A ROCO concert can hit all the senses at once. The women’s jewel-toned dresses pop out in a sea of black stands and dark suits. The video projection aligns perfectly with what is happening in the music. If you hear a clarinet, you see the clarinetist and his fingers at work. Theo Chandler, the score reader behind the scenes, is armed with full knowledge of the score so he can direct the cameras to the optimal place at all times, just to give the audience that extra layer of immersion in the music. The audience is encouraged to look at their phones and iPads for commentary on the pieces, and if they wish, they can follow the score as the music is being performed live. The production value of each concert is extremely high and the attention to every detail sets ROCO apart.
“It reminds me of MAD magazine,” says Alecia Lawyer, ROCO Founder, Artistic Director, and principal oboe. Her favorite thing in MAD magazine was the magic hidden in the margins, tiny snippets of whimsy so small that one would hardly notice them. “The attention to the smallest details—that is extra, and really clever, really smart. Details matter.”
For her visionary leadership of ROCO and her significant contribution to the broader arts ecosystem, Lawyer was recently named 2025 inaugural Texas State Classical Musician by the Texas State Legislature. With ROCO, Lawyer has reimagined how classical music is experienced, accessed, and shared, and after 20 seasons, the group continues to be a trailblazing innovator in the orchestral world. “I feel like we are on solid ground, the stickiness of 98% of our income coming from a vast network of supporters,” says Lawyer. “They are doubling down on the people that are about systemic change. People know we are not just about doing concerts. We’re really about being deeply local and globally impactful. That’s our boiled down boilerplate.”
ROCO’s twenty-first season celebrates the senses, which is really about feeling. “You’ve never heard a feeling like this,” Lawyer likes to say. With 15 commissioned world premieres and rescores, each new work forges a personal connection between the composer, the musicians, and the audience.
Celebrated film composer Starr Parodi has a personal story to tell with her composition Rip Tide. Lawyer shares an experience Parodi had while on vacation, “they were scared to swim because there was a big rip tide. The locals told her, if you just jump in, ride it, and let it take you, the tide will bring you around the cove and you can walk back to where you are. So she let it take her and it changed her life and her outlook on life.” In the middle of writing the piece, Parodi lost her house to the Palisades fire. Instead of taking a pause, she continued on. More than ever, the piece embodied what she wanted to express.
Emmy Award-winning composer John Wineglass came to Houston to visit Freedmen’s Town this spring, walking the grounds that is the inspiration for his new work Sacred Ground, which honors the people and history of this place. He met with the Board of Freedmen’s Town while he was here. “It’s not just plopping down something or some place in a concert.” Lawyer remarks. “It’s really about having a relationship and a dialogue.”
On the In Concert mainstage series, ROCO favorites Delyana Lazarova and Mei-Ann Chen will return as Artistic Partners, and conductor Anthony Parnther will make his ROCO podium debut. Guest concertmasters Margaret Batjer, Tereza Stanislav, and Laura Frautschi, hailing from their leadership positions in the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, will bring their signature artistry to ROCO.
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ROCO Founder and Artistic Director & Principal Oboe Alecia Lawyer. Photo by Daniel Ortiz.
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ROCO’s Alecia Lawyer after receiving the 2025 Texas State Classical Musician Award at the Texas State Capitol. Photo courtesy of ROCO.
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Conductor Delyana Lazarova. Photo by Marco Borggreve.
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ROCO Composer in Residence Kevin Lau. Photo by David Ley.
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ROCO Principal Clarinetist Nathan Williams. Photo by Rolando Ramon.
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ROCO at Miller Outdoor Theatre with Mei Ann Chen conducting. Photo by Rolando Ramon.
ROCO’s hyper local reach can be best viewed through its Unchambered Series, curated by individual musicians according to their passions, and the Connections Series, which are site-specific collaborative chamber music concerts. Popular offerings include Beer and Brass at Saint Arnold Brewing Company and live performances of classic silent film scores at the newly renovated River Oaks Theater.
Another highlight is a performance at the Asia Society Texas Center celebrating this year’s World Expo in Japan. The program will feature the Japanese fashion collection from Houston Community College, and a ROCO commissioned world premiere by Hiroaki Tokunaga, inspired by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata’s reflections on space exploration. The historic Julia Ideson Library in Downtown Houston, part of the Houston Public Library system, celebrates its 100th anniversary next year. ROCO harpist Laurie Meister will be performing a newly commissioned piece by one of Britain’s most acclaimed composers and Master of the King’s Music, Errollyn Wallen CBE. The piece is inspired by the eight large-scale murals in the Julia Ideson building, painted by three women of the Works Progress Administration during the Depression era.
When putting the puzzle pieces together in the commissioning process of new pieces, Lawyer often asks her musicians “what brings you joy?” “What connects you to the people with whom you just want to have a dialogue?” She reminds musicians that they are more than their instruments and that it is always about being human first. So what brings Lawyer joy? She recalls hearing a man do a stand-up comedy skit on Scooby-Doo once. “He goes, what you need to do is find some friends, get a van, and solve some mysteries. And I am thinking, that is my motto. That is my mantra. That is my life. I have found some friends. I have gotten a band, and I have solved this mystery of how to connect people to music.”
—SHERRY CHENG