On a day when several uncontrollable elements — lousy weather, football playoffs, hospital construction — conspired against them, guest conductor/pianist Jeffrey Kahane and the Santa Rosa Symphony packed the Wells Fargo Center by excelling at the one element firmly under their control: great music-making.
Near the end of its Monday performance of the Brahms Requiem, a soprano in the Santa Rosa Symphony Honor Choir collapsed at the back of the stage, perhaps from excessive heat or lack of air. The incident wasn’t surprising, since more than 100 singers were crammed shoulder to shoulder in the limited space.
“Is this my time to be alive and free?” That was the first intelligible question posed by soprano Marie Plette in her impassioned but often incomprehensible rendition of The Promise of Time, a new song cycle by contemporary composer David Carlson.
At 31, Alondra de la Parra is a conductor of immense promise, destined to lead a major orchestra — but first she has to work her way up through the minor leagues. Fortunately for Napa County, she made a brief stop Sunday with the Napa Valley Symphony, and the results were gratifying.
Jon Nakamatsu has small hands but a big heart. That anatomic mismatch was abundantly evident during his appearance with the Santa Rosa Symphony on Saturday, which featured a swoon-inducing rendition of Tchaikovsky’s canonic First Piano Concerto.
How many performances of the “Jupiter” Symphony does it take to turn on a light bulb above the head of attentive listeners? In the case of the Santa Rosa Symphony, it only takes one. Despite a few minor flaws, its rendition of this beloved classic on Saturday at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts was incandescent, glowing with the warm light that Mozart sheds over Earth and other planets.
The Santa Rosa Symphony consists of about six dozen talented musicians, but during its performance Saturday at the Wells Fargo Center in Santa Rosa, piano soloist Valentina Lisitsa stole the show. This 30-something, blonde, steely-fingered Ukrainian-American is beyond talented. Her technical virtuosity easily matches any pianist of her generation, and her musicality is out of this world.
Patrons returning for the second half of Monday night’s Santa Rosa Symphony concert witnessed the unusual sight of five microphones: one to the left of the conductor’s podium, next to a black stool, and four to the right, with accompanying chairs. The stool and chairs were soon occupied, respectively, by vocal soloist Ute Lemper and the male vocal ensemble Hudson Shad.
After all the passion of Mozart’s Requiem and the fire of Brahms’ violin concerto, the signature moment of Sunday’s Marin Symphony concert arrived during the encore, Gluck’s Dance of the Blessed Spirits. Violin soloist Vadim Gluzman played the brief interlude to perfection, barely raising his volume above a whisper, the better to demonstrate his absolute command of dynamics and phrasing. It was a tender, almost ethereal, performance — a fitting end to an evening marked by virtuosity, musicality, and feeling.
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony has been played repeatedly in Sonoma County during the past decade, beginning with a memorable performance by the Santa Rosa Symphony under Jeffrey Kahane in the aftermath of 9/11. That event was so successful that several other renditions followed, including one in the Sonoma State University gym. The culmination, however, arrived at the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday, with a spine-tingling presentation by the Santa Rosa Symphony under Music Director Bruno Ferrandis.
On reading the score of Antonín Dvořák’s magnificent Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104, Dvořák's mentor Brahms is reputed to have said, “Why on earth didn’t I know that one could write a cello concerto like this? If I had only known, I would have written one long ago!”
Olivier Messiaen’s 10-movement Turangalîla-Symphonie is rarely performed because of its length (about an hour and a quarter) and its unusual instrumentation (the score calls for ondes martenot, vibraphone, and glockenspiel, among many other instruments). The double whammy makes performances of this 20th-century masterpiece hard to find — and fund.
Symphony programs often resemble three-ring circuses, organized in time rather than space. In the first ring, the symphony offers an overture or similar fare to whet your aural appetite. Then, in the center ring, comes the main attraction, usually a soloist displaying his chops in a concerto or other showpiece. The final ring is reserved for a symphony or other lengthy work that exhibits the orchestra in its full glory.
Before the Santa Rosa Symphony began its concert Saturday, the public-address announcer said there would be a short presentation on behalf of the Youth Orchestra. A tall, red-headed young woman then rose from the concertmaster's chair and offered an exquisite reading of a brief, unidentified Romantic violin solo. After the applause, the Youth Orchestra manager strode to the stage, identified the soloist as the orchestra's concertmistress, and informed the audience that the ensemble was only $10,000 short of the $289,000 needed to pay for a concert tour of Europe this summer.
In newspaper ads touting his appearances with the Santa Rosa Symphony, Christopher O’Riley wore a black T-shirt, the better to show off a massive henna tattoo running the length of his arm, right down to the ends of his fingers. In his April 12 concert, the tattoo was no longer in evidence, but he did manage to tattoo the symphony’s resident Steinway with some of the richest sounds to emerge from that instrument in a long time.
Clad in a knee-length black coat, O’Riley got right to work on Bartók’s Piano Concerto No.
On a day when several uncontrollable elements — lousy weather, football playoffs, hospital construction — conspired against them, guest conductor/pianist Jeffrey Kahane and the Santa Rosa Symphony packed the Wells Fargo Center by excelling at the one element firmly under their control: great music-making.
Near the end of its Monday performance of the Brahms Requiem, a soprano in the Santa Rosa Symphony Honor Choir collapsed at the back of the stage, perhaps from excessive heat or lack of air. The incident wasn’t surprising, since more than 100 singers were crammed shoulder to shoulder in the limited space.
“Is this my time to be alive and free?” That was the first intelligible question posed by soprano Marie Plette in her impassioned but often incomprehensible rendition of The Promise of Time, a new song cycle by contemporary composer David Carlson.
At 31, Alondra de la Parra is a conductor of immense promise, destined to lead a major orchestra — but first she has to work her way up through the minor leagues. Fortunately for Napa County, she made a brief stop Sunday with the Napa Valley Symphony, and the results were gratifying.
Jon Nakamatsu has small hands but a big heart. That anatomic mismatch was abundantly evident during his appearance with the Santa Rosa Symphony on Saturday, which featured a swoon-inducing rendition of 
The Santa Rosa Symphony consists of about six dozen talented musicians, but during its performance Saturday at the Wells Fargo Center in Santa Rosa, piano soloist Valentina Lisitsa stole the show. This 30-something, blonde, steely-fingered Ukrainian-American is beyond talented. Her technical virtuosity easily matches any pianist of her generation, and her musicality is out of this world.
A ballet suite is not a symphony, but don’t tell that to Bruno Ferrandis.
