River Oaks Chamber Orchestra Announces Nine World Premieres for Its 10th Anniversary Season

River Oaks Chamber Orchestra (ROCO) celebrates its 10th Anniversary Season in 2014 - 2015 with the announcement of nine more world premiere commissions, a whole new concert series, new names for its existing series and the return of some its most revered musicians and collaborators. The season is titled Great Expectations "because it refers to the high expectations we have had for ROCO since inception," said Alecia Lawyer, ROCO Founder and Artistic Director, "and the higher goals we have set for ourselves in our second decade." The title also refers to a number of literary themes that will run throughout much of the season.

The literary themes are most evident in the four new, world premiere compositions for the full orchestra that ROCO commissioned for its 10th season. In September, ROCO will premiere a commission by Maria Newmanbased on the children's book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Ms. Newman, the daughter of multiple Academy Award-winning composer and conductor Alfred Newman, sister to Thomas Newman and cousin to famed songwriter Randy Newman, is an award winning composer of classical music and a critically acclaimed violinist, violist and pianist. In November, ROCO premieres a work by Emmy Award winning composer Anthony DiLorenzobased on the Lewis Carroll poem Jabberwocky. Anthony is a talented trumpet player who has performed with ROCO the past two seasons and is known as a master film composer, having composed over 80 film trailers for movies such as Toy Story.

ROCO was invited to join a national consortium of the top chamber orchestras in the country for its February commission. New Century Chamber Orchestra in San Francisco and A Far Cry from Boston partnered with ROCO to commission a major new piece for chamber orchestra by Derek Bermel in the first of a potentially fruitful coalition of peer organizations whose goal is to further the chamber orchestra repertoire. Creative collaborations such as these are part of ROCO's mission. "We are committed to not only making classical music feel alive in how we present music and connect with our audience," said Ms. Lawyer, "but we are committed to physically keeping it alive through the creation of contemporary music by living composers. This is why we've renamed our orchestra series ROCO Alive in Concert starting in our 10th season."