ROCO Announces Its Fifteenth Season 'Coming Of Age'

ROCO (River Oaks Chamber Orchestra) has announced its 2019-20 season, entitled Coming of Age. To celebrate their milestone fifteenth season, ROCO will present a record-breaking 21 new commissions, bringing their total to a whopping 100 distinct premieres since their formation in 2005. Throughout the season, 15 of these new works comprising the FIFteen project: Fanfares, Interludes, and Finales, organized by Mark Buller will be sprinkled among each series.

This year's In Concert Series is built around these new commissions and will explore themes of hope, beauty, and humanity. The Unchambered Series will once again redefine the role of musicians in an orchestra, with the players curating their own concert programs and telling their coming of age stories through music. The Connections series continues to take the music out of the concert hall and into new and unusual places with the return of the beloved ROCO Brass Quintet's Yuletide Concert & Coffee at a new location, Beer & Brass ringing in the New Year again at Saint Arnold Brewing Company, a reimagining of the Age of Aquarius at Rienzi, and a new special partnership with the Holocaust Museum Houston to inaugurate their newly opened building.

Having been a docent at the Holocaust Museum Houston, said founder and principal oboist Alecia Lawyer, their message of hope is what I always want our language of music to convey.

Additionally, ROCO is pleased to welcome Mei-Ann Chen as their first-ever Artistic Partner, returning each season for a dynamic collaborative concert, and to work closely with ROCO as a creative and thought partner moving forward. Chen led their debut recording Visions Take Flight this past season and will be conducting the season opener on September 27 and 28.

ROCO comes of age in this anniversary 15th season through exploring the individual musical journeys of our musicians and collectively building a vast new repertoire for our field, says Lawyer. We are blazing a trail for the creation of innovative and community-specific arts groups around our country, and look forward to inviting our audience into deeper musical conversations.

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