Vallejo Symphony is opening its 82nd season in the Empress Theater on Oct. 12, with Music Director David Ramadanoff conducting a program of Beethoven (Coriolanus Overture, Symphony No. 2) and Mozart (Violin Concerto No. 4). The soloist for the concerto is Emma Steel, a second-place winner at last year's Klein String Competition.
When orchestra publicist Tim Zumwald wrote: "The California Music Center is working with the Vallejo Symphony by providing transportation and housing during Emma's performance," I wondered why taking BART to Del Norte and then transferring to Line 80 is worth mentioning. But then I realized Steel is coming from Copenhagen, where she concertmaster of the Royal Opera Orchestra of Denmark, so the cost at hand is of importance.
Unrelated to transportation issues, the Royal Opera Orchestra is something worth looking up: It is considered the oldest orchestra of its kind, its origins going back to 1448. The orchestra and the Trumpet Corps played at the coronation of King Christian I that year. (He went on to rule over Norway and Sweden, but now we are really getting too far away from Vallejo.)
Steele, 23, an American with an international career, is winner of the Sibelius International Violin Competition, played in many orchestras, was concertmaster of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Encore Chamber Orchestra. She played solo with the Northwest Symphony, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Finnish Radio Symphony, and the Carnegie Mellon (her alma mater) Philharmonic.