Santa Rosa Symphony violist featured in special role this season

Like most violists, Elizabeth Prior started out on a pint-size violin, not a viola, and began at a young age, just 6.

After her family moved from Wisconsin to South Africa, her violin teacher suggested she get a new violin, or better yet, switch to the viola. She was 14 by then, and at the time, no one in her orchestra played the viola, a slightly larger and deeper instrument than a violin with a haunting timbre.

“It changed my life,” she said. “It gave me a purpose because I did something no one else did. You’re not just another violinist, but you play an instrument that somebody needs. … I decided this is what I wanted to do.”

Prior, who has served as the Santa Rosa Symphony’s principal violist since 2011, has also been given a special purpose this season by Music Director Francesco Lecce-Chong, who chose her to serve as the symphony’s artistic partner. In that role, she will be featured during this weekend’s concerts as the soloist in Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Flos Campi (Flower of the Field)”: Suite for Viola, Orchestra and Chorus.

“Usually it’s someone from another organization,” Prior said of being artistic partner, a post previously held by acclaimed American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. “But he has the idea of empowering the musicians in the orchestra and giving each one of us the opportunity to bring our talents to the mix.”

The concerts held at the Green Music Center will open with “Soul Force” for Orchestra, a short work by the young American composer Jessie Montgomery. The program will conclude with Beethoven’s uplifting Symphony No. 9 in D minor, “Choral,” featuring the Sonoma State University Symphonic Chorus led by Jenny Bent.

This marks the symphony’s first choral concert since 2019, when Lecce-Chong conducted Mozart’s powerful Requiem in D minor. The long-standing tradition, launched by the late philanthropists Don and Maureen Green, was put on pause during the pandemic.

“Beethoven’s 9th is one of those remarkable works that speaks to any moment,” Lecce-Chong said. “Whether in celebration, defiance or remembrance, the call to rejoice in our common humanity is as significant now as it was almost 200 years ago.”

‘Ode to Joy’

Beethoven’s monumental symphony spans four long movements, with the choir joining in during the last movement for the beloved “Ode to Joy.”

“The past several years have reminded us how important it is to be able to gather together,” Lecce-Chong said. “We are all uniquely bonded from the devastating pandemic, and I think this Beethoven 9 will reflect that.”

Although Beethoven’s timeless symphony lasts 70-some minutes, the Williams piece, by contrast, spans just 20 minutes and is rarely heard. This is the first time Prior will perform the work, which is unique among the British composer’s works.

“I don’t know if there’s anything else like it,” Prior said. “It has a wordless chorus. It doesn’t have text, but the concept of each movement is based on the ‘Song of Solomon’ (love poem) from the Old Testament. So there is intention but no words. The intention of each movement is in the music itself.”

Like Holst’s popular orchestral suite, “The Planets,” the piece calls for not only a high-pitched, wordless chorus but a celesta, a bell-like instrument (from the French “cèleste” for “heavenly”) that resembles an organ but sounds like a music box.

“It’s very intense and ethereal,” Prior said of the piece’s soundscape. “It makes me think of celestial beings floating over the landscape.”

Because “Flos Campi” was written in 1925, Prior believes Williams may have wanted to pay homage to the young men who lost their lives during World War I. For her, the wordless voices represent the young men’s spirits, and the flowers in the title symbolize the fields of red poppies that became a sign of hope amid the war’s destruction.

“There’s a lot of yearning,” she said. “These were all young men, and they lost their lives without knowing love. So I see it as a yearning for the lives they could have had.”

As principal violist, Prior plays all the solos written within the orchestral parts, decides on the bowings for each concert set and leads the viola section. It’s her job to make sure everyone comes in together and doesn’t get lost.

“It’s not that they are looking at you, but your body language shows ‘We’re coming in now. Here we go,’” she said. “So you have to have confidence. You can’t hesitate or you won’t come in as a unified sound.”

Likewise, Prior said, preparing the bowings also helps unify the sound of each string section with players creating the same sounds with the same part of the bow.

“It’s also a visual thing,” she said. “When you see the bows go up and down together, there’s an energy that flows in an orchestra. It can look and sound haphazard without that.”

Mozart in April

As artistic partner for the 2022-23 season, Prior said her main job is to support Lecce-Chong and his artistic vision. Before the last concert set, for example, she spoke with him during his preconcert talk about how the rehearsals went and how the orchestra worked on the repertoire.

This April, she will put together the third and final family concert of the season, which will revolve around the life and music of Mozart, based on letters he wrote and excerpts from his masterpieces.

“I did a project like this, way back … and I had a singer and a narrator and a small chamber group,” she said. “Francesco asked if I would rework the whole thing for the symphony orchestra.”

After doing some research, she has provided Lecce-Chong with a list of pieces that could be excerpted for the one-hour program for children and their parents, set for April 16, 2023.

“To think how much he did in his short life is phenomenal,” she said of the composer. “I would like to do some snippets of his operas, like ‘Don Giovanni,’ the concertos for flute and clarinet and the Sinfonia Concertante (for violin and viola), maybe an early symphony and possibly the Haffner or the Jupiter Symphony, and maybe a bit from a piano concerto.”

The concert will take place the day after Lecce-Chong and the symphony present a concert performance of an opera for the first time: Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” considered one of the greatest operas ever written.

“Francesco is bringing new ideas. … His vision is very exciting,” she said. “I’m glad to be a part of that this year and that I can bring my perspective as a musician.”

Prior studied with violist John Wille in South Africa, and after getting her degree she won a prize in the prestigious International String Competition in Pretoria.

“It really did launch me,” she said of the third-place prize. “I left South Africa after that and basically never went back.”

After winning the competition, she went to Germany for a two-year master’s degree in performance at the Hochscule fur Musik in Freiburg, where she studied with violists Ulrich Koch and Kim Kashkashian.

She married her husband, Scottish conductor Donald Runnicles, in Germany, then followed him to San Francisco, where he served as music director of the San Francisco Opera from 1992 to 2008. The couple has two adult daughters, 24 and 27.

“I started coming to San Francisco in 1993,” Prior said. “It really is home.”

In addition to the Santa Rosa Symphony, Prior is a member of the Bay Area’s renowned New Century Chamber Orchestra and serves as assistant principal violist with the Marin Symphony. She performs with the San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Ballet.

“I get to do it all … the chamber orchestra, symphony, ballet and opera,” she said. “The ballet is a shorter season, but it’s very intense. … You have to fit this in and that in, but it all works out.”