In Friday’s (4/23) Sacramento Bee (California), Edward Ortiz writes, “For the all-volunteer Auburn Symphony, its yearly appearance at Mondavi [Center for the Performing Arts] is a coming-out party. But renting a Mondavi hall is an expensive venture. This year a sizable portion of the $9,000 rental fee was covered by an anonymous donation from one of the symphony’s players. ‘It’s a great opportunity and a bold move for the Auburn Symphony, whose hall is a high school auditorium, to designate the resources to perform at Mondavi,’ said Kris Sinclair, executive director of the Association of California Symphony Orchestras. For its Mondavi concert, the Auburn Symphony will perform Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Scheherazade,’ Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto in A minor with cellist Tina Guo and Sibelius’ ‘Finlandia.’ … The symphony’s members include instrumentalists who hold paid positions with other orchestras. Typically in volunteer orchestras, only the soloists and the concertmaster are paid. Principal oboist Curtis Kidwell is one musician who volunteers at Auburn and gets paid elsewhere. Kidwell is in his ninth year with the Auburn Symphony. As a paid musician, he plays with the Napa, Santa Rosa and Vallejo symphonies. … For him, the high organizational standards that [conductor and artistic director Michael] Goodwin has set for the orchestra is one of its most appealing qualities.”
Posted April 23, 2010
