Globetrotting California Redwood Chorale sings in Santa Rosa

You can live in a community for a long time and still not experience all that the local talent has to offer. Sometimes, our gifted neighbors are better known elsewhere.

Lovers of choral music will soon get a chance to hear two live performances by the California Redwood Chorale, a 54-voice ensemble that includes singers from Sonoma, Marin and Lake counties. The chorus has traveled many miles to perform in other countries during its 17-year history.

The group, founded in 2006 by soprano Gerry Schultz of Occidental, will perform April 27-28 at Santa Rosa’s Church of the Incarnation. The program includes works by 45-year-old Ola Gjeilo, a Norwegian composer and pianist living in Southern California, as well as Henry Mancini’s classic, “Moon River.”

The Redwood Chorale, which first performed in 2007, has appeared extensively in Europe, with trips to Hungary in 2007 and 2010, Italy in 2012 and 2018, and both Austria and Hungary in 2015. The group also performed in Canada in 2008, Puerto Rico in 2014, and Sante Fe, New Mexico, in 2016.

“They will follow me anywhere, because all of our trips are intimate. We join with the choirs where we’re visiting and sing together,” said Schultz, who is executive director of the California Redwood Chorale, as well as one of its singers.

In June, California Redwood Chorale is returning to Hungary to perform once again with the Monteverdi Chorus of Budapest and with the regional choir at Lake Balaton. This has been a tradition since 2007.

“I put this together because my husband and I have been going to Hungary for 33 years,” Schultz said. “I’m half Hungarian.”

Her particular interest in Hungary and Italy is easily explained. She was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her parents were both violinists. Schultz’s father, Eugene Reichenfeld, was Hungarian and her mother, Linda Palmieri, was Italian.

Her father founded and conducted a regional symphony orchestra for 50 years. Her mother was assistant concertmaster.

“I’m not shy about reaching out to a famous composer or to the best choir in Budapest,” Schultz said.

The chorus mostly focuses on the work of contemporary composers of choral music, Schultz said, such as Gjeilo, Morten Lauridsen, John Rutter and Eric Whitacre.

“There are these fabulous choral composers out there, composing music for us to sing,” she said.

The Gjeilo compositions on the Santa Rosa concert program are “Luminous Night of the Soul” and “Across the Eternal Sky.” Other selections are Jacob Narverud’s “Ad Astra” and Christopher Tin’s “Sogno di Volare,” based on da Vinci's "Dream of Flight."

The concerts will feature conductor Gage Purdy, pianist John Hazelrigg, vocalist Bonnie Brooks and the Vintner’s String Quartet, with violinists Matthew Vincent and Tingting Gu Volonts, violist Alexander Volonts and cellist Abigail Summers.

You can reach Staff Writer Dan Taylor at dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5243. On X @danarts.