Virtual gala honoring Symphony icons Norma and Corrick Brown

The Santa Rosa Symphony will host its first virtual gala honoring long-time Symphony icons Norma and Corrick Brown. Unlike prior seasons, this fundraising celebration is a free event that is open to the public. The event will stream online on Saturday, September 12, 2020 at 6:30 PM. Viewing instructions will be posted to the Symphony website closer to the event. The evening will include tributes from long-time friends of the Browns, presentations by prominent community luminaries, a brief recital by Van Cliburn gold medal winner Olga Kern, as well as an opportunity to support the Symphony.

Conductor Emeritus Corrick Brown served as the Symphony's second music director and conductor from 1957 to 1995. He added many programs to the Symphony's offerings and enriched the orchestra with an influx of talented, professional musicians. His wife Norma worked behind the scenes with myriad tasks and projects and was a gracious host to guest artists who stayed in their home. The couple's involvement with the Symphony did not end in 1995; they hosted Conductor Laureate Bruno Ferrandis when he was in the country, played piano duets for Symphony fundraisers and continue to support the Symphony they helped establish.

Funds raised through this event will help support the Symphony's many music education programs, which include: in-school music curriculum and presentations, interactive performances at the Green Music Center for elementary school students and afterschool social action programs for underserved elementary school students. (In-person elements of these programs are temporarily paused or virtual, but will resume when pandemic restrictions have been lifted.)

Russian-American pianist Olga Kern was born into a family of musicians with direct links to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff and began studying piano at the age of five. She jumpstarted her United States career with her historic Gold Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, as the first woman to do so in more than thirty years. Read Olga's bio at srsymphony.org/Artists/Olga-Kern.