“What kind of music would you come up with if you were asked to commemorate [last fall’s] Wine Country wildfires and the community’s rise to recovery?” writes Diane Peterson in Saturday’s (9/29) Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, CA). “Paul Dooley, a composer who grew up on the west side of Santa Rosa … accepted that difficult assignment from the Santa Rosa Symphony last year…. To simulate the wind … he employed … tuned whirlies, which create a whistling sound through corrugated tubes as you swing them around…. ‘I set those against a long, lyrical trumpet solo, then I add strings…. That has a very California sound to me,’ [says Dooley]…. The Santa Rosa Symphony, which debuted Dooley’s ‘Sonoma Strong’ for Orchestra this summer during its free mariachi concert, will perform it again on Oct. 6, 7 and 8 at the Green Music Center during the season-opening set under new Music Director Francesco Lecce-Chong. The work was a last-minute addition suggested by Santa Rosa Symphony Executive Director Alan Silow.” Says Lecce-Chong, “It’s such a great way to start off the season. It will open the second half, and I’m pairing it with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, which is fascinating.”
Posted October 2, 2018
