Why Play, Attend or Donate to Concerts Nearby, Yet Away From It All?

If I had to call celebrated musicians and say “Come vacation with us in the suburbs” or “Come play in Santa Rosa” it just wouldn’t do.

Next time you need a “quick getaway” come to Guerneville!

We cannot thank the local resorts enough for treating our musicians like royalty!  Without the help of these resorts it would be even harder for me to thank our musicians adequately.  San Francisco Concerto Orchestra’s Favorite Resorts in Guerneville

All the resorts here give free rooms to the musicians so that Guerneville can have a World Class orchestra.  If you are asking why YOU should support an orchestra run like no other all the way out in Guerneville, read on and throughout the site.  We have a vast track record and impressive reviews from major press.  It is almost impossible to believe how much we accomplished on a mere $5,000 to $20,000 a year.  That may be because we actually never merely “think outside the box” but actually LIVE outside the box and rarely ever get bogged down in bureaucratic problems.  We don’t need funding for extra bureaucracy.  We need it because just imagine what we could do with even a fraction of the financial support that many organizations with considerably less impressive track records usually receive!

Throughout history many artists have believed isolation inspires creativity and independence.  Don’t you?  What is so great about big crowded cities and organizations?  They call getaways, getaways for a reason and if you need this explained further perhaps you need a get away - bad.  But you WOULD have to have been there at over 400 concerts I produced in the San Francisco Bay Areas, around 100 of which were in the most prestigious venues and biggest halls, to figure out why so many celebrated and even famous musicians who never played for free anywhere else did so with us and now even pay their way to Guerneville from all over the country just to participate in our events.

I also gave around 2,000 solo piano recitals in San Francisco and the Bay Area before relocating to Guerneville.  We continue to perform occasional concerts around the Bay and in exceptional prestige venues but now, perhaps because of the surrounding nature many musicians see Guerneville as the perfect getaway from San Francisco and Bay Area city life (crowded concerts/big halls).  Plus the people here are more memorable and International than in most small towns and there actually IS even plenty of varied city life here if you want that too.  All of these things make it much more of an International destination than its more “ordinary” and typically suburban neighbor, Santa Rosa.

As we get better known in Sonoma County will our events get crowded and noisy?  That could be fun too but maybe the best venue is one where the audience can actually hear the music to its full effect.  There is nothing quite like the audience practically sitting inside the orchestra.  And even when our orchestral concerts “sell out,” they don’t feel that crowded as with only 82 chairs and 30 musicians there are only 52 seats left.

Over 20 years ago practically by accident, and certainly outside “the real world,” I founded San Francisco Concerto Orchestra.  Many musicians, including those with established international stature, have used the experience and exposure we provided towards considerable professional advancement.  Our orchestra gave me and many other musicians experience (the most valuable training) that most schools or orchestras weren’t willing to offer.  Since our musicians play and teach in the Bay Area’s best known schools and orchestras, word of what we keep providing keeps spreading and instilling a bit of “guilty conscience” within other organizations.  So then perhaps Bay Area orchestras and schools kept finding more ways to feature their own members and students as well as up and coming talent from their own communities.  This is only logical as all of this is merely part of an inevitable shift in focus worldwide.  So why always donate to the same old official organizations and not our small budget one when we are providing so many opportunities the schools and other big budget organizations never seem to manage to provide.  Lip service to “thinking outside the box” is so easy and common so why hesitate to actually put your money where your mouth is (!), particularly here for an organization that has consistently provided so much to so many for so many years?

I moved to Guerneville AFTER organizing over 2500 concerts in San Francisco and around the Bay, and after years of being too busy producing events in the Bay Area to even consider traveling abroad.  So in 2008, I finally took the time to make what turned out to be a very successful, invigorating spring, Jungle, Temple and Archeological concert tour of Central America.  Now the typical focus of “how do you get to Carnegie Hall?” seems terribly boring to me compared to actually performing a piano concert in a tree house in the Jungles of Costa Rica.  When I returned I documented anecdotes and photos from this tour in my first book (see more info below).  Upon settling back home I also realized I live in a rain forest biosphere right here in Guerneville that is quite similar to the higher elevation cloud forests of Latin America.  My next concert tour from The Southwest to Costa Rica focused on Chopin, Liszt and their Wild West and Tropical musical descendants.  When I returned it occurred to me that I also live in a bit of a “Wild West” town and biosphere right here in Guerneville.  Classical musicians might not at first think of Guerneville, Latin America or the Southwest as their preferred cultural destination but they call more remote destinations “getaways” for a reason!

Why my concerts and this orchestra exist is also partly described in this book I recently published.  Described as a “Best Seller” by The Arts Council of Sonoma County, it relates the history of my family and my idols to Gershwin, my own history, my orchestra’s history, and to music history (especially North and South American).  All is woven through pictures of my first Latin American Jungle, Temple and Archeological Concert Tour, the Mayan legend of the 13 crystal Skulls and even scenes from America’s favorite Soap Opera (go to www.lisztinleather.orgg to see video clips and more on that).

In other words without reading this book you probably will have no clue what it is about!

Come to a concert and buy it or call 707-604-7600 - $30

The San Francisco Concerto Orchestra is very grateful to all who've helped it over the years. In addition to our many generous local resorts, we particularly note the audience members at my solo piano concerts which fund the orchestra, Bill Hollabaugh, Lawrence Wilcox, Merrill Mazza, the San Francisco Bay Times, John De Salvio and the Russian River Monthly, as well as Ralph Lotito, Mark Pope, Paul Bailey, Don, Pee Wee & Lulu Saucier, Jean Bartlett of the Pacifica Tribune, J-B Pianos, Paul & Judi Goldberg, Liz Gabriel, KGGV FM, Art Severe, Hayley Yount Severe, and Jean Bartlett of the Pacifica Tribune.

Visit www.jeansmagazines.org for reviews by Jean Bartlett!