Santa Rosa Symphony releases its first CD

The concerts, recorded in 2021, feature work from Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

In mid-September, the Santa Rosa Symphony orchestra released its first-ever commercial CD, “Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: Cello Concerto & Other Works.”

The album, made in collaboration with Delos Productions of Sonoma, features the symphony led by Music Director Francesco Lecce-Chong performing four works composed by Zwilich, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for her Symphony No. 1.

During the 2020-2021 concert season, Lecce-Chong invited Zwilich to serve as the symphony’s artistic partner. He built the season, which was performed virtually, around her catalog, programming one work in each of five concerts the symphony recorded from January through May 2021.

“I am absolutely thrilled about the CD,” Lecce-Chong said. “Between the PBS specials (four world premiere concerts from 2021-2022 that aired in July on NorCal Public channels) and now this international release, it’s great to see this come to fruition.”

All of the works on the CD were recorded in the Green Music Center’s Weill Hall and aired on the symphony’s YouTube channel for a limited time for free.

The highlight of the CD is Zwilich’s 2020 Cello Concerto, performed by renowned cellist Zuill Bailey and recorded in March 2021. Other works include the whimsical “Peanuts Gallery” for Piano and Orchestra featuring guest pianist Elizabeth Dorman, recorded in May 2021; the rhapsodic Romance for Violin and Chamber Orchestra featuring Santa Rosa Symphony concertmaster Joseph Edelberg, recorded in April 2021; and the two-movement Prologue and Variations, recorded in February 2021.

“The Santa Rosa Symphony, led by Francesco Lecce-Chong, achieves a lovely sound … (and) manages to demonstrate the creative powers of the enormously talented Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, an accomplished composer who unfearfully embraces tonality without shunning moments of dissonance that serve to give appealing asperity to her works,” Rafael de Acha wrote in a review on his website, All About the Arts.

The CD was produced by Five Four of Cincinnati, a Grammy Award-winning team that produces Bailey’s albums. The production company did all the editing, mixing and mastering for the recording.

“It’s actually quite intense, the level they take it to,” Lecce-Chong said. “It was five or six months of back and forth, for every little detail and balance in every section. … But it was a thrill to realize we have put out something that could absolutely stand with the best of the best.”

The CD is being distributed by Delos Productions (delosmusic.com), which is owned and managed by Carol Rosenberger of Sonoma, a classical pianist who was one of the first artists signed by the classical music label back in 1973.

“It’s really been an incredible collaboration,” Lecce-Chong said of Delos. “They’ve done a beautiful job with the presentation and the notes.”

The CD costs $20 and is available at srsyphony.org; at the Patron Services Office on the first floor of 50 Santa Rosa Ave.; by calling 707-546-8742; and at symphony concerts. It is also available on various streaming platforms.