Santa Rosa Symphony’s "SRS @ Home May 16" Celebrates Sonoma County

April 19, 2021

Santa Rosa Symphony (SRS) presents a virtual concert experience, conducted by Music Director Francesco Lecce-Chong, celebrating Sonoma County on May 16, 2021 at 3:00 PM on the Symphony's YouTube channel. The orchestra will be joined by acclaimed, San Francisco-based pianist Elizabeth Dorman for SRS Artistic Partner Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's Peanuts® Gallery in a concert that also features a reprise of Santa Rosa native Paul Dooley's Sonoma Strong.

Lecce-Chong said, "Our season concludes with a bit of fun, gratitude and optimism. From Rossini's slapstick comedy overture to Zwilich's comics-inspired piano concerto, listeners of all ages will be smiling and chuckling along to the music with us. From a work inspired by our community's recovery from the 2017 Tubbs fire to one celebrating medical workers, we honor those who have kept our community safe through this time. And, ultimately, my colleagues and I will be performing with the fervent hope that this will be the last time we perform in the Green Music Center without our beloved audience."

Zwilich met Santa Rosa icon and cartoonist Charles Schulz as she thanked him for featuring her flute concerto in one of his Peanuts® comic strips. As Composer Chair at Carnegie Hall, Zwilich wrote Peanuts® Gallery for a family concert to be performed by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. "I would never, ever write down to a child," she said in an interview with Lecce-Chong, adding that she would maybe write something shorter, but definitely something she herself would want to hear. Zwilich, who was the first woman to earn the Pulitzer Prize in Music in addition to a very long list of prestigious awards, highlights a different Peanuts® character in each of the work’s six movements. During the course of composing the light-hearted, yet complex piece, she and Schulz formed a close and lasting friendship.

Pianist Elizabeth Dorman, who will perform Peanuts® Gallery on stage with the orchestra, has performed with the Louisville Orchestra, the Leipzig Mendelssohn Chamber Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and Symphony Parnassus, as well as for interdisciplinary projects at the New World Symphony. Her live solo performances have been nationally broadcast on NPR and public radio. San Francisco Chronicle music critic Joshua Kosman has praised her “elegance and verve.” Read her full bio.

Continuing with the local theme, the orchestra will perform a new arrangement by Paul Dooley of his Sonoma Strong to accommodate the smaller orchestra necessitated by COVID restrictions. The work, commissioned by the Santa Rosa Symphony, pays tribute to Dooley’s hometown's experience of the 2017 Tubbs fire, even calling for string players to assist with playing the increased number (22) of whirlies. A whirly is a flexible, tuned hose made of corrugated plastic that, when whipped around, makes an eerie, sustained tone reminiscent of a siren or the wind. The second part of the two-part work, according to Dooley, "expresses hope and rebirth and builds to a heroic climax."

Lecce-Chong added, “I think Sonoma Strong was always about something even bigger than our recovery from the horrific wildfires. It is a work that celebrates the strength of our community. Paul created a piece that focuses on our collective resiliency and creative capacity in the midst of tragedy. The support and commitment of our community to the arts has helped the Santa Rosa Symphony innovate and thrive during the pandemic, bringing the restorative power of music to all. I cannot think of a more perfect work to sum up our gratitude and hope as we complete this most unusual season of music.”

Also included in the program are Gioachino Rossini's Overture to Il signor Bruschino and acclaimed American composer Michael Daugherty's Asclepius, Fanfare for Brass and Percussion.

Fittingly capping this final 2020-2021 SRS @ Home Season concert is Franz Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 45, Farewell, in which the orchestra members gradually peel off the stage in the last movement, leaving just two musicians on stage to finish the piece.

Recorded on May 1, 2021, in Green Music Center's Weill Hall, the concert premieres May 16 at 3:00 PM, preceded by a live, 30-minute pre-concert talk with Lecce-Chong and Zwilich at 2:00 PM and followed by a live post-concert Q&A with Lecce-Chong and special guests—all on YouTube. All three elements of this event are free, though donations to support the ongoing music and outreach programs of the Symphony are gratefully accepted during the event.