Acclaimed lyric soprano Rhoslyn Jones will sing Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Sonoma State University Symphony Orchestra on May 1 at 7:30 pm in Weill Hall. The Aldergrove, BC native was an Adler Fellow at the San Francisco Opera in 2006-2007 and is on the voice faculty at Sonoma State.
Conductor Alexander Kahn will lead the newly formed student orchestra in its second performance with Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture and Haydn’s London Symphony, No. 104. Tickets are $8 and available online and at the door.
American composer Samuel Barber (1910-1981) was a maverick - a romantic lyricist at a time when other composers were writing atonal music. Today, his music is second only to that of Aaron Copland and George Gershwin in popularity. Composed in 1947, Knoxville: Summer of 1915 is a setting of James Agee’s poem about life in a quiet Southern town at the dawn of the modern age. Ruefully narrated by a young boy, Knoxville is a nostalgic recreation of lost innocence.
Weill Hall at the Green Music Center is located two miles east of Highway 101 on Rohnert Park Expressway.