■ Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Bach to highlight full schedule

By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor

It seems so long ago that the Vallejo Symphony Orchestra and conductor David Ramadanoff had to cancel the final two shows of a season because of lack of funding.

Yet only three years after that disastrous end to its 79th season, the VSO is back to a full slate of programs — five productions in all, publicist Tim Zumwalt said, including three full orchestra productions and two small recitals.

That’s one production more than last year’s two full orchestra productions and two chamber pieces. As Zumwalt said, “It’s looking pretty good.”

“We had a good summer with fundraising. Now we’re doing a lot in ticket sales,” he said.

Seven guest soloists in all will join the symphony this season, beginning Oct. 12 at the Empress Theatre in Vallejo with violinist Emma Steele, currently the concert master of the Royal Opera Orchestra of Denmark.

“She’s 23 years old, tall and blonde, and plays the violin like someone twice her age,” Zumwalt said.

The concert, titled “Young Giants,” will feature music by two great masters at the peak of their powers: Beethoven’s Coriolanus Overture and Symphony No. 2 in D Major; and Mozart’s Violin Concerto in D Minor, with Steele on violin.

Of the Beethoven selections, “The Coriolanus Overture was written at the peak of Beethoven’s powers, and the Symphony No. 2 shows off the exuberance of his youth,” Zumwalt said.

The symphony will welcome 2014 with “New Year, Old Friends” on Jan. 5, a Sunday afternoon concert at Lander Hall, Touro University, on Mare Island.

The reason for the title: The is bringing in two performers who used to be part of the orchestra. “They’ve gone on to bigger and better things,” Zumwalt said.

Violinist Craig Reiss was VSO concert master in the 1980s and currently serves as principal second violin with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra. Cellist Richard Andaya was principal cello player for VSO in the late 1980s and has appeared as a soloist with the San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra, the Colorado Philharmonic, the National Repertory Orchestra and the Sacramento Symphony.

“They’re both having great careers,” Zumwalt said.

The symphony will perform Brahms’ Concerto for Violin and Cello in A Minor, featuring Reiss and Andaya, and Bartók’s Romanian Dances, with Pamela Martin stepping in as conductor.

VSO’s last full concert of the season, “Eternal Waters,” is May 10, 2014, and will feature two guest singers, soprano Lauren Woody and Benicia resident and baritone Paul Cheak. “He just did ‘Don Giovanni’ with the North Bay Opera two months ago, one of the reasons we heard of him,” Zumwalt said.

He said the May concert is a big production. And it represents a homecoming of sorts.

“We’re going back to Hogan Auditorium! It’s the only one that will hold us,” Zumwalt said. VSO hasn’t performed at the auditorium at Vallejo’s Hogan High School since January 2011, but “if we are going to do any bigger works — choral works, piano works — we have to go there. The stage is really huge, and it seats 950.”

The production is a choral work, featuring Brahms’ German Requieum and Handel’s Water Music Suite No. 2 in D Major. More than 150 people will be on stage, Zumwalt said: four choruses, a big orchestra and the two soloists up front.

Two smaller performances — “VSO Presents” productions — will take place this season at the First Presbyterian Church in Vallejo.

The first, Nov. 17, will feature soprano Carrie Hennessey performing Kurt Weill, American and French popular songs, and opera. Greg Mason will accompany on piano.

“The reason we picked them is they have a beautiful piano,” Zumwalt said of the church. “It’s a 6-foot Kawai. I’ve talked to other pianists that have used it, and they say this is probably the finest instrument out there in town right now.

“And the church loves having performers come in, this is where the Vallejo Choral Society performs, and other groups.”

Violinist Franklyn D’Antonio will perform Feb. 23, with Miles Graber on piano. D’Antonio will perform the “West Side Story Symphonic Dances” (for violin and piano), Saint-Saens’ Sonata, and Bach’s Chaconne for Violin.

For information, dates and tickets for all of the Vallejo Symphony Orchestra’s 2013-14 events, go to www.vallejosymphony.org.