Making Waves—Season 19 Announced!

10 world premiere commissions, co-commissions, premieres, and re-scores feature in ROCO’s 19th season

Grammy-winning composer Richard Danielpour serves as the season’s Composer-In-Residence

Houston Contemporary Dance Company joins as season collaborator, for two world premieres 

ROCO showcases at the 2024 League of American Orchestras Conference in Houston, hosting the June 2024 EarShot Readings and presenting a performance by the full chamber orchestra, featuring a work by one of the EarShot finalists

Houston Youth Symphony again partners with ROCO for a side-by-side performance and masterclasses

ROCO celebrates questioning the status quo with “Making Waves” – its 19th season celebrating innovation, collaboration, exploration, and the impact of artistic creativity and integrity in the community. Committed to expanding the chamber music canon, the 2023-2024 season features over 18 works by women composers and presents multiple world premiere commissions, co-commissions, and two rescores.

“Already ‘Making Waves’ for years, we are ready to celebrate Season 19 by lifting up women composers and performers, taking you on a tour of your city through music, and continuing to push the envelope of what innovation means in the performing arts.” states Alecia Lawyer, ROCO Artistic Director and Founder. “’We invite you to bring your curiosity and ride the ROCO Wave!”

As the organization approaches its 20th anniversary next season, featured prominently throughout this season are the concepts of equality and respect for women. Of its 10 world premieres and rescores, three are by women composers: Conni Ellisor, Clarice Assad, and Nicky Sohn. Richard Danielpour, Season 19 Composer-In-Residence, is writing a deeply personal work about the current uprising of women in Iran, dedicating it to his mother, an Iranian sculpturist. Quinn Mason rescores his thought-provoking work 19th Amendment for the women musicians of ROCO. ROCO also presents two additional world premieres by Richard Danielpour based upon Dante’s Divine Comedy. A ROCO commission by Anthony DiLorenzo for Houston’s Miller Outdoor Theatre’s 100th Anniversary is based on award-winning documentary filmmaker Lois Stark’s acclaimed book, The Telling Image, in which Stark takes the reader on a worldwide journey and “unveils a crucial, hidden key to understanding the universe: Shape itself.” The work will be accompanied with text-informed AI animation by Cynthia Lee Wong. Rounding out the premieres in the action-packed season is another rescore by Kevin Lau, expanding the original trio piece The Nightingale that was published as ROCO’s first children’s book, for the full 40-piece orchestra.

ROCO is pleased to partner once again with Houston Contemporary Dance Company in 2023-24, and the women of the company join ROCO onstage for two world premieres, one for a work by composer Jim Stephenson inspired by the 13-piece version of Copland’s Appalachian Spring and the second for Quinn Mason’s 19th Amendment. Returning collaborators, the Houston Youth Symphony, will again join ROCO onstage for a side-by-side performance and will welcome ROCO musicians and conductors for masterclasses throughout the season.

ROCO 2023-24 SEASON

ROCO kicks off its 19th season Albert and Margaret Alkek Foundation In Concert Series with an opening concert of epic proportions, featuring the full 40-piece chamber orchestra in two ROCO-commissioned world premieres and an exhilarating tale of love, intrigue, and adventure! Anthony DiLorenzo’s ROCO world premiere commission Techtonal, featuring AI text-informed animation by composer and artist Cynthia Lee Wong and based on the acclaimed book The Telling Image by renowned documentary filmmaker Lois Stark, compels the audience to rethink, re-hear and re-visualize how they view the world. Go on a flight of fancy in ROCO’s commission The Nightingale by Kevin Lau—recently released as our first-ever children’s book, and heard in a new scoring for full chamber orchestra—then head to the exotic lands of The Arabian Nights as Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic suite Scheherazade whisks audiences away through ravishing, vibrantly orchestrated scenes.

Conductor Johannes Debus makes his ROCO debut in a program featuring more than the eye can see—including two radiant world premieres commissioned by ROCO. Triple-threat Grammy-nominated Brazilian-American composer Clarice Assad’s Ode to Carmen Miranda opens, then experience “Nell ‘Inferno”, the blazing first movement of Richard Danielpour’s Symphony in Three Movements After the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Go galactic in Missy Mazzoli’s Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) “…music in the shape of a solar system, a collection of rococo loops that twist around each other within a larger orbit”, before Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 1 with its fiery opening brings the listener back to earth, in time for W.A. Mozart’s delectable Divertimento, KV 136—a work written simply to entertain.

Conductor Delyana Lazarova returns, leading ROCO’s full chamber orchestra in a high-octane program brimming with dynamic energy! Elfrida Andree’s colorful, lyrical Symphony No. 2 in A Minor, with its exuberant opening theme, paves the way for the U.S. premiere of Richard Danielpour’s “Voci del Purgatorio”, a journey to rebirth – the second movement of his Symphony in Three Movements After the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Then, thrill to Jessica Meyer’s Go Big or Go Home – a work “written from a place of self-realization, empowerment, and celebration of how joyous life can be”, featuring blues guitar phenom Clay Melton and his band. The Houston Youth Symphony returns as special guest, with a side-by-side performance of Franz Schubert’s richly textured and emotionally laden Overture in the Italian Style. Rounding out the program is the Fantasy Homage to Schubert, an alluring work by Bulgarian-British composer Dobrinka Tabakova, whose distinct soundworld has been called “riveting, piercingly beautiful and frequently radiant”.

ROCO welcomes back conductor JoAnn Falletta, as the full 40-piece chamber orchestra shines in works of luminous orchestral color and creativity, including three premieres! Glimpse a vision of paradise in the third and final movement of Richard Danielpour’s Symphony in Three Movements After the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, experience the bold sounds of Conni Ellisor’s consortium-commissioned A Woman Without Apology, and dance to Astor Piazzolla’s Tangazo—an edgy tango, then delight in the Texas premiere of Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos Symphony-Suite, a chamber arrangement of his comic 1912 “opera-within-an-opera”.

Collaboration and innovation are on display as ROCO’s 19th season comes to a close, led by ROCO Artistic Partner and conductor Mei-Ann Chen as part of the 2024 League of American Orchestras Conference in Houston. Comprising several of ROCO’s previously commissioned world premieres and passion project works, including works by Reena Esmail, Heather Schmidt, Jennifer Higdon, Errollyn Wallen, Ruth Gipps, and the premiere of a work by one of the finalists of ROCO and American Composers Orchestra’s EarShot Call for Scores by early career female composers, this concert highlights ROCO’s innovative nature, commitment to women composers, and expanding the classical canon. The EarShot finalists’ works will be workshopped and recorded June 5-6, 2024, in Houston, with selected participants collaborating with mentors – all established orchestra composers and industry leaders.

The Unchambered Series features concerts curated by individual ROCO musicians, giving them carte blanche to bring their own unique passions into the creation of their programs. The Series begins on November 4, in a new location at The Historic Eldorado Ballroom, as violinist Rachel Jordan curates and features in a vibrant, intimate program honoring the memory and legacy of her father, saxophonist Kidd Jordan. On March 2, cellist Alexis Gerlach curates and features in an electric evening highlighting the textures of the cello at MATCH (Midtown Arts & Theater Center), featuring the Texas premiere of Kevin Puts’ Arcana, originally written for and premiered by Alexis.

CONNECTIONS SERIES

Nomadic in nature, the Connections Series continues site-specific collaborative chamber concerts programmed specially for its chosen venues, in partnership with various arts and community organizations. ROCO’s Season 19 Series opens on October 12 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, with Sight & Sound, a concert curated by ROCO violinist Eva Burmeister and paired with artworks from MFAH’s collections, presented in Lynn Wyatt Theater and followed by a docent-led tour. On October 20, the Series returns to Asia Society Texas Center for a special evening celebrating women’s equality, Rise Up—featuring a world premiere by Composer-In-Residence Richard Danielpour and music by Quinn Mason, performed by the women of ROCO, with members of Houston Contemporary Dance Company.

ROCO’s annual evening of Beer & Brass kicks off 2024 on January 9 at its traditional venue, Saint Arnold Brewing Company, and on January 27, the Series returns to MFAH’s Rienzi, for Blossoms, honoring the historic house museum’s 25th anniversary with an evening of trio works, including the world premiere of Nicky Sohn’s Colors of Life’s Garden, inspired by the plants and flowers in the home’s gardens.

The Series next visits Houston’s iconic Rothko Chapel on February 10 for Simple Gifts, featuring Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring in its original 13-piece version, and joined by Houston Contemporary Dance Company, premiering a new piece. On February 14, ROCO musicians perform as part of MD Anderson’s new Musicians-In-Medicine Initiative with a chamber concert in the Cancer Center’s Park Atrium, and on April 21, the Series closes with Addio, a concert celebrating the string quartet and led by ROCO Concertmaster and Artistic Partner Scott St. John, and featuring Richard Danielpour‘s work, Addio.