubling bass clarinet), 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, tam-tam, and strings.ESTIMATED DURATION: 44 minutes

“I love it as I have never loved any one of my musical offspring before.” – Tchaikovsky on his Sixth Symphony Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony continues to spark debate more than 130 years after its composition. In a letter to his nephew Vladimir Davidov, Tchaikovsky wrote, “Last December I had the idea of writing a program symphony, but to a program that should remain an enigma to everyone but myself… I certainly regard it as quite the best – and certainly the ‘most sincere’ – of all my work.” Although Tchaikovsky declined to articulate the specifics of the program he attached to this symphony – “Let them guess at it!” he wrote to Davidov – many scholars and critics agree that this passionate, highly emotional music is a declaration of forbidden love; specifically, that of Tchaikovsky for Davidov. Tchaikovsky’s title for the symphony supports this idea. According to scholar Alexander Poznansky, Tchaikovsky’s title, ‘Pateticheskaya simfoniya’ (ÐŸÐ°Ñ‚ÐµÑ‚Ð¸Ñ‡ÐµÑ_x0081_ÐºÐ°Ñ_x008f_ Ñ_x0081_Ð¸Ð¼Ñ„Ð¾Ð½Ð¸Ñ_x008f_), is “roughly equivalent to the title that Beethoven gave to his Sonata in F minor, Op. 57—’Apassionata.’ The passionate overtones of the Russian title are not adequately conveyed in its better-known French equivalent – ‘Symphonie pathÃ©tique,’ with its connotations of suffering and sorrow.” Biographer John Warrack agrees: “The Russian word … carries more feeling of ‘passionate’ or ‘emotional’ in it than the English ‘pathetic,’ and perhaps an overtone, which has largely vanished from our world… of ‘suffering.’

As a closeted homosexual man living in a homophobic society, Tchaikovsky was well-acquainted with suffering. He also battled crippling bouts of depression throughout his life, which were exacerbated by relentless societal pressures to keep his sexuality secret. Some years earlier, in 1877, Tchaikovsky encountered Antonina Ivanova Milyukova, a former Conservatory student obsessed with her one-time professor. She sent Tchaikovsky several impassioned letters, which alarmed the composer; eventually, Milyukova threatened to kill herself if Tchaikovsky did not return her affection. This untenable situation, combined with Tchaikovsky’s tortured feelings about his sexual orientation and his desire to silence gossip about it, led to a hasty, ill-advised union. Tchaikovsky fled from Milyukova a month after the wedding (their marriage officially ended after three months, although they were never divorced). Tchaikovsky subsequently suffered a nervous breakdown and was unable to work for the next three years.

The Sixth Symphony’s Adagio-Allegro ma non-troppo begins with a forbidding bassoon solo sounding the primary theme. After the slow Adagio, the strings burst in with an agitated restatement of the bassoon solo, followed by a contrasting theme of melancholy nostalgia. The movement descends into chaos as the themes are developed, ripped apart, and jumbled in a tempest of sound. A solemn brass chorale with pizzicato string accompaniment draws the movement to a close. In the Allegro con grazia, the strings present a graceful waltz in the unusual meter 5/4. Although the overall mood of this movement is lighter than that of the first, Tchaikovsky infuses the music with a strong sense of sadness and hints of romantic despair. The vigorous march of the Allegro molto vivace offsets the melancholy of the first two movements. This powerful, vigorous music boldly proclaims itself with insouciant swagger. Anguished cries from the strings begin the Adagio lamentoso-Andante. This music succumbs to its own beautifully crafted fatalism, laden with pain and lamentation. The strings are interrupted by a blast from the brasses, after which the strings continue on their mournful way to a subdued conclusion, in which there is no hint of a happy ending.

Despite Tchaikovsky’s status as the preeminent Russian composer of his time, the premiere of the Sixth Symphony, which he conducted, was not an instant success. In a letter to his publisher, Tchaikovsky wrote, “It is very strange about this symphony. It was not exactly a failure, but it was received with some hesitation.” Symphonies that end quietly often leave audiences puzzled or unsettled (Brahms’ Third has the same problem). After the second performance, which took place just days after Tchaikovsky’s death, the Sixth received an overwhelmingly positive ovation. The unconventional ending became, in the ears of audiences and critics, indelibly associated with the composer’s death – as if Tchaikovsky had written his own demise. There is no documentary evidence to support this idea, but the romance of a composer writing his own musical epitaph has proved durable, if inaccurate. The Sixth Symphony soon came to be regarded as a symphonic masterpiece and remains Tchaikovsky’s most popular symphony.

© Elizabeth Schwartz

NOTE: These program notes are published here by the Santa Rosa Symphony for its patrons and otherinterested readers. Any other use is forbidden without specific permission from author, who may be contacted at www.classicalmusicprogramnotes.com.

Fantastique!
2024-01-18 00:00
Concert Conversations with Francesco Lecce-Chong

Concert Conversations are general seating and free to Classical Series concert ticket holders. Approximately 30 minutes in Weill Hall.

Saturday, October 1, 2022 at 6:30 PM

Sunday, October 2, 2022 at 2:00 PM

Monday, October 3, 2022 at 6:30 PM

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To encourage their exposure to classical music and to transform Symphony attendance into a family outing, youths 7-17 years of age may attend the Symphony for free with a paid adult. These two-for-one tickets are not available for purchase online and only applies to Classical Series concerts. To request tickets, please contact Patron Services at (707) 546-8742.

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We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:

Classical Concert Series underwritten by Anderman Family FoundationSponsored by Marcia Wagner in memory of Hap WagnerConductor Francesco Lecce-Chong sponsored by David and Corinne Byrd Guest Artist Awadagin Pratt sponsored by Ava and Sam Guerrera Discovery Open Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardPre-concert Talks sponsored by Jamei HaswellSeason Media Sponsor: The Press Democrat

Programs, dates, artists, and prices are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

Photo of Awadagin Pratt by Rob Davidson

Program notes by Elizabeth Schwartz

Ludwig Van Beethoven – Overture to Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus, Op. 43 (The Creatures of Prometheus)
Writing music for theatrical purposes held little interest for Ludwig van Beethoven. Aside from his opera Fidelio and incidental music for a few plays (including Coriolanus and Egmont), Beethoven was primarily an orchestral and chamber music composer. The Creatures of Prometheus is Beethoven’s only ballet; his frustration with its egotistical choreographer Salvatore Viganò, the Empress Maria Theresa’s court ballet master, effectively squelched any further interest he may have had in the genre.

Beethoven was initially drawn to the ballet’s central figure, the Titan Prometheus. According to Greek mythology, Prometheus defied the gods by bringing literacy and the arts to humanity, as well as the basic element of fire. Such a heroic symbol appealed to Beethoven, who saw in Prometheus qualities of his own personality: a native rebelliousness and idealistic nature. (In the story, Zeus punished Prometheus for his arrogance by chaining him to Mt. Olympus and causing a vulture to tear out his liver; each day the liver was magically renewed so the voracious raptor could continue feasting. Prometheus endured this punishment until Hercules scaled the mountain and killed the vulture).

Beethoven and Viganò’s ideas about The Creatures ofPrometheus clashed. Viganò was more interested in showing off his skill and that of his wife, Mademoiselle Cassentini, herself a noted dancer than in portraying the Prometheus story. Accordingly, Viganò outlined a plot in which Prometheus becomes a peripheral generic “creator.” Two of his “creatures,” (statues, in this case, portrayed by Viganò and his wife) come to life and are thereby given consciousness and enlightenment by the god Apollo at Parnassus. The two statues become the focus, while Prometheus himself is largely ignored.

For Beethoven, the whole appeal of this ballet lay in the character of Prometheus himself. He had no interest in writing a musical vehicle for Viganò and his wife to parade their talents. An early admirer of Napoleon, Beethoven also saw in Prometheus qualities he associated with the French general. Napoleon styled himself as an Age of Enlightenment knight in shining armor who rescued the downtrodden; his actions echoed the battle cry of the French Revolution, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” Inspired by Napoleon’s early career, Beethoven began writing in 1803 what became his Third Symphony. The “Eroica,” to whom he dedicated it (Beethoven later repudiated Napoleon and removed the dedication from the score after he heard the news in the spring of 1804 that Napoleon had declared himself Emperor of France).

The music of the Overture opens with several chords full of anticipatory tension, followed by a slow introduction. After the introduction, the music shifts without pause to the main thematic material, which is full of the lively rhythmic energy that became Beethoven’s trademark. Neither the complete music for the ballet nor the ballet itself is performed today; only the overture survives in the orchestral repertoire.

Angélica Negrón
COMPOSER: born 1981, San Juan, Puerto RicoWORK COMPOSED: 2015, for the American Composers OrchestraWORLD PREMIERE: The ACO gave the first performance on October 16, 2015, at the Brookfield Place Winter Garden in New York CityINSTRUMENTATION: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, tuba, bass drum, glockenspiel, mechanical percussion, tam-tam, vibraphone, MIDI keyboard, harp and stringsESTIMATED DURATION: 6.5 minutes

Puerto Rican-born composer and multi-instrumentalist AngÃ©lica NegrÃ³n writes music for accordions, robotic instruments, toys and electronics, as well as for chamber ensembles, orchestras, choirs and film. Her music has been described as “wistfully idiosyncratic and contemplative” (WQXR/Q2), while The New York Times noted her “capacity to surprise.”

Me he perdido was commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra; in the music, NegrÃ³n incorporates several robotic or mechanical instruments which are situated amongst the audience and play with the orchestra. In an interview after the premiere, she talked about how the role of these mechanical percussion instruments evolved. “The robotic instruments gradually revealed a dynamic life of their own that changed the way I wrote for them,” she explained. “I started realizing the spatial potential of the robotic instruments and how, given their placement amongst the audience, they could be more direct in their immediacy because of their proximity to the listeners.” The location of the premiere also influenced NegrÃ³n’s approach to composing the music. “As soon as I heard the piece I was writing for ACO was going to be premiered at Brookfield Place’s Winter Garden, I knew I wanted to incorporate some kind of installation-based instruments that could somehow connect the orchestra with the audience in an immersive and engaging way… The instrumental writing of the piece was also highly influenced by the space’s reverberation, so there’s a lot of echoing gestures and resonant chords that will hopefully benefit from the natural acoustics of the space.”

To realize her acoustic ideas, NegrÃ³n teamed up with instrument builder Nick Yulman, who created the mechanical percussion instruments for Me he perdido. These robotic instruments, or modules, incorporate traditional Indonesian gamelan (tuned brass percussion vessels in various sizes) together with samples of woks and pans from NegrÃ³n’s kitchen. The result is an ethereal soundscape that incorporates resonance, sound decay, and silence as fundamental aspects of the total sound.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488

COMPOSER: born January 27, 1756, Salzburg; died December 5, 1791, ViennaWORK COMPOSED: Mozart may have begun composing this concerto in 1784. In the catalog of works he began keeping that year, Mozart noted that he completed it on March 2, 1786, in ViennaWORLD PREMIERE: Most likely in March 1786 at a Lenten concert in Vienna, although the exact date and other details of the premiere performance are undocumented. As with most of his concertos, Mozart wrote this one as a subscription concert to generate income; whenever it premiered, Mozart would have conducted it from the keyboard and performed the solo part.INSTRUMENTATION: solo piano, flute, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns and stringsESTIMATED DURATION: 26 minutes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote the majority of his piano concertos during the 1780s, and, as was his habit, he often worked on several compositions simultaneously. Such is the case with the Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488, one of three piano concertos (along with the E flat, K. 482 and the C minor, K. 491) Mozart wrote at the same time as his opera, The Marriage of Figaro.

On first inspection, there seems little similarity between K. 488, a lyrical, reflective work, and the exuberant silliness that embodies much of Figaro. However, a closer look reveals some interesting parallels between the concerto and the opera. There are moments in Figaro, particularly the Countess’ poignant aria, “Porgi amor,” in which she laments her loveless marriage, and in the finale when the Count begs forgiveness, which echoes the emotional depth and tenderness of the concerto. Correspondingly, passages in the concerto, particularly in the Adagio, are vocal – if not operatic – in both construction and conception.

When performing, Mozart improvised cadenzas for all his concertos, although many do not survive in written form. Other composers, most notably Ludwig van Beethoven, composed and notated cadenzas for several of Mozart’s piano concertos. Mozart’s original cadenza for K. 488 not only survives but also was notated directly into the score.

K. 488 stands out for other reasons. Although oboes were standard instruments in 18th-century orchestras, Mozart uses clarinets in K. 488 instead. Mozart loved the sound of this instrument, and its dark round tone adds a pensive, melancholy quality to the orchestration, particularly the Adagio. Mozart also abandoned typical piano concerto conventions by writing the Adagio in a minor key. Mozart’s choice of a minor tonality, and the particular key itself, F-sharp minor, were rare departures from his usual practice, and lend poignancy to this music.K. 488 was published in 1800; throughout most of the 19th century, it was one of only a few of Mozart’s concertos to be performed. It became, and remains, one of Mozart’s most popular and beloved works.

Hector Berlioz – Symphonie fantastique (Fantastic Symphony), Op. 14

COMPOSER: born December 11, 1803, La CÃ´te-Saint-AndrÃ©, IsÃ¨re, France; died March 8, 1869, Paris.WORK COMPOSED: Between January and April of 1830, although some of the material Berlioz included was written as early as 1819.WORLD PREMIERE: FranÃ§ois-Antoine Habeneck conducted the premiere in Paris on December 5, 1830. Two years later, on December 9, 1832, Habeneck, with Berlioz in the orchestra playing timpani, conducted a substantially revised version, also in Paris.INSTRUMENTATION: 2 flutes (one doubling piccolo), 2 oboes (one doubling English horn), 2 clarinets, 4 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 cornets, 3 trombones, 2 tubas (ophicleides), 2 sets of timpani, bass drum, cymbals, bells, snare drum, 2 harps and strings.ESTIMATED DURATION: 49 minutes Say what you want about Hector Berlioz: he was an arrogant, selfish, self-obsessed man, full of vitriol (try reading his music criticism sometime), and he drove poor Harriet Smithson, the inspiration for his Symphonie fantastique, who was so unfortunate as to marry him, to drink and despair. All true, to be sure, but none of Berlioz’ deficits as a human being take away from the fact that at age 27, he wrote, by general agreement, the most astonishing and groundbreaking first symphony any composer has yet produced.

This feat is all the more surprising when we realize that Berlioz completed his Symphonie fantastique just three years after Beethoven’s death. When heard in that context, it is possible to appreciate how truly original this music is. Berlioz was no doubt inspired by Beethoven’s symphonic innovations, especially Beethoven’s use of a program in his Sixth (Pastoral) Symphony, but, typically, Berlioz pushed the programmatic elements further than any composer had previously done.

Berlioz’ inspiration for the Symphonie fantastique was born from his obsession with Smithson, an Irish actress he first saw in a production of Hamlet in 1827. Berlioz spoke almost no English, so it seems clear that his violent infatuation with Smithson was carnal rather than courtly. (Berlioz and Smithson did not meet for another five years, after the premiere of the revised version of the Symphonie.)

What made Berlioz’ program so innovative and shocking to his audiences was the extent to which the story was overtly autobiographical and literary. Along with Smithson, who was musically transformed into the idÃ©e fixe, or recurring theme, of the symphony, Berlioz drew on plots from literature, most notably Faust, in his exploration of the ruinous and glorious nature of love. What audiences, both then and now, often misunderstood was the quintessentially romantic nature of Berlioz’ program. He was not interested in a literal depiction of events, but rather the transformation of his emotional response to those events into music.

Berlioz insisted that his music could not be understood or appreciated without its accompanying program, which he provided to audiences at the first performances of the work. Its five movements, in roughest outline, proceed as follows: Part I: Dreams – Passions: Boy meets girl. Part II: A Ball: Boy obsesses about the girl. Part III: A Scene in the Country: While strolling about the countryside listening to shepherds’ songs, the boy convinces himself girl doesn’t return his love. Part IV: March to the Scaffold: In despair, the boy takes a less-than-fatal dose of opium, enough to induce horrible visions and hallucinations, including a death march to the guillotine. Part V: Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath: Still hallucinating, the boy dreams his funeral is a witches’ Sabbath, and his beloved joins in the diabolical festivities. Or, as Leonard Bernstein so eloquently put it, in one of his Young Peoples’ Concerts, “Berlioz tells it like it is… You take a trip, you wind up screaming at your own funeral.”

© Elizabeth Schwartz

NOTE: These program notes are published here by the Santa Rosa Symphony for its patrons and otherinterested readers. Any other use is forbidden without specific permission from author, who may be contacted at www.classicalmusicprogramnotes.com.

Jurassic Park - In Concert
2024-01-18 00:00
Ticket Information

Tickets for Jurassic Park – In Concert will be available to purchase starting July 29 at 10 AM.

Tickets for this event are available through the Green Music Center box office. The Santa Rosa Symphony is not selling tickets for this concert.

To purchase tickets, please call (707) 664-4246 or visit the GMC website.

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Prior to purchasing tickets and attending the concert, please visit the Green Music Center website for their latest COVID-19 policy.

Supported in part by:

© Universal City Studios LLC and Amblin Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Not available for this concert.

SRSYO - Bon Voyage
2024-01-18 00:00
Ticket Information

Pre-concert (must be purchased by 11 am on the Friday before the concert)Adult: $15Youth: $5

At the doorAdult: $20Youth: $10

Group sale tickets available for 10+ people. Must be purchased in advance. No group sale tickets at the door. $10/ticket.

To order tickets: please call Patron Services at (707) 546-8742 or visit our Buy Tickets page

Tickets are subject to a $2/ticket fee.All tickets are nonrefundable.Programs, dates, artist, prices and COVID-19 protocols are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

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Masks are optional, but recommended.

Adults 18 +:Photo I.D. and one of the following:

Proof of vaccination

Negative COVID PCR test (taken by a laboratory within 72 hours prior to performance).

The name on the document must match the photo I.D.

Ages 7-17:No requirements.

Please stay home if…

You are sick or have any of the following symptoms: fever, sore throat, chills, cough, shortness of breath, congestion, nausea, or vomiting.

You’ve been in close contact with an individual diagnosed with COVID-19 or exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms within the past 14 days.

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You are awaiting the results of a COVID-19 PCR test.

COVID-19 protocols are subject to change.Click here to read all COVID-19 health and safety information.

Photos by Susan and Neil Silverman Photography

Not available for this concert.

SRSYO - Great Concertos
2024-01-18 00:00
Program

Giuseppe Verdi: Overture to NabuccoW.A. Mozart: Horn Concerto No. 3 in E-Flat Major, K. 447Edward Elgar: Cello Concerto, Op. 85, Movement I.Antonin Dvoå˜ã_X0081_K: symphony No. 8, Movement Iii. and Iv.Arturo Mã_X0081_Rquez: danz Ã³n No. 2

W.A. Mozart Horn Concerto features 2022 Concerto Competition winner, Jason WhitneyEdward Elgar Cello Concerto features 2021 Concerto Competition winner, Gwendolyn Przyjazna

Ticket Information

Pre-concert (must be purchased by 11 am on the Friday before the concert)Adult: $15Youth: $5

At the doorAdult: $20Youth: $10

Group sale tickets available for 10+ people. Must be purchased in advance. No group sale tickets at the door. $10/ticket.

To order tickets: please call Patron Services at (707) 546-8742 or visit our Buy Tickets page

Tickets are subject to a $2/ticket feeAll tickets are nonrefundable.Programs, dates, artist, prices and COVID-19 protocols are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

Health & Safety

Masks are optional, but recommended.

Adults 18 +:Photo I.D. and one of the following:

Proof of vaccination

Negative COVID PCR test (taken by a laboratory within 72 hours prior to performance).

The name on the document must match the photo I.D.

Ages 7-17:No requirements.

Please stay home if…

You are sick or have any of the following symptoms: fever, sore throat, chills, cough, shortness of breath, congestion, nausea, or vomiting.

You’ve been in close contact with an individual diagnosed with COVID-19 or exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms within the past 14 days.

You’ve been directed to self-isolate or quarantine by a health care provider or public health official.

You are awaiting the results of a COVID-19 PCR test.

COVID-19 protocols are subject to change.Click here to read all COVID-19 health and safety information.

Banner photo by Susan and Neil Silverman Photography

Not available for this concert.

SRSYO - Memorable Melodies
2024-01-18 00:00
Program

West County High School Orchestra

Gustav Holst: Jupiter from The Planets, Op.32 (arr. Deborah Baker Monday)Merle J. Isaac: quinto-Quarto SuiteModest Mussorgsky: Hopak from The Fair at Sorochinsk (arr. by Merle J. Isaac)

Santa Rosa Symphony Youth Orchestra

Antonin Dvořák: symphony No. 8, Ii. AdagioLudwig Van Beethoven: violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61, I. Allegro Ma Non TroppoAaron Copland: four Dance Episodes from Rodeo, I. Buckaroo Holiday, Iv. Hoe-DownLudwig Van Beethoven Violin Concerto Features Guest Soloist Aaron Westman.

Combined Orchestras

Camille Saint-Saens: Marche Militaire Francais

Ticket Information

Pre-concert (must be purchased by 11 am on the Friday before the concert)Adult: $15Youth: $5

At the doorAdult: $20Youth: $10

Group sale tickets available for 10+ people. Must be purchased in advance. No group sale tickets at the door. $10/ea.

To order tickets: please call Patron Services at (707) 546-8742 or visit our Buy Tickets page

Tickets are subject to a $2/ticket fee.All tickets are nonrefundable.Programs, dates, artist, prices and COVID-19 protocols are subject to change without notice.Tickets are subject to availability.

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Adult Patrons and youth 7 years of age and older:

Masks are required in keeping with CDC recommendations and Sonoma State guidelines and must cover mouth and nose at all times.

Photo ID is required (waived for children accompanied by parent)

AND one of the following:

Proof of vaccination (See COVID Updates page for acceptable forms)

Negative COVID PCR test (48 hours prior to performance) The test must be conducted by a laboratory.

Patrons ages 3 to 6:Mask and, if unvaccinated, an at-home antigen test taken on the day of the event.Please note that at-home tests are only permitted for ages 3-6.

Patrons under 3: Mask required for age 2 and older. No tests or proof of vaccination is required.

Click here to read all COVID-19 health and safety information.

Photos by Susan and Neil Silverman Photography

Not available for this concert.

SRSYO - Back in the Saddle Again
2024-01-18 00:00
Ticket Information

Pre-concert (must be purchased by 11 am on the Friday before the concert)Adult: $15Youth: $5

At the doorAdult: $20Youth: $10

Group sale tickets available for 10+ people. Must be purchased in advance. No group sale tickets at the door. $10/ea.

To order tickets: please call Patron Services at (707) 546-8742 or visit our Buy Tickets page

Tickets are subject to a $2/ticket feeAll tickets are nonrefundable.

Programs, dates, artists, and prices are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

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Please read carefully.

Adult Patrons and youth 7 years of age and older: Mask are requiredPhoto ID is required (waived for children accompanied by parent) AND one of the following:

Proof of vaccination (See COVID Updates page for acceptable forms)

Negative PCR COVID test (72 hours prior to performance)

Patrons ages 3 to 6:Mask and negative rapid antigen test taken within 6 hours of the event, either at home or by a laboratory.

Patrons under 3: Mask required for age 2 and older. No tests or proof of vaccination are required.

We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:

Concert sponsored by Umpqua Bank

Photos by Susan and Neil Silverman Photography

Not available for this concert.

Valley of the Moon
2024-01-18 00:00
Conversations with Francesco Lecce-Chong

Concert Conversations are general seating and free to Classical Series concert ticket holders. Approximately 30 minutes in Weill Hall.

Saturday, May 7, 2022 at 6:30 PM

Sunday, May 8, 20222 at 2:00 PM

Monday, May 9, 2022 at 6:30 PM

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Covid Protocols for This Concert

Please note: COVID-19 protocols are subject to change.

Masks are optional, but recommended.

Adults 18 +:Photo I.D. and one of the following:

Proof of vaccination

Negative COVID PCR test (taken by a laboratory within 72 hours prior to performance).

The name on the document must match the photo I.D.

Ages 7-17:No requirements.

Please stay home if…

You are sick or have any of the following symptoms: fever, sore throat, chills, cough, shortness of breath, congestion, nausea, or vomiting.

You’ve been in close contact with an individual diagnosed with COVID-19 or exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms within the past 14 days.

You’ve been directed to self-isolate or quarantine by a health care provider or public health official.

You are awaiting the results of a COVID-19 PCR test.

Click here for Ticket Policies regarding COVID-19.

We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:

Classical Concert Series underwritten by Anderman Family Foundation Composer Michael Daugherty underwritten by Nancy and Robert NovakElina VÃ¤hÃ¤lÃ¤ underwritten by Linda and David Hanes Discovery Open Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardPre-concert Talks sponsored by Jamei Haswell and Richard GrundySeason media sponsor: The Press Democrat

Programs, dates, artists, and prices are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

Photo of Elina Vähälä by Laura RiiheläPhoto of Michael Daugherty by ​Yopie Prins

May 2022 Program Notes by Elizabeth Schwartz

Johann Strauss II
Overture to Die Fledermaus [The Bat], Opus 367COMPOSER: born October 25, 1825, Vienna; died June 3, 1899, ViennaWORK COMPOSED: 1874WORLD PREMIERE: April 5, 1874, in the Theater an der WienINSTRUMENTATION: 2 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, bass drum, orchestra bells, snare drum, triangle and strings.ESTIMATED DURATION: 9 minutes The name Strauss is synonymous with the Viennese waltz, and the combined efforts of this illustrious family made the waltz the most popular dance of all time. Headed by Johann Strauss the Elder, they included his oldest son Johann Strauss the Younger, known as “The Waltz King,” and his younger sons Josef and Eduard. The achievements of the Strausses began with Johann the Elder’s successful tours in the 1820s and 1830s with the Strauss Orchestra, performing his own waltzes throughout Europe. In 1833, a critic hailed Strauss the Elder as “the Mozart of the waltz, the Beethoven of the cotillons, the Paganini of the galop, the Rossini of the potpourri.” Thanks to the efforts of Strauss and his sons, the waltz was performed as much in the concert hall as on the dance floor.

Johann Strauss the Younger eclipsed his father and brothers to become the “The Waltz King.” His father did not want his sons to become musicians, but Johann the Younger studied violin in secret, and, like his father, performed with his own orchestra. It was only after Johann the Elder’s death in 1849 that Strauss the Younger was able to fully establish himself as a composer and conductor. Between 1860-1870, he wrote the majority of his most famous waltzes, including the Blue Danube Waltz and Tales from the Vienna Woods (1868). In 1863, he was appointed Hofballmusikdirektor (music director for court dances) and handed over his conducting duties of the Strauss Orchestra to his brother Josef. After 1870, Johann II turned his attention to stage music and light opera, of which Die Fledermaus (The Bat) is his most well-known work.

Die Fledermaus’ plot centers around a lavish costume ball. In a manner reminiscent of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, numerous love triangles and mistaken identities occur at the festivities, where the title character, Eisenstein, dresses up as a bat. Eisenstein’s bat costume conceals him from his wife Rosalinde and her maid AdÃ¨le, whose identities are also hidden by their costumes. All confusion is resolved the following morning, as the revelers toast to “King Champagne.”

Although the audience enjoyed the comedic twists and engaging music, critics despised Die Fledermaus. Eduard Hanslick dismissed it as “a potpourri of waltz and polka motives,” and another reviewer described Strauss’ talent as “limited.” Limited or not, the audience took to the opera immediately, as another reviewer observed: “One could get seasick in the orchestra stalls, as the people were swaying from side to side with the enchanting melodies.”

Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Concerto in D major for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 35 COMPOSER: born May 29, 1897, Vienna; died November 29, 1957, HollywoodWORK COMPOSED: 1937-1945. Commissioned by violinist Bronislaw Huberman. Dedicated to Alma Mahler-Werfel (Gustav Mahler’s widow).WORLD PREMIERE: February 15, 1947. Vladimir Golschmann led the St. Louis Symphony with Jascha Heifetz as soloist.INSTRUMENTATION: solo violin, 2 flutes (one doubling piccolo), 2 oboes (one doubling English horn), 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons (one doubling contrabassoon), 4 horns, 2 trumpets, trombone, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, glockenspiel, vibraphone, xylophone, celesta, harp and strings.ESTIMATED DURATION: 24 minutes Erich Korngold was a man out of time. Had he been born a century earlier, his musical sensibilities would have aligned perfectly with the musical and artistic aesthetics of the Romantic period. Instead, Korngold grew up in the tumult of the early 20th century, when the Romanticism of the 19th century had been eclipsed by the horrors of World War I and the stark modernist trends of fellow Viennese composers Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern.

Korngold’s prodigious compositional talent emerged early. At age 10, he performed his cantata Gold for Gustav Mahler, whereupon the older composer called him a genius. When Korngold was 13, just after his bar mitzvah, the Austrian Imperial Ballet staged his pantomime The Snowman. Rumors about the music’s true author swirled around Vienna’s musical circles, as some, refusing to believe a 13-year-old could create such polished work, claimed Korngold’s father Julius was the actual composer. Julius, a renowned music critic, pointed out the ridiculousness of him critiquing others’ music if he were in fact capable of writing music as good as his son’s.

In his teens, Korngold received commissions from the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, pianist Artur Schnabel performed his Opus 2 Piano Sonata on tour, and Korngold began writing operas, completing two full-scale works by age 18. When he was 23, Korngold’s opera Die tote Stadt (The Dead City) brought him international renown; it was performed in 83 different opera houses.

By the end of 1919, in response to the unspeakable carnage and chaos wrought by the war, composers everywhere had found a new medium to express themselves: modernism. Music bristled with dissonance, unexpected rhythms, and often little that resembled a clear melody. Korngold’s music, by contrast, reflected the style of an earlier, bygone era, and his unabashed Romanticism was dismissed as hopelessly out of date. Fortunately for Korngold, another forum for his lush, lyrical style simultaneously emerged: film scores. In 1933, director Max Reinhardt invited Korngold to write a score for his film adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Korngold subsequently moved to Hollywood, where he spent the next dozen years composing scores for 18 films, including his Oscar-winning music for Anthony Adverse (1936) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).

While some composers and critics, then as now, regard film music as less significant than works written for the concert hall, Korngold did not. “I have never drawn a distinction between music for films and for operas or concerts,” he stated, and his violin concerto bears this out. The concerto is a compilation of themes from several Korngold scores, including Another Dawn (1937), JuÃ¡rez (1939), Anthony Adverse and The Prince and the Pauper (1937). Korngold composed it for an old family friend, Polish violinist BronisÅ‚aw Huberman. It was a running joke in the Korngold family that every time Huberman saw Korngold, he would demand, “Erich! Where’s my concerto?” At dinner one evening in Korngold’s house in Los Angeles, Korngold responded to Huberman’s mock-serious question by going to his piano and playing the theme from Another Dawn. Huberman exclaimed, “That’s it! That will be my concerto. Promise me you’ll write it.” Korngold complied, but it was Jascha Heifetz, another child prodigy, who gave the first performance. In his own program notes for the premiere, Korngold wrote, “In spite of its demand for virtuosity in the finale, the work with its many melodic and lyric episodes was contemplated rather for a Caruso of the violin than for a Paganini. It is needless to say how delighted I am to have my concerto performed by Caruso and Paganini in one person: Jascha Heifetz.”

St. Louis audiences loved the concerto, but Korngold knew the gauntlet of New York critics were less likely to embrace it. Just as he expected, New York savaged it. One critic from the New York Sun made an offhand quip that has become indelibly attached to the concerto’s narrative, whether you agree with it or not: he termed the work “more corn than gold.” Such unanimous condemnation doomed the concerto to obscurity for some decades, but over time, violinists and conductors have come to see Korngold’s Concerto as both technically and artistically worthwhile. Since Korngold’s time, the status of film composers has also risen, thanks to the Academy Award-winning work of Bernard Hermann (Psycho), John Williams (the Star Wars, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Harry Potter franchises; Schindler’s List; Memoirs of A Geisha; amongst many others), MiklÃ³s RÃ³zsa (The Thief of Bagdad, countless film noir classics including Double Indemnity, A Double Life and more), Ennio Morricone (many Italian spaghetti westerns, including the iconic score for The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, The Mission and Cinema Paradiso, among many others, and, more recently, Icelandic composer Hildur GuÃ°nadÃ³ttir, whose From the Other Place was featured on our March concert (she also wrote the Oscar-winning score to 2019’s The Joker). Today, performers, audiences and critics tend to make fewer arbitrary distinctions among genres. Instead, more people are embracing Duke Ellington’s eloquent assessment of what makes any music worthy of our attention: “If it sounds good, it IS good.”

Claude Debussy
Prelude à l’après-midi d’un faune [Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun”] for Orchestra [after Mallarmé], L. 86 COMPOSER: born August 22, 1862, St. Germain-en-Laye, France; died March 25, 1918, ParisWORK COMPOSED: 1892-94WORLD PREMIERE: Gustave Doret conducted the premiere at the Société Nationale de Musique in Paris on December 23, 1894.INSTRUMENTATION: 3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, antique cymbals, 2 harps and strings.ESTIMATED DURATION: 10 minutes

When Prelude à l’Après-midi d’un faune was first performed in Paris in December 1894, it sent musical shock waves around the world. Some 50 years after its premiere, the late conductor and composer Pierre Boulez wrote, “The flute of the Faun brought new breath to the art of music; what was overthrown was not so much the art of development as the very concept of form itself.”Claude Debussy’s revolutionary music is based on the Symbolist writer Stephane Mallarmé’s poem, “Afternoon of a Faun,” published in 1876. Both poem and music unfold without clear narrative; the kaleidoscopic nature of the text and music creates a succession of shifting moods and impressions, rather than a straightforwardly linear tale. In Prelude à l’Après-midi d’un faune and much of Debussy’s other music from this period, color and texture are the essential structural components of the music. When Mallarmé heard Faune for the first time, he exclaimed, “I was not expecting anything of this kind! This music draws out the emotion of my poem and gives it a background of warmer colors.” In Faune’s score, Mallarmé inscribed this verse: “Sylvan of the first breath,/If your flute were successful/In hearing all the light,/It would exhale Debussy.”The compositional style Debussy employed in Faune came to be known as Impressionism, after the style of the Impressionist painters. Essentially French in its conception, Impressionistic music was seen as a direct challenge to the Germanic tradition, with its emphasis on formal structure and forward motion generated by harmonic movement.At the premiere, the audience reacted with such overwhelming enthusiasm that conductor Gustave Doret was forced to perform an encore. Unlike the audience, critics were slower in catching on to the importance and brilliance of Debussy’s innovations. “[The Afternoon of a Faun] has a pretty sound, but there is not the least truly musical idea in it; it is no more a piece of music than the palette on which a painter has been working is a picture,” scoffed the musically conservative Camille Saint-Saëns. Saint-Saëns and other critics notwithstanding, audiences quickly made Faune Debussy’s most popular and best-known orchestral work, and it remains so today. While Mallarmé’s poem is lengthy and effusive, at just under ten minutes, Debussy’s music is concise, while still effectively distilling and transforming Mallarmé’s sometimes heavy-handed imagery into subtle shades of color and texture. Mallarmé’s mythological faun is all lust and unrequited desire. He whiles away the languid torpor of a summer afternoon attempting to seduce two nymphs, and later ponders the alluring power of music. Debussy made no attempt at a direct musical narrative; instead, he explained that the music connected “the successive scenes in which the longings and desires of the faun pass in the heat of the afternoon.” The closest Debussy comes to a specific connection with Mallarmé’s images is the famous solo flute introduction (the faun’s panpipes), which recurs periodically throughout. Debussy’s music later inspired ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, who made it into an iconic ballet in 1912, dancing the title role himself. Nijinsky’s choreography was groundbreaking, incorporating movement and gestures inspired by ancient Greek amphoras. In the ballet’s final moments, Nijinsky choreographed what may be the world’s first balletic orgasm, thrusting his hips into one of the nymph’s discarded shawls left on the ground.

Michael Daugherty
Valley of the Moon for Orchestra (World premiere)COMPOSER: born April 28, 1954, Cedar Rapids, IowaWORK COMPOSED: 2022WORLD PREMIERE: Performed May 7, 2022, by the Santa Rosa Symphony, conducted by Music Director Francesco Lecce-Chong, at the Green Music Center’s Weill Hall in Rohnert Park, California.INSTRUMENTATION: Piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 B-flat clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns in F, 3 trumpets in C, 2 trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, bass drum, chimes, finger cymbals, glockenspiel, large crash cymbals, large woodblock, piccolo snare drum, vibraphone, marimba, harp and stringsESTIMATED DURATION: 30 minutesMultiple Grammy Award-winning composer Michael Daugherty has been praised by The Times (London) as “a master icon maker” with a “maverick imagination, fearless structural sense, and meticulous ear.” His orchestral music, recorded by Naxos, has received six Grammy Awards, including Best Contemporary Classical Composition in 2011 for Deus ex Machina for Piano and Orchestra, and in 2017 for Tales of Hemingway for Cello and Orchestra. Recent commissions include new orchestral works for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Omaha Symphony, the Santa Rosa Symphony and a concerto for violinist Anne Akiko Meyers. The League of American Orchestras ranks Daugherty as one of the 10 most performed living American composers.Born in 1954 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Michael Daugherty is the oldest of five brothers, all professional musicians. They grew up in a musical household, with a father who played the drums in dance bands and a mother who sang in musical theater productions. As a young man, Daugherty studied composition with many of the preeminent composers of the 20th century, including Jacob Druckman, Earle Brown, Bernard Rands and Roger Reynolds at Yale University (1980-1982), Betsy Jolas at the Paris Conservatory and Pierre Boulez at IRCAM in Paris (1979-1980) and György Ligeti in Hamburg (1982-1984). From 1980-1982, Daugherty was also an assistant to jazz arranger Gil Evans in New York.

After teaching from 1986 to 1991 at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin, Ohio, Daugherty became Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he is a mentor to many of today’s most talented young composers. Valley of the Moon for Orchestra was commissioned by the Santa Rosa Symphony, Francesco Lecce-Chong, Music Director and Conductor. The composer, who has provided his own program notes, writes:“When visiting Santa Rosa in 2021, I spent several days driving the backroads of Sonoma County to experience the majestic redwood forests, the glorious coast of the Pacific Ocean, the Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen and the coastal village of Bodega Bay where Alfred Hitchcock filmed The Birds (1963). This road trip became the inspiration for Valley of the Moon, a 30-minute musical composition in four movements:

I. Out of the FogII. Shadow of the BirdsIII. Air on the RedwoodsIV. Call of the Wild“In movements one and three, I create a lush and complex symphonic soundscape, exploring how music can enhance our appreciation of the natural world. ‘Out of the Fog’ is inspired by watching the fog slowly roll off the Pacific Ocean, as it brings much-needed moisture to valleys of agricultural fields and lush forests. ‘Air on the Redwoods’ is a bittersweet ballad to the giant redwood trees, nearly logged into extinction in the 20th century. These ancient trees are hundreds, even thousands, of years older than Bach’s ‘Air on the G String’ (1731), which occasionally whispers through the branches of this movement.

“In movements two and four, I create foreboding music warning us of the growing fragility of an endangered ecosystem. ‘Shadow of the Birds’ is a chilling musical homage to Hitchcock’s film The Birds, where nature has gone amok as thousands of birds descend on Bodega Bay and relentlessly attack the residents. ‘Call of the Wild’ borrows a phrase from American author Jack London (1876-1916), who lived and farmed in Sonoma Valley. He was an early advocate for sustainable living to preserve the natural world. Perhaps, if we listen to the ‘call,’ there is still hope.”

© Elizabeth Schwartz

Hotel California
2024-01-18 00:00
Pre Concert Talk

Join Principal Pops Conductor Michael Berkowitz one hour prior to every concert for a discussion of the afternoon’s concert, along with personal anecdotes and memories from his storied career working on Broadway and with Liza Minelli, Henry Mancini, and Marvin Hamlisch among many others.

Information on lbc’s covid policies per CA state guidelines

How To Purchase Tickets For The Pops!

Although the Santa Rosa Symphony is performing, the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts is selling the tickets for this concert.

To purchase tickets, click here.LBC Box office: (707) 546-3600Tues – Sat, 10am – 6pm | closed Sunday and Monday(Open 2 hours before performances on Sundays and Mondays)

There are no program notes available for this concert.

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Return to a Galaxy Far, Far Away
2024-01-18 00:00
Pre Concert Talk

Join Principal Pops Conductor Michael Berkowitz one hour prior to every concert for a discussion of the afternoon’s concert, along with personal anecdotes and memories from his storied career working on Broadway and with Liza Minelli, Henry Mancini, and Marvin Hamlisch among many others.

Information on LBC’s Covid Policies per Ca State Guidelines

How to Purchase Tickets for The Pops!

Although the Santa Rosa Symphony is performing, the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts is selling the tickets for this concert.

To purchase tickets, click here.LBC Box office: (707) 546-3600Tues – Sat, 10am – 6pm | closed Sunday and Monday(Open 2 hours before performances on Sundays and Mondays)

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This performance generously made possible by

The Heck FoundationThe Alan and Susan Seidenfeld Charitable Trust

Holly Jolly Pops
2024-01-18 00:00

Fiedler's Favorites
2024-01-18 00:00
About the Concert

The Santa Rosa Pops celebrates the tradition started by the Boston Pops with its exciting and accessible mix of light classics and popular hits made famous by the incomparable Arthur Fiedler! This festive tribute features pianist Bill Cunliffe playing George Gershwin’s iconic “Rhapsody in Blue,” Marvin Hamlisch’s “Music and the Mirror” and a jazz piano feature with Maestro Michael Berkowitz on drums. Also, Santa Rosa’s own Mark Wardlaw will be featured playing a “Tribute to Benny Goodman,” originally written for the Boston Pops. Enjoy this homage to Arthur Fiedler, iconic former conductor of the Boston Pops. Celebrating the 50 years of Fiedler on the Podium, the concert features delectable bites of musical joy: “Seventy-Six Trombones,” “Jalousie,” Leroy Anderson’s” The Typewriter,” “Strike Up the Band,”” Love Is A Many Splendored Thing,” excerpts from Bizet’s “Carmen” and “Mambo” from West Side Story and more.

Arthur Fiedler began his career with the Boston Pops in 1915 as a violinist. After filling in as conductor for four years, he officially became the first American-born conductor to lead the orchestra in 1930. on July 4, 1929, Fiedler inaugurated a series of concerts that continues to this day. He made his mark on the Boston Pops by programming the kind of music that was then known as “symphonic jazz,” compiling an enormous collection of marches, overtures, suites, symphonies, rhapsodies, show tunes and novelty songs. In addition, he showcased the work of young American composers and arrangers, and featured young American soloists.

Pre-Concert Talk

Join Principal Pops Conductor Michael Berkowitz one hour prior to every concert for a discussion of the afternoon’s concert, along with personal anecdotes and memories from his storied career working on Broadway and with Liza Minelli, Henry Mancini, and Marvin Hamlisch among many others.

Information on LBCs COVID Policies Per CA State Guidelines

How To Purchase Tickets For The Pops!

Although the Santa Rosa Symphony is performing, the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts is selling the tickets for this concert.

To purchase tickets, click here.LBC Box office: (707) 546-3600Tues – Sat, 10am – 6pm | closed Sunday and Monday(Open 2 hours before performances on Sundays and Mondays)

This performance generously made possible by

Gordon BlumenfeldThere are no program notes available for this concert.

Remember When Rock Was Young - The Elton John Tribute
2024-01-18 00:00
The previous performance date was Sunday, May 23, 2021 at 3pm

If you have any questions, please contact our remote ticket office at 707-546-3600 (Tue-Sat, 10am-6pm, closed Sunday and Monday) or email patronservices@lutherburbankcenter.org for a refund or credit towards a future performance. Or, it would be welcome and greatly appreciated if you would consider turning your ticket into a donation; your gift will help to enrich, educate and entertain our community through the arts, particularly under these unprecedented times. There are certain deadlines to request a refund, please contact our ticket office for specific dates.

Pre Concert Talk

Join Principal Pops Conductor Michael Berkowitz one hour prior to every concert for a discussion of the afternoon’s concert, along with personal anecdotes and memories from his storied career working on Broadway and with Liza Minelli, Henry Mancini, and Marvin Hamlisch among many others.

Information on LBC’s COVID policies per CA State guidelines

How to Purchase Tickets for the Pops!

Although the Santa Rosa Symphony is performing, the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts is selling the tickets for this concert.

To purchase tickets, click here.LBC Box office: (707) 546-3600Tues – Sat, 10am – 6pm | closed Sunday and Monday(Open 2 hours before performances on Sundays and Mondays)

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This concert was generously underwritten by:

With additional support by Anonymous

There are no program notes available for this concert.

Francesco at Bat
2024-01-18 00:00
Instrument Petting Zoo

Pre-concert fun for kids of all ages. Come for the FREE Instrument Petting Zoo one hour prior to performances.

Covid Protocols for Family Concerts at the Green Music Center

Masks are no longer required however they are encouraged.

One of the following is required for adults 18 years of age and over:

Proof of vaccination and photo I.D.

Negative COVID PCR test (48 hours prior to performance) The test must be conducted by a laboratory. Photo I.D.

There are no requirements for children 17 years of age and younger.

Please stay home if…

You are sick or have any of the following symptoms: fever, sore throat, chills, cough, shortness of breath, congestion, nausea, or vomiting.

You’ve been in close contact with an individual diagnosed with COVID-19 or exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms within the past 14 days.

You’ve been directed to self-isolate or quarantine by a health care provider or public health official.

You are awaiting the results of a COVID-19 PCR test.

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We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:

Family Series sponsored by The Alan and Susan Seidenfeld Charitable Trust and Victor and Karen Trione

Programs, dates, artist, prices and COVID-19 protocols are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

There are no program notes available for this concert.

Gershwin's Magic Key
2024-01-18 00:00
This concert has been rescheduled from January 23, 2022 to June 5, 2022. If you hold tickets for the January 23 date, your tickets will automatically be transferred to the new date and will work. No further action needed.

Program

Overture from Catfish Row: Symphonic Suite in Five Parts: ISwanee (Gershwin – Wodehouse)Fugue subject from Catfish Row: Symphonic Suite in Five Parts: II Got Plenty O’Nuttin from Catfish Row: Symphonic Suite in Five Parts: IIStrike Up The Band (Gershwin – MacPherson)Take Me Out to the Ball Game (Norworth and Tilzer)I’ll Build a Stairway to ParadiseNice Work If You Can Get It (Gershwin – Bennett)Period Medley: Oh, You Beautiful Doll (Ayer) & “Baby Face” (Akst)Rialto Ripples (Gershwin – Tyzik)Humoresque op. 101 no. 7 (DvoÅ™Ã¡k – Trinkaus)Second Rhapsody (New York Rhapsody)Promenade (Gershwin – Berkowitz)An American in ParisSummertime & Bess, You Is My Woman Now from Catfish Row: Symphonic Suite in Five Parts: I & II Oh Lord, I’m On My Way from Catfish Row: Symphonic Suite in Five Parts: VConcerto in F: IIIMedley from Oh, Kay! (Gershwin – Warner)Second Prelude (Blue Lullaby)Cuban OvertureI Got Rhythm (Gershwin – Bennett)Fascinating Rhythm (Gershwin – Warner)Rhapsody in Blue

Music by George Gershwin | Lyrics by Ira Gershwin | Created and Directed by Paul Pement Written by Will Martin, Elizabeth Wheeler and Paul Pement Production Advisor: Kevin Cole | Music Copyist/Engraver: John Blane Lighting Design: Paul Pement | Projections: Scott Fairchild | Music Supervisor: Will Martin Associate Director: Steve Hiltebrand Costumes: Alex Meadows | Props/Wigs: Kevin Barthel

Instrument Petting Zoo

Pre-concert fun for kids of all ages. Come for the FREE Instrument Petting Zoo one hour prior to performances.

Thank you to our Community Partner for supporting this concert:

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Covid Protocols for Family Concerts at the Green Music Center

Please note: COVID-19 protocols are subject to change.

Masks are optional, but recommended.

Adults 18 +:Photo I.D. and one of the following:

Proof of vaccination

Negative COVID PCR test (taken by a laboratory within 72 hours prior to performance).

The name on the document must match the photo I.D.

Ages 7-17:No requirements.

Please stay home if…

You are sick or have any of the following symptoms: fever, sore throat, chills, cough, shortness of breath, congestion, nausea, or vomiting.

You’ve been in close contact with an individual diagnosed with COVID-19 or exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms within the past 14 days.

You’ve been directed to self-isolate or quarantine by a health care provider or public health official.

You are awaiting the results of a COVID-19 PCR test.

We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:

Family Series sponsored by The Alan and Susan Seidenfeld Charitable Trust and Victor and Karen Trione

Programs, dates, artist, prices and COVID-19 protocols are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

There are no program notes available for this concert.

Classical Rocks! - May 1
2024-01-18 00:00
Thank you to our Community Partner for supporting this concert:

Instrument Petting Zoo

Pre-concert fun for kids of all ages. Come for the FREE Instrument Petting Zoo one hour prior to performances.

Covid Protocols for this Concert

Please note: COVID-19 protocols are subject to change.

Masks are optional, but recommended.

Adults 18 +:Photo I.D. and one of the following:

Proof of vaccination

Negative COVID PCR test (taken by a laboratory within 72 hours prior to performance).

The name on the document must match the photo I.D.

Ages 7-17:No requirements.

Please stay home if…

You are sick or have any of the following symptoms: fever, sore throat, chills, cough, shortness of breath, congestion, nausea, or vomiting.

You’ve been in close contact with an individual diagnosed with COVID-19 or exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms within the past 14 days.

You’ve been directed to self-isolate or quarantine by a health care provider or public health official.

You are awaiting the results of a COVID-19 PCR test.

Plan Your Visit

Learn more about the Discovery Rehearsal Series

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Seating Map

Before the Concert

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We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:

Family Series sponsored by The Alan and Susan Seidenfeld Charitable Trust and Victor and Karen Trione

Programs, dates, artist, prices and COVID-19 protocols are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

There are no program notes available for this concert.

Visions of Hope
2024-01-18 00:00
Ticket Information

Ticket holders: If you had tickets to the original May 2020 date, your tickets were reissued in February 2022. Please contact Patron Services, if you did not receive yours or if you have a question or wish to make a change. (707) 546-8742

Concert Conversations with Francesco Lecce-Chong

Concert Conversations are general seating and free to Classical Series concert ticket holders. Approximately 30 minutes in Weill Hall.

Saturday, June 11, 2022 at 6:30 PM

Sunday, June 12, 2022 at 2:00 PM

Monday, June 13, 2022 at 6:30 PM

Plan Your Visit

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Covid Protocols for This Concert

Please note: COVID-19 protocols are subject to change.

Masks are optional, but recommended.

Adults 18 +:Photo I.D. and one of the following:

Proof of vaccination

Negative COVID PCR test (taken by a laboratory within 72 hours prior to performance).

The name on the document must match the photo I.D.

Ages 7-17:No requirements.

Please stay home if…

You are sick or have any of the following symptoms: fever, sore throat, chills, cough, shortness of breath, congestion, nausea, or vomiting.

You’ve been in close contact with an individual diagnosed with COVID-19 or exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms within the past 14 days.

You’ve been directed to self-isolate or quarantine by a health care provider or public health official.

You are awaiting the results of a COVID-19 PCR test.

Click here for Ticket Policies regarding COVID-19.

We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:

Classical Concert Series underwritten by Anderman Family Foundation Supporting Sponsors: County of Sonoma & Creative SonomaConductor Francesco Lecce-Chong underwritten by Norma Person, in memory of Evert PersonGuest Artist Mariachi ChampaÃ±a NevÃn Supporting Sponsors: Pacific Gas and Electric and Nancy and Robert NovakWorld premiere underwritten by The Clarence E Heller Charitable Foundation and The National Endowment for the ArtsComposer Enrico Chapela Barba underwritten by Pam and Tim ChanterDiscovery Open Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardPre-concert Talks sponsored by Jamei Haswell and Richard GrundySeason Media Sponsor: The Press Democrat

Programs, dates, artists, and prices are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

Visions of Hope Program Notes by Steven Ledbetter

Arturo Márquez
Danzón No. 2 for OrchestraArturo Márquez was born in Alamos, Sonora, Mexico, on December 20, 1950. He composed his Danzón No. 2 in 1994. Francisco Savin conducted the first performance in Mexico City’s Netzahaucoyotl Hall on March 5, 1994. The score calls for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, four percussionists, piano and strings.ESTIMATED DURATION: 10 minutes.Arturo Márquez studied the violin, piano and trombone in his teens, then piano and theory at the National Conservatory in Mexico from 1970 to 1975. After that, he studied privately in Paris and completed a master’s degree at the California Institute of the Arts in 1990. His major teachers were Federico Ibarra and Morton Subotnick.

The majority of his early works were multi-media creations, uniting music with theater, dance, cinema and photography, for which the music was often electro-acoustic combinations of an avant-garde character.

In the early 1990s, he stepped aside from the modernist track to play with popular dance styles in a series of seven compositions, for different instrumental combinations, under the generic title Danzón, which refers to a formal couple dance that grew out of 19th-century Cuban traditions of the contredanse and the habanera. By the 20th century, it began to interact with other Cuban dance types, and its popularity spread to Mexico as well. The couple undertaking the danzón performed an elaborate set of footwork on syncopated beats, sometimes stopping completely, in elegant frozen positions, to listen to an instrumental section. Gradually the danzón was involved in the mambo and the cha cha cha. The danzón continues to be danced in its traditional form by members of the older generation.

Arturo Márquez composed his first Danzón in 1992 for pre-recorded tape with optional saxophone. Soon the dancer Irene Martinez and the painter Andres Fonseca persuaded him to compose a Danzón for full orchestra. In preparation for the work, he traveled to Veracruz, where, in the port city saloons, the dance had first conquered Mexico. Then he continued his research in the dance saloons of Mexico City. The resulting lively dance composition, combining French, African, Cuban and Mexican elements in a rondo pattern of tremendous vigor and color, is Marquez’s best-known work.

Enrico Chapela Barba
Braceros, Cantata for Mariachi and OrchestraEnrico Chapela Barba was born on January 29, 1974, in Mexico City, where he still lives. The work is a commission from the Santa Rosa Symphony, designed to draw upon his wide range of musical interests. These are the first performances.ESTIMATED DURATION: 30 minutesChapela’s music has frequently fused widely diverse traditions, including rock and electronic music as well as popular mariachi traditions from his native Mexico, which will be heard in this new piece with the Santa Rosa Symphony. His studies have ranged as widely as his musical interests. After receiving his Bachelor’s degree in composition from the Centro de Investigación y Estudios Musicales, he studied classical guitar in England and received a Master’s from the University of Paris Saint-Denis.His work has been widely performed in the Americas, Europe and Asia. He absorbed the major Mexican composers of the 20th century, Carlos Chavez and Silvestro Revueltas, but also studied electronic music in Paris. At the same time, he admires the philosophical-musical ideas of John Cage. He continues to teach at his alma mater in Mexico City.Regarding his new mariachi-laced composition, the composer writes: When America was forced into the Second World War, workers were drafted into battle, leaving farm fields unattended. To prevent crops from rotting, the Mexican Farm Labor Program was signed in 1942. Also known as the “bracero” program, this binational treaty summoned Mexican workers to pick American crops. More than three million Mexicans entered the US to labor in the agricultural fields as guest workers under the agreement. The benefits of the program led to its annual renewal until 1964, when an excess of migrant labor and the introduction of the mechanical cotton harvester, along with the Farm Workers Association’s movement, led by Cesar Chavez, and the civil rights movement, rendered the program unviable. The plot takes place in 1964, the last year of the treaty.

Pedro wants to marry Consuelo. Her father Jorge, who needs to know more about how they plan to pay the bills, learns that Pedro will join the bracero program, and save his earnings for the wedding. This does not sit well with Jorge, who, when he was young, was one of the first workers to be hired at Pecos, Texas. He had a bad experience, given the existing segregation culture in Texas, as well as the meager working conditions. He gives voice to those workers that were mistreated by Mexican officials and agricultural bosses, and has little more to say than resentful complaints. In contrast, his wife Dolores points to the positive aspects he is ignoring in his bitter account, and has a kinder approach to parenthood towards their daughter Consuelo.

Nevertheless, Jorge is reluctant to let his little girl get married to a bracero worker, or even worse, to an illegal wetback, if the program gets canceled and the plan deteriorates into a life-threatening-desert-crossing undertaking. So, he recounts his own misfortunes as a young bracero, 20 years earlier. But Jorge’s story fails to discourage Pedro, who after learning from his own words that Jorge was a cotton-picking champion, and that he ran into significant troubles because of his addictive betting habits, Pedro challenges Jorge to a bet: if he comes back from the fields to beat the old man in a sun-to-sun-cotton-picking match, the reluctant father will have to consent to the wedding. Consuelo, who is not thrilled about watching her boyfriend bet their future with her seasoned father, finds his resolve very romantic and reads with passion the adventurous letters describing his progress at the agricultural farms of California… The term “bracero” comes from the Spanish word brazo (arm), and describes someone who works with his arms.

Ottorino Respighi
The Fountains of RomeOttorino Respighi was born in Bologna, Italy, on July 9, 1879, and died in Romeon April 18, 1936. He composed his Fontane di Roma (Fountains of Rome) in 1916. The first performance took place in March 1917 at the Augusteo (Mausoleum of Augustus) in Rome, conducted by Antonio Guarnieri. The score calls for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, chimes, glockenspiel, two harps, celesta, piano, organ and strings.ESTIMATED DURATION: 15 minutesRespighi wrote music of extraordinary color and orchestral brilliance, partly, no doubt, a consequence of his having studied orchestration with Rimsky‑Korsakov during the years he served as principal violist in the orchestra of the St. Petersburg opera. After returning, he made composition his principal activity. Respighi wrote eight operas, as well as other stage works. He was interested in early music, and this led to a number of “archaizing” works like the Piano Concerto in the mixolydian mode and a Concerto gregoriano for violin, not to mention his better-known arrangements of Ancient Airs and Dances and The Birds, both derived from older lute and keyboard compositions.

But the works that remain far and away the best known of Respighi’s entire output are the three orchestral suites depicting aspects of his adopted city, Rome. He composed The Fountains of Rome in 1916, The Pines of Rome (the most popular of them all) in 1924 and the Festivals in 1928‑1929. In the course of the dozen images presented musically in these three scores, Respighi draws inspiration from the Rome of classical antiquity, of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and the modern day. Some movements depict natural beauties, others paint the customs and life of the Roman streets and plazas.

From the days of the ancient Romans, the provision of water into a city the size of Rome has been one of the civil engineering wonders of the world. Different regions of the city received their water via aqueducts coming from mountains in various directions from the city, often dozens of miles away, and to this day Romans argue cheerfully among themselves about the advantages of their various “waters,” which surge forth from a series of exquisite fountains. Respighi’s musical tribute to this aspect of Roman life is also a character piece tracing the Roman day from dawn to sunset, the composer having chosen to present each linked with “the hour in which their character is most in harmony with the surrounding landscape, or in which their beauty appears most impressive to the observer.”

The four “scenes” run directly from one to another. The Fountain of the Valle Giulia at dawn, or Julia Valley, is a pastoral scene. The breezes cause the leaves in the trees to rustle as a herd of cattle passes slowly by. A sudden summons on the horns immediately conjures up The Fountain of Triton in the morning. The triton, in Bernini’s great 17th-century stature, is seated on an open scallop shell, his head far back as he drinks from a conch shell. The sheer virility of the figure is celebrated in the horn calls, while the fantasy that envelops it figures in the lively main theme in the woodwinds. The Trevi fountain in the afternoon evokes the most famous of all the Roman fountains, the one into which visitors throw coins with the wish to return to Rome. Respighi’s music takes us to a site that, even when Nathaniel Hawthorne visited more than a century ago, was one of the liveliest daytime scenes in Rome:for the piazza is then filled with stalls of vegetable and fruit dealers, chestnut-roasters, cigar venders, and other people whose patter and wandering traffic is transacted in the open air. It is likewise thronged with idlers, lounging over the iron railing, and with forestieri [foreigners], who come hither to see the famous fountain.The music grows quieter as evening falls, and we end the day strolling to the Fountain of the Villa Medici at sunset. The fountain in front of the Villa Medici is a modest broad basin, spurting a single jet of water upwards, but it rests high above the city (not far from the Spanish Steps and the Piazza del Popolo with a spectacular view to the west). At sunset, the water in the fountain will mirror Michelangelo’s great cupola on St. Peter’s, across the Tiber in the Vatican. Oboe and English horn recall the pastoral mood of the opening, a tranquility that seems unlikely in one of the world’s great capitals, yet one attainable here, where the sunset view has changed surprisingly little in four centuries. Birdsong dies away, and the stillness of the dark closes the day.

© Steven Ledbetter (stevenledbetter.com)

American Rhapsody
2024-01-18 00:00
Health Order C19-35

Recently Sonoma County issued Health Order C19-35—requiring postponing or canceling large gatherings of more than 50 people indoors where social distancing is not feasible from January 12 through February 11, 2022. The County has announced this ban will be lifted on February 10, 2022 at 11:59 PM. American Rhapsody will be performed as planned. Please note: this concert will not be filmed.

Concert Conversations

Concert Conversations are general seating and free to Classical Series concert ticket holders. Approximately 30 minutes in Weill Hall.

Saturday, February 12, 2022 at 6:30 PM

Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 2:00 PM

Monday, February 14, 2022 at 6:30 PM

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Ages 7 & up;

Masks are required and must cover the mouth and nose at all times.

Photo ID is required (not required for children under 12 if accompanied by parent.)

And one of the following:

Proof of vaccination – name on card must match photo ID.

Negative COVID PCR test (taken within 48 hours prior to performance) – name on the test results must match photo ID.

No one will be admitted without a mask, photo ID and either proof of vaccine or negative COVID-19 PCR test. No exceptions.

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You are sick or have any of the following symptoms: fever, sore throat, chills, cough, shortness of breath, congestion, nausea, or vomiting.

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We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:

Classical Concert Series underwritten by Anderman Family Foundation

Concerts sponsored by Viking CruisesGuest Artist Michelle Cann underwritten by Willow Creek Wealth Management Guest Conductor Aram Demirjian underwritten by David and Corinne ByrdDiscovery Open Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardPre-concert Talks Sponsored by Jamei Haswell and Richard GrundySeason Media Sponsor: The Press Democrat

Programs, dates, artist, prices and COVID-19 protocols are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

February 2022 Program Notes by Elizabeth Schwartz

William Grant Still
Darker America (symphonic poem) for Orchestra COMPOSER: born May 11, 1895, Woodville, Mississippi; died December 3, 1978, Los AngelesWORK COMPOSED: 1924WORLD PREMIERE: Eugene Goosens led the first performance at Aeolian Hall in New York on November 22, 1926INSTRUMENTATION: 2 flutes, oboe, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, horn, trumpet, trombone, cymbal, bass drum, piano and stringsESTIMATED DURATION: 12 minutes Known as “the dean of African American composers,” William Grant Still composed music in a wide variety of genres: symphonies, opera, chamber music, choral works, solo songs and concertos. As a young man, he made his living playing commercial music on violin, oboe and banjo. Over his six-decade career, Still worked as a performer, arranger, orchestrator, conductor and composer.

Still’s childhood and teen years were filled with music. He studied violin and taught himself to play a number of other instruments before graduating high school at 16. Still went on to attend Wilberforce College and Oberlin College, where he studied composition with George Whitefield Chadwick. During the 1920s, Still also worked privately with the French modernist composer Edgar VarÃ¨se. Under VarÃ¨se’s mentorship, Still met influential musicians and conductors, had his own works performed and expanded his compositional horizons.

Darker America, Still’s first work for orchestra, introduced the young man to audiences as a composer of formidable ability and intent. In his own detailed program note, Still wrote, “Darker America, as its title suggests, is representative of the American Negro. His serious side is presented and is intended to suggest the triumph of a people over their sorrows through fervent prayer. At the beginning the theme of the American Negro is announced by the strings in unison. Following a short development of this, the English horn announces the sorrow theme, which is followed immediately by the theme of hope, given to muted brass accompanied by string and woodwind. The sorrow theme returns, treated differently, indicative of more intense sorrow as contrasted to passive sorrow indicated at the initial appearance of the theme. Again hope appears and the people seem about to rise above their troubles. But sorrow triumphs. Then the prayer is heard (given to oboe); the prayer of numbed rather than anguished souls. Strongly contrasted moods follow, leading up to the triumph of the people near the end, at which point the three principal themes are combined.”

George Gershwin
Rhapsody in Blue for Piano and Orchestra COMPOSER: born September 26, 1898, Brooklyn; died July 11, 1937, HollywoodWORK COMPOSED: Gershwin wrote Rhapsody in Blue in the first three weeks of 1924.WORLD PREMIERE: Gershwin was at the piano when Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra premiered Rhapsody in Blue at Aeolian Hall in New York on February 12, 1924.INSTRUMENTATION: solo piano, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, 3 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, gong, glockenspiel, snare drum, celesta, triangle, banjo and strings.ESTIMATED DURATION: 15 minutes

Rhapsody in Blue occupies a special place in American music: it introduced jazz to classical concert audiences, and simultaneously made an instant star of its composer. From its iconic opening clarinet glissando, right through its brilliant finale, Rhapsody in Blue epitomizes the Gershwin sound, and transformed the 25-year-old songwriter from Tin Pan Alley into a composer of “serious” music.

The story of how Rhapsody in Blue came about is as captivating as the music itself. On January 4, 1924, Ira Gershwin showed George a news report in the New York Tribune about a concert put together by jazz bandleader Paul Whiteman, grandiosely titled “An Experiment in Modern Music,” that would endeavor to trace the history of jazz.

The report concluded with a brief announcement: “George Gershwin is at work on a jazz concerto.” This was certainly news to Gershwin, who was then in rehearsals for a Broadway show, Sweet Little Devil. Gershwin contacted Whiteman to refute the Tribune article, but Whiteman eventually talked Gershwin into writing the concerto. Whiteman also sweetened the deal by offering to have Ferde GrofÃ© do the orchestrations. Gershwin completed Rhapsody in Blue in three weeks, and was at the piano when Paul Whiteman and his Jazz Orchestra premiered Rhapsody in Blue at Aeolian Hall in New York on February 12, 1924.

In 1931, Gershwin described to biographer Isaac Goldberg how the ideas for Rhapsody in Blue came to him during a train trip to Boston: “It was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty bang, that is so often so stimulating to a composer – I frequently hear music in the very heart of the noise … And there I suddenly heard, and even saw on paper – the complete construction of the Rhapsody, from beginning to end … I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness. By the time I reached Boston I had a definite plot of the piece, as distinguished from its actual substance.”

At the premiere, Gershwin’s unique realization of this “musical kaleidoscope of America,” coupled with his phenomenal abilities at the keyboard wowed the audience as much as the novelty of hearing jazz idioms in a “classical” work.

The original opening clarinet solo, written by Gershwin, got its trademark jazzy glissando from Whiteman’s clarinetist Ross Gorman. This opening unleashes a floodgate of colorful ideas that blend seamlessly. The pulsing syncopated rhythms and showy music later give way to a warm, expansive melody that suggests the lush romanticism of Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Florence Price
Concerto in D minor in One Movement for Piano and Orchestra COMPOSER: born April 9, 1887, Little Rock, Arkansas; died June 3, 1953, ChicagoWORK COMPOSED: 1932-1934. Dedicated to Helen Armstrong Andrews.WORLD PREMIERE: Frederick Stock led the Chicago Symphony with Price at the piano in 1934INSTRUMENTATION: solo piano, flute, oboe, 2 clarinets, bassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, timpani, bass drum, crash cymbals, snare drum, suspended cymbal and stringsESTIMATED DURATION: 18 minutes The first female African-American composer to earn a national reputation, and to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra, Florence Price enjoyed considerable renown during her lifetime. Sadly, both she and her music dropped into obscurity for decades after her death in 1953, but in recent years performers and audiences alike have begun to discover her rich legacy.

The daughter of a musical mother, Price was a prodigy, giving her first recital at age 4 and publishing her first composition at 11. During her childhood and teens, Price’s mother was the guiding force behind her piano and composition studies. Young Florence entered New England Conservatory in 1903, at 16, where she double majored in organ performance and piano pedagogy. While at NEC, Price also studied composition with George Whitefield Chadwick. Chadwick was an early champion of women as composers, which was highly unusual at the time, and he believed that American composers should incorporate the rich traditions of Native American and “Negro” styles in their own works. Price, already inclined in this direction, was encouraged by Chadwick, and many of her works reflect the expressive and distinctive sounds of “Negro” traditions: spirituals, ragtime and folkdance rhythms, whose origins trace back to Africa.

In 1933, Frederick Stock, conductor of the Chicago Symphony, programmed Price’s Symphony in E minor, on a concert titled “The Negro in Music,” which was performed in conjunction with the Chicago World’s Fair. The following year, Stock asked Price to write a piano concerto, which she premiered with him and the Chicago Symphony in 1934.

Price’s musical style combines European late-Romantic aesthetics with folk and popular music from the African-American tradition. The single movement of the concerto features three sections performed without breaks. It begins with slow introduction and a rhapsodic folk-like theme, in which the piano executes both the main melody and a dizzying display of virtuosic elaborations. In the quieter central section, we hear a more intimate facet of Price’s voice. The tonality shifts to D major; the piano presents a theme redolent of both blues and gospel hymns, while the orchestra provides understated accompaniment. The closing section features a juba, an up-tempo folk dance with strong ragtime elements, including a powerful left-hand stride piano bass line.

Aaron Copland
Appalachian Spring (complete ballet) for Orchestra COMPOSER: born November 14, 1900, Brooklyn; died December 2, 1990, North Tarrytown, New YorkWORK COMPOSED: 1943-1944. Copland won a Pulitzer Prize for the ballet score in 1945. Dedicated to Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge.WORLD PREMIERE: Copland conducted the premiere of the ballet at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. on October 30, 1944, the birthday of arts patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge.Instrumentation: 2 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, timpani, bass drum, claves, cymbal, glockenspiel, orchestra bells, snare drum, tabor, triangle, wood bloc, xylophone, piano, harp and strings.Estimated duration: 35 minutes Shortly before the debut of Ballet for Martha, Aaron Copland’s working title for the ballet Martha Graham had commissioned from him, the choreographer announced she had decided on the name Appalachian Spring. Graham, who borrowed the words from Hart Crane’s poem, The Dance, admitted she had chosen it simply because she liked the sound of the words together. The spring in Crane’s poem is a mountain creek, but Graham seems to have understood it to mean the season of spring, as she explained in her brief description of the ballet’s narrative: “Part and parcel of our lives is that moment of Pennsylvania spring when there was ‘a garden eastward of Eden.’ Spring was celebrated by a man and woman building a house with joy and love and prayer; by a revivalist and his followers in their shouts of exaltation; by a pioneering woman with her dreams of the Promised Land.”

“Over and over again,” Copland recalled in 1981, “people come up to me after seeing the ballet on stage and say, ‘Mr. Copland, when I see that ballet and when I hear your music I can just see the Appalachians and I just feel spring.’ Well, I’m willing if they are!”

In Appalachian Spring, Copland’s interest in folk melodies and idioms reaches its zenith. The Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts,” which Copland discovered in a 1940 book on Shaker culture, and the celebratory variations of its melody, form the climax of Appalachian Spring. As scholar William Brooks notes, “In this context the Shaker melody came to serve as a kind of paradigm for the simplicity and authenticity of frontier America: mythical music for a mythical past.” In similar fashion, Copland’s music, particularly Appalachian Spring, became the paradigm for the “American” sound of the mid-20th century.

Copland explained his musical conception: “When I wrote Appalachian Spring, I was thinking primarily about Martha and her unique choreographic style, which I knew well. Nobody else seems quite like Martha: she’s so proud, so very much herself. And she’s unquestionably very American: there something prim and restrained, simple yet strong about her, which one tends to think of as American.”

Edwin Denby, a noted dance critic, provided program notes: “A pioneer celebration in spring around a newly-built farmhouse in the Pennsylvania hills in the early part of the last century. The bride-to-be and the young farmer-husband enact the emotions, joyful and apprehensive, that their new domestic partnership invites. An older neighbor suggests now and then the rocky confidence of experience. A revivalist and his followers remind the new householders of the strange and terrible aspects of human fate. At the end the couple are left quiet and strong in their new house.”

© 2022 Elizabeth SchwartzElizabeth Schwartz is a writer and music historian based in the Portland area. She has been a program annotator for more than 20 years, and works with music festivals and ensembles around the country. Ms. Schwartz has also contributed to NPR’s “Performance Today” (now heard on American Public Media). NOTE: These program notes are for Santa Rosa Symphony patrons and other interested readers. Any other use is forbidden without specific permission from the author, who may be contacted atclassicalmusicprogramnotes.com.

Beethoven a la Kern
2024-01-18 00:00
Concert Conversations with Francesco Lecce-Chong

Due to an abundance of caution, the pre-concert talk has been cancelled for this concert weekend.

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Ages 7-11:

Masks are required. Must cover nose and mouth at all times.

Negative COVID PCR test (taken within 48 hours prior to performance).

â€‹Photo ID is required unless accompanied by parent.

Ages 12 & up;

Masks are required. Must cover nose and mouth at all times.

Photo ID is required

And one of the following:

Proof of vaccination – name on card must match photo ID.

Negative COVID PCR test (taken within 48 hours prior to performance) – name on the test results must match photo ID.

No one will be admitted without a mask, photo ID and either proof of vaccine or negative COVID-19 PCR test. No exceptions.

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You are sick or have any of the following symptoms: fever, sore throat, chills, cough, shortness of breath, congestion, nausea, or vomiting.

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We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:

Classical Concert Series underwritten by Anderman Family Foundation

Concerts sponsored by Judith M. GappaConductor Francesco Lecce-Chong underwritten by David and Corinne ByrdGuest Artist Olga Kern underwritten by Sara and Edward KozelWorld Premiere underwritten by First Symphony Project commissioners: Nancy and David Berto, Gordon Blumenfeld, Chuck and Ellen Wear, Creighton White in loving memory of Dorothy Bristow White, and Chloe Tula and Francesco Lecce-ChongWorld Premiere Supporting Sponsor: Women’s Philharmonic AdvocacyDiscovery Open Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardPre-concert Talks Sponsored by Jamei Haswell and Richard GrundySeason media sponsor: The Press Democrat

Programs, dates, artist, prices and COVID-19 protocols are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.

January 2022 Program Notes by Elizabeth Schwartz

Richard Wagner
RICHARD WAGNERLohengrin: Prelude to Act 1, WWV 75 COMPOSER: born May 22, 1813, Leipzig; died February 13, 1883, VeniceWORK COMPOSED: 1848WORLD PREMIERE: Franz Liszt premiered Lohengrin in Weimar on August 28, 1856.INSTRUMENTATION: 3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals and divisi strings.ESTIMATED DURATION: 10 minutes Today Richard Wagner is considered one of the most influential composers of the 19th century, but during his lifetime he did not enjoy such universal esteem. At the time he conceived and wrote Lohengrin, for example, Wagner’s reputation was at a low ebb. Wagner’s rapidly-evolving music and aesthetic ideas were too new and unusual for mid-19th-century audiences to comprehend or appreciate. Thus, when Wagner completed Lohengrin, he could not convince anyone to publish it or mount a production. In despair, Wagner wrote to Franz Liszt, head of the Weimar Opera, asking him to conduct the opening production of Lohengrin. Wagner hoped that Liszt’s strong reputation would lend credibility to Lohengrin and win audiences over. Wagner proved prescient; the mere fact that Liszt took on Lohengrin elevated its importance in the eyes of many, and both audiences and critics were favorably impressed with what they heard. After its premiere, Liszt wrote to Wagner, “The public interest in Lohengrin is rapidly increasing. You are already very popular at the various Weimar hotels, where it is not easy to get a room on the days when your operas are given.”

Lohengrin is Wagner’s last opera written in the 19th-century Romantic style; all his later works came to be known as “music dramas.” Wagner was much concerned with the relationship of music to literature, and believed the two must combine to form a new genre. In his 1850-1851 book, Oper und Drama (Opera and Drama), Wagner laid out his ideas for this new and singularly distinct genre, one he hoped would displace conventional operas with their frivolous plots and emphasis on recitatives and arias. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, “This new type of work was intended as a return to the Greek drama as Wagner understood it – the public expression of national human aspirations in symbolic form by enacting racial myths and using music for the full expression of the dramatic action.” All words would be sung, rather than mixing spoken and sung text; arias would not be the focus of the music or narrative, nor would they serve as vehicles to show off the singers’ virtuosity; libretto and music would be created by one person, rather than two or more, to insure unity between dramatic and musical concepts; short, distinctive musical fragments would be assigned to each of the characters, and these would sound each time the character appeared or was the focus of the narrative.

Although Lohengrin is not technically a music drama, several elements of its construction foreshadow Wagner’s mature style found in later works such as the Ring Cycle. Beginning with Lohengrin, Wagner wrote his own libretto. We can also hear the evolution of Wagner’s concept of leitmotif, the association of characters with specific themes and musical keys. Although Wagner did not apply the term leitmotif to Lohengrin, the beginnings of the idea are evident in the music.

The Prelude to Act I presents one of these proto-leitmotifs, the theme of the Holy Grail, which features – atypically for Wagner – a restrained, almost Minimalist quality. In the opera, Lohengrin is a knight who lives in the Temple of the Holy Grail with his father Parsifal. Elsa, unjustly accused of murdering her brother, dreams of a knight who will come to her defense. Her prayers summon Lohengrin, who arrives in a swan boat. Lohengrin jousts with Elsa’s accuser, Telramund, and defeats him, thus proving Elsa’s innocence.

Wagner splits the violin sections into eight parts, all of which play in an extremely high register. These divisi violins present the delicate ethereal music of the Grail, the mythical cup into which the blood of Jesus flowed while he was on the Cross. The music expresses both Elsa’s star-crossed love for Lohengrin (and his for her), as well as the exquisitely unattainable perfection of the Grail.

Gabriella Smith
ONE for Orchestra COMPOSER: born December 26, 1991, Berkeley, CaliforniaWORK COMPOSED: 2021WORLD PREMIERE: January 8-10, 2022 by the Santa Rosa Symphony, under the direction of Francesco Lecce-Chong, at the Green Music Center’s Weill Hall in Rohnert Park, CaliforniaWORK COMMISSIONED: First Symphony Project donors from the Santa Rosa and Eugene symphoniesINSTRUMENTATION: 3 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 3 oboes (1 doubling English horn), 3 clarinets (1 doubling bass clarinet), 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 2 trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, bass drum, 2 suspended cymbals, glockenspiel, marimba, 3 resonant metal objects pitched in F, several metal objects with varying degrees of resonance, tala wands (or hot rods), vibraphone and strings.ESTIMATED DURATION: 30 minutes Composer/environmentalist Gabriella Smith has made an international name for herself with music hailed by the Philadelphia Inquirer as “high-voltage and wildly imaginative.” Clive Paget, writing for Musical America, declares Smith possesses “the coolest, most exciting, most inventive new voice I’ve heard in ages.”

In June 2021, Smith released her first full-length album, Lost Coast, with cellist Gabriel Cabezas. The Santa Rosa Symphony performed her 2016 work, Rust, on its October 2021 concert.

In a recent interview, Smith expressed her gratitude for Music Director Francisco Lecce-Chong’s First Symphony Project, which has afforded her the rare chance to write a large-scale multi-movement orchestral work that will be performed by the Santa Rosa and Eugene symphonies. “It’s challenging to get a commission for an orchestra piece generally,” she explains. “I’ve never had the opportunity to write a symphony before.”

Smith originally planned to write one large movement “because I like building big arcs,” but as the work proceeded, “the idea of four movements started to appeal to me more.” Structurally, ONE is similar to a typical 19th-century symphony; the opening and closing movements are large and expansive. Smith has also included a slow movement and “a kind of scherzo,” which references the scherzo from Beethoven’s Eroica.

“I really like the Eroica and the energy of that movement,” Smith explains. “My third movement takes the character of Beethoven’s scherzo and makes it even more manic; the music distorts and comes back to it constantly throughout.”

Nods to Beethoven and symphonic architecture notwithstanding, the sound of this music is wholly Smith’s own. “I like the idea of constantly playing with references to older forms while also being new.”A decidedly “new” component of ONE is the list of unconventional percussion instruments Smith requires. In the score, she calls for “metal objects with varying degrees of resonance,” and encourages players to be creative. A suggested list includes metal mixing bowls, pots, pans, lids, cheese graters, metal water bottles, machine parts or tin cans.

“This piece is called ONE, which is both a reference to Symphony No. 1, but also the culmination of a lot of what I spent time thinking about last summer,” says Smith. “The title is a reminder that we humans are only one of millions of species on this planet – each of which plays an important role in the functioning of a healthy ecosystem – and we need to come together as one in order to fix the imbalance humans have created. We forget that we’re only one part of this amazing ecosystem. It’s about the whole and all the parts and how they interact. When I think about the connection between environmentalism and my music, the orchestra itself is a good metaphor.“This piece is about climate change and climate solutions, but I wanted to write something that was about getting excited about being involved in the climate movement and the climate solutions,” Smith continues. “I wanted to bring the joy of environmentalism to the music, not the despair.”

While Smith’s music is inspired by environmental concerns, it is not programmatic; there are no depictions of storms or floods or fires. “I write emotions rather than specific ideas of environmentalism in my music,” says Smith.

Since the music evokes emotional states rather than specific images, each listener will experience the music differently. “Listening can be so personal; it becomes about the listener’s journey rather than the composer’s intent. I’d like people to take away the bigger concept, rather than a specific moment.”

Ludwig Van Beethoven
Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 73, Emperor COMPOSER: born December 16, 1770, Bonn; died March 26, 1827, ViennaWORK COMPOSED: 1809. Dedicated to Beethoven’s patron and student, Archduke Rudolph.WORLD PREMIERE: Johann Philipp Christian Schulz led the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig on Nov. 28, 1811, with Friedrich Schneider at the piano.INSTRUMENTATION: solo piano, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.ESTIMATED DURATION: 38 minutes In May 1809, Napoleon’s troops attacked the city of Vienna, and throughout the following summer, the city shook with mortar fire. Ludwig van Beethoven, whose hearing was severely impaired, suffered both the stress of living under attack and constant painful assaults on his ears. In July, he wrote his publisher, “Since May 4th I have produced very little coherent work, at most a fragment here and there. The whole course of events has in my case affected both body and soul … What a destructive, disorderly life I see and hear around me: nothing but drums, cannons, and human misery in every form.” Despite the traumatic conditions, Beethoven continued to compose, producing what is arguably the most popular piano concerto ever written.

It is not clear how “Emperor” came to be associated with Beethoven’s final piano concerto, although there is an apocryphal story about a French officer who, upon hearing the work performed in Vienna in 1812, exclaimed, “C’est l’Empereur!” If, as many have assumed, the emperor in question refers to Napoleon, Beethoven, suffering under Napoleon’s continuous bombardment, would certainly have disapproved.

By this point in his compositional career, Beethoven’s penchant for innovation in the opening measures of his concertos had become a signature, and the Fifth is no exception. After an introductory orchestral chord, the piano enters with a cadenza. Cadenzas, unaccompanied virtuoso passages filled with scales and trills created from fragments of thematic material, usually appear at the close of a movement. By opening the concerto with a cadenza full of musical foreshadowing, Beethoven telegraphs the themes and ideas of the opening movement to the listener. The seamlessness of the opening movement gives listeners a sense of inevitability, as if the music could unfold in no other way. This semi-subversive cadenza acts as a subliminal suggestion, planting the basic elements of later themes in our ears without our noticing.

In the Adagio un poco mosso, listeners may recognize the opening notes of Leonard Bernstein’s song Somewhere from West Side Story. We can picture Beethoven, surrounded by aural and emotional chaos, escaping from the turmoil of his surroundings into an ethereal sound world. All too soon Beethoven brings us back to earth as the whole orchestra drops down a half-step, from B to B-flat; it sustains that note while the piano storms into the Rondo with renewed vigor. Piano and orchestra execute a series of variations on this theme, each more elaborate than the next. The playful, humorous aspects of Beethoven’s personality reveal themselves here in the “false ending,” abrupt key changes and generally buoyant mood throughout.

In the review of its premiere, the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung reported that “[the audience] could hardly content itself with the ordinary expressions of recognition” in their excitement at hearing Beethoven’s greatest piano concerto.

© 2022 Elizabeth Schwartz Elizabeth Schwartz is a writer and music historian based in the Portland area. She has been a program annotator for more than 20 years, and works with music festivals and ensembles around the country. Schwartz has also contributed to NPR’s “Performance Today,” (now heard on American Public Media). NOTE: These program notes are for Santa Rosa Symphony patrons and other interested readers. Any other use is forbidden without specific permission from the author, who may be contacted at classicalmusicprogramnotes.com.
