Santa Rosa Symphony showcases women for Women's History Month

February 05, 2020

conductor Gemma New, violinist Jennifer Frautschi and composer Katherine Balch
March 21, 22 & 23, 2020 at the Green Music Center

Celebrating Women's history month, the Santa Rosa Symphony's March 21-23 program, "Showcasing Contemporary Women" highlights talented women who could make history. Rising star conductor Gemma New leads the orchestra in a concert that opens with Katherine Balch's like a broken clock and features Jennifer Frautschi performing Camille Saint-Saëns' Violin Concerto No. 3. New caps her program with Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 6, Pastorale. Performances are at Weill Hall, Green Music Center. Patrons are also invited to bring the young women in their lives with a free youth ticket (one per paid adult, for youth 7-17).

Sought after for her insightful interpretations and dynamic presence, New Zealand-born Gemma New is currently Music Director of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, Resident Conductor of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Music Director of the St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. New was awarded the Solti Foundation Career Assistance Awards in 2017 and 2019. Read Gemma New's full bio.

Two-time Grammy nominee and Avery Fisher career grant recipient Jennifer Frautschi has garnered worldwide acclaim as a musically adventurous violinist with a wide-ranging repertoire, in addition to premiering several works composed for her.

Frautschi has appeared as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival, at Wigmore Hall and Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival. Selected by Carnegie Hall for its Distinctive Debuts series, she made her New York recital debut in Weill Hall; and as part of the European Concert Hall Organization’s Rising Stars series, debuted at ten of Europe’s most celebrated concert venues. Her discography includes two Grammy-nominated recordings with the Fred Sherry Quartet.

Born in Pasadena, Frautschi began the violin at age three. She was a student of Robert Lipsett at the Colburn School for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles. She also attended Harvard, the New England Conservatory of Music and The Juilliard School, where she studied with Robert Mann. She teaches violin in the graduate program at Stony Brook University. Frautschi performs on a 1722 Antonio Stradivarius. Read Frautschi's full bio.

Saint-Saëns' Violin Concerto No. 3, a three-movement standard in current student, concert and competition repertoire, begins with the soloist, over hushed chords from the orchestra. The piece demands technical prowess and advanced musicality, which Frautschi has proved she can deliver.

Balch says of like a broken clock, "The title of this piece is a modified lyric borrowed from a Joanna Newsom song, In California. In the chorus, she sings, ‘like a little clock/ that trembles on the edge of the hour/ only ever calling out Cuckoo Cuckoo.' What attracted me to that text was the imagery of off-kilter, delicate tapping/clicking rhythms. like a broken clock is music that sputters, ticks and clangs, summoning the minutes and seconds that jitter and dance."

The final piece on the program, Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, Pastorale, according the composer himself (from a note he had printed in the program of its first performance) is meant as "more an expression of feeling than painting." His movement titles suggest the settings for these feelings:

  1. Awakening of happy feelings upon reaching the countryside.
  2. Scene at the brook.
  3. Cheerful gathering of the country folk.
  4. Thunderstorm.
  5. Shepherd's song. Happy, grateful feelings after the storm.

Interesting facts about these Contemporary Women:

  • Balch's awards include fellowships from Aspen, Norfolk, Fontainebleau, Tanglewood, IRCAM Manifeste and Santa Fe music festivals, multiple awards from ASCAP and BMI, and a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
  • New is a two-time recipient of the coveted Career Assistance Award from Solti Foundation U.S.
  • Frautschi is an Avery Fisher Grant recipient and two-time Grammy nominee

Northern California Public Media will broadcast this concert on Sunday, April 26, 2020 at 3:30 pm. Listeners may tune in to KRCB at 91.1 FM or 90.9 FM.