4-concert subscription:  $93 and $118 available through the box office only 546-8742

Single tickets available online or by calling the box office:

Jan. 27, Feb. 24 and March 31:  $23 and $31

April 28: range from $27-$50

Early Romantics Festival, Concert 1
Sonoma Country Day School
Saturday, January 27, 2007 - 5:30pm

Mack McCray, piano
Rhoslyn Jones, soprano
Santa Rosa Symphony Chamber Players

All Schubert Program:
Die Forelle
Shepherd on the Rock
Trout Quintet
Notturno

Festival host, program leader and featured pianist Mack McCray begins our foray into Early Romantic music with an intimate evening of Franz Schubert’s music. The soul of this composer is expressed in works that explore the sound language of narrative verse and song. His most popular chamber piece remains the Quintet in A for Piano and Strings—the Trout Quintet, written at the request of a cellist who loved Schubert’s famous song Die Forelle (The Trout). This beguiling quintet is a set of variations on a musical motif that suggests a sparkling fish appearing and disappearing in the water.

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Early Romantics Festival, Concert 2
Sonoma Country Day School
Saturday, February 24, 2007 - 5:30pm

Mack McCray, piano
Santa Rosa Symphony Chamber Players

All-Mendelssohn Program:
Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor
Sextet for Piano and Strings
Songs Without Words

Felix Mendelssohn possessed a refined Mozartian genius but was filled with the sensibilities of pure Romanticism. His Songs Without Words are short character pieces that were meant to be played in the home, in the same spirit as the reciting of lyric poetry. His Sextet contains a glittering piano, unexpected rhythmic turns and softly dappled textures in the strings, while the Trio captures sparkling élan laid out on a large, flowing scale. Mendelssohn’s music, powered by sentiment in the loftiest sense, has the ability to go straight to the heart.

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Early Romantics Festival, Concert 3
Sonoma Country Day School
Saturday, March 31, 2007- 5:30pm

Mack McCray, piano
Santa Rosa Symphony Chamber Players

Schumann: String Quartet No. 2 in F major
Schumann: Piano Quartet in E-flat major
Solo piano works by Chopin and Liszt

Of all the Romantics, Robert Schumann may have possessed the most remarkable ear for harmonic color. His death in his mid-40s from manic-depressive illness encapsulated Romantic loss. It was Schumann who first announced to the world about Chopin: “Hats off, gentlemen, a genius!” And it was Chopin who competed with Liszt in the arena of transcendental piano technique. Hearing all three composers side by side offers a unique snapshot of the individualism that the Romantics prized.

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Early Romantics Festival Finale!
Wells Fargo Center for the Arts
Saturday, April 28, 2007 - 8:00pm

George Thomson, conductor
Santa Rosa Symphony

Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique
with Robert Winter scholar/pianist/media author  

Hector Berlioz channeled his infatuation with the Irish actress Harriet Smithson into a “fantastic symphony” that had as its subject the tortured dreams of a love-sick young musician. Leonard Bernstein once described the audacious and brilliantly innovative score as the first psychedelic musical trip. This revolutionary masterpiece not only marked the breakthrough to Berlioz’s mature style, but it set the mood of unfettered individualist expression and story-telling that paved the way for musicians like Chopin, Paganini and Liszt.

Explore the secrets of the Symphonie fantastique and learn about the historical, philosophical, and artistic trends that influenced the Early Romantics through a theatrical, multi-media presentation hosted by UCLA Professor Robert Winter.

During the second half of the Early Romantics Festival Finale, Symphonie fantastique will be performed in its entirety by the Santa Rosa Symphony under the baton of George Thomson.

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