Symphonie fantastique, Berlioz's musical embodiment of love's madness, closes Early Romantics Festival April 28

News Release Contact:
Sara Obuchowski, (707) 546-7097 ext 218

March 9 , 2007

(SANTA ROSA, CA) – Santa Rosa Symphony’s Early Romantics Festival concludes with flair as one of America’s most celebrated music communicators—UCLA’s Robert Winter—delves into Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz. Winter, described in the Wall Street Journal as “probably the best public explicator about music since Leonard Bernstein,” hosts a lively multi-media exploration of this audacious, innovative work on Saturday, April 28, at 8 p.m. at the Wells Fargo Center.

In the second half of the program, the Santa Rosa Symphony, under the baton of George Thomson, performs Symphonie fantastique in its entirety.

Winter’s presentations in bold image, spoken word and music have been profiled and praised in publications from the New York Times to People Magazine, from Wired to Newsweek. In an enchanted first half of the program, Winter brings the Paris of the brash, young red-haired Berlioz to life. This was “the” place to be for a European in 1830! Full-blown Romanticism not only advocated emotional extremes, but also witnessed the beginnings of haute couture in fashion, the elite, intimate salons of Chopin, the bigger-than-life dioramas of Charles Daguerre and the new “touch dances” like the waltz (immortalized in the second movement of the “fantastic symphony”).

Tickets for this Festival Finale program can be purchased online at www.santarosasymphony.com or by calling the Symphony Box Office at (707) 546-8742. Student rush tickets can be obtained for $10 each (with valid student I.D.) at the venue 30 minutes before the performance.

Santa Rosa Symphony gratefully acknowledges The National Endowment for the Arts, Jackson Wine Estates and Barbara Banke & Jess Jackson for making this Early Romantics Festival series possible.

Festival Finale conductor George Thomson is Associate Conductor of the Berkeley Symphony and directs the music education program. Formerly music director of the Prometheus Symphony, a community orchestra based in Oakland, Thomson has also appeared as a guest conductor with the Marin Symphony, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra, the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, and the New Century Chamber Orchestra. As a performer on Baroque and modern violin and viola, Thomson has enjoyed long associations with several Bay Area ensembles, including the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and the American Bach Soloists. Since 1999 he has directed the Virtuoso Program at San Domenico School in San Anselmo, and has been music director of the Marin Symphony Youth Orchestra since 2001.

Festival Finale host Robert Winter is Professor of Music and Presidential Chair in Music and Interactive Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he has taught since 1974. He authored, co-authored or edited four major books on Beethoven and published a substantial number of influential articles on compositional process, performance practice and Franz Schubert. He has given countless live performances and lectures, and created a nationally-broadcast live-music series on American Public Radio. Winter is also an international spokesperson for the role of content and the arts in a digital world.