ROCO Turns 20 With New Faces, Spaces – Houston Press

ROCO turns 20 this year and will continue in its tradition of offering the most fun a person can experience with chamber music for the 2024-25 season. Themed “ROCO 20,” the season is marked by new faces (conductor Delyana Lazarova) and exciting milestones (reaching its 150th world premiere commissions).

Lazarova, ROCO’s newest artistic partner, joins other leaders within the organization like conductor Mei-Ann Chen and concertmaster Scott St. John. Born in Bulgaria, she has a natural affinity to Eastern European and Russian, but feels equally at home in the Viennese Classical period, influenced by her studies in Switzerland. While with ROCO, she will lead a side-by-side performance with selected students from the Houston Youth Symphony and will premiere Clarice Assad’s piano concerto ‘Total Eclipse,’ among others.

“Delyana is phenomenal; she is one of our absolute favorites,” said Alecia Lawyer, ROCO’s founder and artistic director. “Within the first rehearsal, musicians came up to me during the break and said ROCO should hire her.”

Lawyer credits Lazarova’s inspiring take on the classics as one of the elements that caught her eye … or ear, rather.

“I was able to get her to come to a wonderful festival I play in every January. She did Beethoven’s seventh there, and I cried four times during it,” Lawyer said. “She makes the classics so good and so fresh and well done, and the pieces still have a vibrancy. My favorite part of it was when she was rehearsing. She did it so well and efficiently, and then during the concert, she completely lit up. That’s also what happened when she was last with ROCO. We have photos of her conducting and her facial expressions. She’s so expressive as a human, which is something I invite our musicians to be.”

In addition to the new faces, there are also new places added to ROCO’s roster this year, including Horizon on Sunset Art Gallery and Event Center, the Dan Flavin Installation at Richmond Hall, the resurrected River Oaks Theater and the DeLUXE Theater.

What’s more, ROCO is not just expanding its reach in the city. The group is expanding its ROCO On The Go program outside the Lone Star State and into Utah. For anyone who might be unfamiliar, ROCO On The Go is an initiative where small, index card-sized QR codes are mounted along places like Buffalo Bayou or the Texas Medical Center, and upon scanning the code, a site-specific piece of music is played from ROCO’s archives.

Speaking of the archives, one of ROCO’s main tenets is accessibility, and the group goes through painstaking efforts to make sure anyone and everyone can listen to its music. Or in other words, the organization has made strides in removing any barrier that might prevent people from accessing its work.

“I jokingly say we are the ‘no excuses’ orchestra,” Lawyer said. “We give agency to our audience, to our musicians, to the consumers of our art, and I think what people don’t recognize is that audiences complete us because music is a language. If we’re just playing it for ourselves, it’s completely one-dimensional, but if we can just treat it like a language that permeates all cultures, then it becomes something that is in dialogue continuously.”

ROCO has brought music to the masses, and the people have responded quite well, but do not just take this article’s word for it. See the stats below:

• The “Pay What You Wish” ticketing model accounts for 95 percent of donated dollars
• 150 commissioned world premieres by this season’s end
• Livestreaming since 2013 for free with 1.1 million audio and video streams on all seven continents and 60 countries
• Performed in 70 venues in Houston, adding four more this season
• The ROCO on the Go initiative exists in Houston’s parks, schools, and hospitals with over 48,000 scans and counting and more to come soon in locations across the United States
• 28 out of the 38 musicians have played with ROCO since the first two seasons
• ROCO is the only orchestra in the world inviting our audience to bring an iPad and/or phones to concerts to follow along with the scores and parts through the ROCOhouston app on Instant Encore.
• The Nightingale children’s book has been recorded with both chamber and full orchestra versions and is available on Amazon, the digital version available for free on ROCO’s website, plus Braille versions are available upon request.
• Listed as the  No. 2 orchestra in the entire world programming women composers (just behind BBC) by Donne, Women in Music Foundation in Germany

It’s all part and parcel for a city that treasures its performing arts groups.

“I would love the City of Houston to promote the arts as a real jewel for who and what Houston is,” Lawyer said. “ROCO is a good example of being in the city and showing the best of the city. Listeners get a tour of the city through our music. The arts can be used to draw people to Houston.”

The ROCO 2024-25 season is as follows:

Albert and Margaret Alkek Foundation In Concert Series
Remarkable
7:30 p.m., September 27, Miller Outdoor Theatre, 6000 Hermann Park
5 p.m., September 28 at The Church of St. John the Divine, 2450 River Oaks

Outspoken
5 p.m., November 2 at The Church of St. John the Divine, 2450 River Oaks

Courageous
5 p.m., Feb. 8, 2025 at The Church of St. John the Divine, 2450 River Oaks

Optimistic
5 p.m., April 26, 2025 at Brockman Opera Hall, Rice University, 6100 Main

The Unchambered Series
5 p.m., October 19 at Horizon on Sunset Art Gallery & Event Center, 2501
Sunset, featuring Alecia Lawyer, oboe and Audrey Andrist, piano

7 p.m., November 21 at the Dan Flavin Installation at Richmond Hall, 1500 Richmond, featuring Bernhard Scully, horn and Matthew McClung, percussion

The Connections Series
10 a.m., December 7 at Houston Botanic Garden, 1 Botanic Lane
Yuletide with ROCO and Jazz Houston

6:30 p.m., January 7, 2025 at Saint Arnold Brewing Company, 2000 Lyons Beer & Brass featuring the ROCO Brass Quintet

5 p.m., January 25, 2025 at the DeLUXE Theater, 3303 Lyons
Featuring Scott St. John and Nicole Cherry, violin

5 p.m., March 29, 2025 at the Asia Society Texas Center, 1370 Southmore
Viet Cuong: Song Cycle, telling the story of his family’s escape from Saigon

6 p.m., April 11, 2025 at The River Oaks Theatre, 2009 West Gray
Silent film “The General” and “Disney’s Silly Symphony: Music Land” rescore with ROCO live orchestra

For tickets or information, call 713-665-2700 or visit ROCO.org. Tickets are pay as you wish.