Source: Press Release: ROCO In Concert Concludes with “Seeing Is Believing”, Apr. 1
HOUSTON, TX – ROCO closes its Season 21 Albert and Margaret Alkek Foundation In Concert Series with SEEING IS BELIEVING–a thrilling finale for the full chamber orchestra series led by Artistic Partner and conductor Delyana Lazarova, and featuring soprano Viviana Goodwin and guest concertmaster Laura Frautschi, on Saturday, April 18, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. at The Church of St. John the Divine.
Lazarova and ROCO bring the series full circle with Composer-In-Residence Kevin Lau’s second commissioned world premiere of the season—an epic orchestral work titled Tales from Before the Dawn of Time, inspired by the fantasy world of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. The concert also highlights a side-by-side performance with the Houston Youth Symphony, as ROCO revisits a classic work in Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s Overture in C Major.
Commissioned by ROCO and premiered in October 2023, Richard Danielpour’s Breaking the Veil now premieres in a new ROCO-commissioned rescore for full chamber orchestra, expanding upon its original 12-player scoring. Featuring wind soloists Principal Flute Brook Ferguson, Principal Bassoon Kristin Wolfe Jensen, and Principal Oboe and Artistic Director Alecia Lawyer, the piece pays tribute to the bravery and resilience of the women of Iran—drawing inspiration from a powerful sculpture by the composer’s mother, Mehri Danielpour Weil, portraying a woman in defiant struggle against her veil.
The orchestra will also perform Danielpour’s Adagietto for String Orchestra—an arrangement of the last movement of the composer’s String Quartet No. 5. Subtitled “In Search of ‘La Vita Nuova,’ meaning “the new life,” the Quartet is inspired by his decades-long love affair with Italy.
Viviana Goodwin, an American soprano from Washington National Opera’s Cafritz Young Artist Program, spotlights in Jefferson Todd Frazier’s We Hold These Truths—a musing on Thomas Jefferson’s deep love for playing his violin, and the role this passion may have played in crafting the Declaration of Independence in the summer of 1776. Goodwin also features in Frazier’s expanded arrangement of Jean Ritchie’s folk song Wild Horses, capturing the authentic style of Ritchie’s singing and dulcimer-playing.
This concert offers ROCOrooters, ROCO’s unique music education and childcare program for kids in 5th grade and under, designed to stimulate young minds and allow parents to enjoy a night out. Offering a wonderful music lesson, a trip into the concert hall to hear one piece on the program, and up to 5 hours of supervision by certified childcare professionals at an affordable rate, caregivers need look no further for a memorable, multi-generational musical evening.
Pay What You Wish tickets for the concert are available now on the ROCO official event page, with a free livestream at roco.org/live, YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, and on the ROCO mobile app.
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