Weill Hall to host range of works

Bruno Ferrandis, music director and conductor of the Santa Rosa Symphony (John Burgess/PD)

During the challenging work, Ferrandis will have to synchronize the acoustic orchestras with an electronic computer tape, generated by an onstage keyboardist.

“It will be quite an experience for everybody, and new sounds that you’ve never heard before,” he said. “I really want to hear that live.”

Other works programmed to test the hall include the bombastic “Symphonie Fantastique” by Hector Berlioz in November, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s virtuoso Symphony No. 10 in May. On a quieter note, Anton Webern’s Passacaglia for Orchestra in February will require utter clarity and transparency.

In December, the orchestra will be pitting two Titans of Opera against each other – Richard Wagner and Giuseppi Verdi — with singers performing arias and choruses from their most famous operas.

“It’s a big project, to mix ‘The Ring’ with the best of Verdi,” Ferrandis said. “It’s going to be very tough.”

Krzysztof Penderecki’s “The Awakening of Joseph,” featured in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror film “The Shining,” will reverberate through the shoebox-shaped hall in March.

“The piece is incredible,” Ferrandis said. “Acoustically, you have the eerie sound of the Ocarina, an Andean pipe, which sounds like a whistle.”

Guest pianists include the young Russian star Olga Kern, performing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in May, and French veteran Jean-Philippe Collard taking on a sparkling Saint-Saens concerto in November.

“He’s very bubbly and very French,” Ferrandis said. “And it’s the Saint-Saens Concerto Nov. 2, which is brilliant and intimate.”