Works by Rouse, Puts Make Delightful Concert SR Symphony, Honor Choir Repeat Program Tonight

by Diane Peterson 

The Press Democrat, December 6, 2004

SANTA ROSA---The stage at Burbank Center for the Arts' Person Theater was filled with musicians and singers Sunday as the Santa Rosa Symphony and Honor Choir presented a holiday choral concert. Symphony music director Jeffrey Kahane conducts. 

The Santa Rosa Symphony, led by Jeffrey Kahane, and the Honor Choir, led by Robert Worth, joined forces for a gala holiday program this weekend that resonated with the celebratory sounds of the season.

From the ringing of church bells to the chiming of a child's music box, the symphony's second subscription program featured choral and orchestral works that delighted with the sheer pleasure of sound. The concert program will be repeated at 8 o'clock tonight at Burbank Center for the Arts.

The big crowd-pleasers Saturday night were Rouse's joyous "Karolju" before intermission and a premiere of Kevin Puts' sonorous "Vespertine Symphonies" after intermission.

The colorful "Karolju," which was written to celebrate Rouse's daughter's first Christmas, was first performed by the symphony in 1998 in a special holiday concert.

Kahane brought it back this season as one of his favorite works, along with Bernstein's lyrical "Chichester Psalms," which closed the holiday program on a high note with alto soloist Andy Guitierrez, 11.

In his debut with the orchestra, the young Oakland native impressed many symphony regulars, including Santa Rosans Garland and Caroline Sloan.

"He was so disciplined and so focused," Caroline Sloan said Sunday. "His voice is a beautiful gift."

The 11-movement "Karolju" for choir and orchestra takes snippets of familiar Christmas carol melodies and stitches them together with lots of sturdy folk melodies. Rouse pairs his melodies with lyrics in eight languages, which are strung together loosely, like refrigerator poetry.

Linguistically complex, "it was a lot of work to put it together," Honor Choir director Worth said Sunday backstage, where several college students in the 120-member chorus delighted over the audience's pre-intermission ovation. "But it's just a gas to sing."

The rousing Rouse work ends on a peaceful note, with a murmur of choral "amens" and the echoing of church bells.

"It was lovely," Renata Breth of Santa Rosa said at intermission Saturday. "It was humorous and very clever, giving a child's view of the carols and the mumbo-jumbo."

Christopher Fritzsche of Santa Rosa, a former singer with the all-male a cappella ensemble Chanticleer, also enjoyed Rouse's simple yet effective work.

"It was so familiar, yet it was new and fun at the same time," he said. "He'd do just enough (of the Christmas carol) to let you recognize it."

But Fritzsche was even more impressed by Puts' "Vespertine Symphonies," a new orchestral work commissioned by Menlo Park venture capitalist Kathryn Gould as part of the Magnum Opus project.

"I think we're going to hear him in the movies someday," Fritzsche said of Puts. "There was so much depth to it, with the melodies floating above an ocean of sound."

Dressed in a red shirt and black jacket, the 32-year-old Puts attended both Saturday and Sunday's concerts, speaking to the audiences about his new work, which was inspired by the eclectic style of Icelandic singer Bjork.

At the conclusion of Puts' piece, Kahane threw his baton up in the air, a testament to the extreme harmonic tension - and ultimate resolution - created by the prolonged finale. The audience rewarded Puts with a standing ovation.

At the weekend concerts, members of the community also delighted in watching their young people perform on stage, both in the choral works and in the curtain-opener, Vaughan Williams' beloved chestnut, "Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis," which featured members of the Santa Rosa Symphony's Young People's Chamber Orchestra led by violist Linda Ghidossi-DeLuca.

Before the concert Saturday, Karen and Jeff Walker of Santa Rosa were looking forward to watching their daughter, Kayla, perform on stage with the symphony. Kayla has played violin since she was in kindergarten and now attends the Sonoma Country Day School.

"She always liked performing," Jeff Walker said. "There was no fear at all."

Walker, who moved his family from Santa Barbara last year, said he and his wife have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of music in Sonoma County.

"This is our first year of season tickets," he said.

"And we're looking forward to next season."