“ ‘Working with a chamber orchestra in the 21st century, you have to lead the quest,’ says oboist Alecia Lawyer, who is River Oaks Chamber Orchestra’s artistic director,” writes Andrew Dansby in Sunday’s (9/22) Houston Chronicle. “And you bring people along with you who are already on board. So it’s a little like ‘Dungeons and Dragons.’ … This season ROCO will premiere 21 compositions, which brings its total to 79 in 15 years. Sure, the canon remains represented. But the 40-member ensemble remains committed to funding new music and then presenting it to an audience that has grown over its run…. Last year ROCO released its first album, ‘Visions Take Flight,’ which included performances by five commissioned composers…. Lawyer … clearly relishes pulling music from afar and presenting it singularly in Houston…. Lawyer sees programming as just one aspect of how the organization can remain fresh…. Sometimes the pieces performed in a program won’t be listed chronologically as played. ‘That way, people there for Haydn won’t know where the “scary” pieces are,’ Lawyer says.… The ensemble has done performances where music was paired with wines and others where it was connected to visual art at local museums.”
Posted September 26, 2019
In photo: The River Oaks Chamber Orchestra at Houston’s Church of St. John the Divine
