“One of Holly Mulcahy’s favorite childhood memories is [watching] movies. And more often than not, those movies were Westerns,” writes David Burke in Sunday’s (4/3) Wichita Eagle (KS). “She … thought … ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a violin concerto in the style of these epic Westerns?’ … That’s the origin of ‘The Rose of Sonora,’ which Mulcahy will finally get to play with the Wichita Symphony, where she is concertmaster … next weekend…. She contacted George S. Clinton, a film composer and native of Chattanooga, Tennessee, where Mulcahy is also concertmaster [of the Chattanooga Symphony]…. Clinton is a veteran of 40 years of movie composing, including the ‘Austin Powers’ and ‘The Santa Clause’ franchises…. But he had never written a violin concerto…. Clinton and Mulcahy began their research about female outlaws…. ‘The Rose of Sonora,’ Clinton says, ‘is a compilation of a lot of people we read about.’ … The concerto is in five acts: Escape, Love and Freedom, Ambush, Death and Healing, and Vengeance…. Mulcahy has already played [‘The Rose of Sonora’] for a dozen orchestras…. The response … Mulcahy said, has been overwhelming…. ‘This concerto, people are talking for weeks or months afterward,’ she said.”
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