❒ Next 2 months to feature spring concert, 3 supporting shows

By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor

Four musical events in March and April will make for a busy spring for the Vallejo Symphony Orchestra, which its publicist expects will build on a successful 2012.

The season of music gets started with a familiar face who returns to the area after a successful 2012 of his own.

Classical guitarist Paul Psarras will give a solo recital March 15 at the Bay Terrace Theater, featuring works by Weiss, Bogdanovic, Gaultier, Assad and others, an event produced by symphony publicist Tim Zumwalt.

“Paul is doing a full recital, I think he has nine pieces of music,” Zumwalt said. “Afterward we actually invite anybody to come up on stage, meet him, get an autograph, take a picture.”

Psarras, who played to a sold-out house in front of the Vallejo Symphony to start its 2011 season, returns to the area having been nominated for a 2012 Grammy for Best Small Ensemble, and following an extensive tour with the Pacific Guitar Ensemble.

He will be featured in The Herald on Tuesday.

The VSO’s spring only gets more hectic from there. On March 25, the symphony and the Vallejo Choral Society will collaborate on “The Promise of Youth (the flowering of genius),” directed by Andrew Brown, at the First Presbyterian Church in Vallejo. The performance will feature mezzo-soprano Jennifer Kay, soprano Kate Offer and Matthew Walsh on organ performing Schubert’s Mass in G and Mozart’s Missa Brevis in D minor.

Then, the entire symphony can be heard April 7 at VSO’s annual spring concert, “Storm and Passions,” on Mare Island, featuring music by Schumann (“Overture to ‘Manfred’”), Fauré’s “Fantasie for Flute & Orchestra” and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F minor. Melanie Keller, VSO’s principal flute and personnel manager, will be featured on the Fauré piece.

Music lovers who miss “Storm and Passions” can hear a rebroadcast May 19 on OZCAT radio, KZCT 89.5 FM, with Zumwalt and Katie Martinelli as hosts.

Finally, the Benicia-based Santa Margherita String Quartet will perform at Vallejo’s Empress Theatre, 330 Virginia St., on April 28 — a show that will benefit the symphony. “They’re going to give a portion of their ‘front door’ to us,” Zumwalt said.

After a few hard years, including the abbreviation of the 2010-11 season, Zumwalt said the VSO hopes it has weathered the recession.

There’s reason for optimism, he said, thanks largely to patron support, of which Benicia is a vital source.

Membership to the VSO’s subscription series, he said, spans 16 cities. “We have people from all over. Half of that is Vallejo. The next biggest city is Benicia, which is about 20 percent of our subscribers.

“We’re getting a lot of patron support. You know that end-of-year appeal you get from the Humane Society, and the food banks and all that stuff? We sent one out too, and we got twice as many back this year as we did the year before.”

For more information on the symphony, call 707-643-4441; to purchase tickets to any of the upcoming shows, visit vallejosymphony.org.