A captivating presence on the podium, American conductor Francesco Lecce-Chong has garnered acclaim for his dynamic performances, commitment to innovative programming and passion for community engagement. Lecce-Chong begins his post as Music Director and Conductor of the Eugene Symphony, in Eugene, Oregon, in the 2017-2018 season, following in the path of renowned predecessors including Marin Alsop and Giancarlo Guerrero. In addition, he holds the positions of Associate Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Principal Conductor of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra. Active as a guest conductor, he has appeared with orchestras around the world including the National Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, and Hong Kong Philharmonic and collaborated with renowned soloists including Renée Fleming and Itzhak Perlman.
Lecce-Chong is equally at home in opera, having built his credentials as a staff conductor with Santa Fe Opera. At the Florentine Opera, he conducted Madama Butterfly with the Milwaukee Symphony, where he has been invited to close its 2018-2019 season with Carmina Burana. Additional highlights for the 2018-2019 season include subscription debuts with the Louisville Orchestra and the Louisiana Symphony. In Europe, he has taken part in master classes at the Lucerne Festival under Bernard Haitink, as well as with the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich.
Also trained as a pianist and composer, Lecce-Chong champions the work of new composers and the need for arts education. As Associate Conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (MSO) from 2011-2015, he curated and presented the works of both active and lesser-known composers, including two works commissioned by the orchestra, as well as two U.S. premieres. He also helped create the first MSO Composer Institute, providing performance opportunities for young American composers. Demonstrating his commitment to arts education for all ages, Lecce-Chong provided artistic leadership for the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s nationally lauded Arts in Community Education program – one of the largest arts integration programs in the country. His dedication to connecting orchestras and communities continues in Pittsburgh where he gives preconcert talks, conducts concerts for school audiences, and leads specially designed sensory-friendly performances.
Lecce-Chong is a native of Boulder, Colorado, where he began conducting at the age of sixteen. He is a graduate of the Mannes College of Music and Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Otto-Werner Mueller. He has worked with many internationally-celebrated conductors, including Bernard Haitink, David Zinman, Edo de Waart and Manfred Honeck.
Lecce-Chong is represented by IMG Artists, one of the premier global artist management firms, representing artists such as vocalist Renée Fleming, violinist Joshua Bell and conductor André Previn.
Posted by Rich Randolph, Paul O Rear on Jan 07, 2019
Sip & Serve
The Community Foundation and the local Lions Club are hosting a tasting of wines featured in the 2019 San Francisco Wine Competition, including a silent auction, with proceeds going to support fire recovery for individuals and businesses in Butte County . The event, Friday January 11th 5:00-7:00 at the Scottish Rite Temple on Highway 12 at Acacia Lane is free but registration is needed- email Paul O’Rear for details. Help the recovery and enjoy some award winning wines!
On a regular basis, our resident photo pro Warren Smith, as well as Club Public Relations-Image Director Jack Strange, submit pictures of what is going on at the weekly meetings. You can always find the most recent pictures at the websites photo journal called "Meeting Sighting" Please note that all the meeting photos for the entire Rotary year are at this location with the most recent on the last page.
Thanks for all the great pictures Warren!Link to Meeting Sightings. The most recent are on the last page!
The early 8 Sunriser's pose for Warren Smith with our Windsor counterparts at the Redwood Empire Food Bank last Thursday to team up and box groceries for area seniors in need. L to Rd are Ezbon, Merle, Flo, Jen, Steve A, Stacy, Jim M and second from far right Del. Joining later were Penny & Paul, Rich, Betsy & Lizzy.
An assembly line was formed and the box brigade began adding juice chicken, veggies and oatmeal. The loading was fast and furious. As the expressions suggest, every move counted and each box was quality control weighed. Approximately 540, 20 pound boxed products were stacked and shrunk wrapped for fast, safe distribution.
Penny and Ezbon prep boxes
Del applies requisite labels
Organizer Jen deposits soup.
Flo & Merle ready boxes for juice
Paul decides to join the fray
Jen and Lizzy compare products
Steve & Paul take 5
Those products on pallets were much higher earlier!
Flo & Merle see the last row of 2 pound juice to be lifted. 527 down 16 to go!!
Merle and Rob Giacomini, Interactor from Elsie Allen talk about TLT: Tomorrows Leaders Today.
Thank you Jennifer for organizing this ongoing project and helping members of two clubs get to know each other while doing valuable service!
Home port: World-class dive sites, pristine beaches, and unique volcanic features make this Caribbean island a popular vacation spot, but “One Happy Island” is more than just a slogan for the tourism industry, say the members of the Rotary Club of Aruba. The Rotarians bring smiles to their fellow citizens, particularly the elderly and young children, when they need help, and the club’s annual street fair is a beloved island tradition.
Club innovation: The Rotary Club of Aruba is demonstrating how a club can engage Rotaractors to keep them in the Rotary family. Rotaractors regularly attend Rotary meetings, they participate in Rotary club projects — and use their technological savvy to promote them — and they are encouraged to become Rotarians. All this has brought the club new members, ideas, and perspectives.
The Rotary, Rotaract, and Interact clubs come together to clean up Bachelor’s Beach.
Oranjestad, Aruba’s capital, hosts one of the Caribbean’s most celebrated carnival seasons, but locals also mark their calendars for the Rotary club’s annual fiesta, a street fair and lottery that typically generates about $250,000. “I grew up with it,” says Shelby Maduro, the club’s 33-year-old secretary. While the club’s identity among islanders is linked to the festival, many in the community perceived the club to be an exclusive bastion of business leaders, most of them men. But perceptions are changing, and Maduro is one of seven former Rotaractors — all of them women — who have recently joined the club. (Maduro joined in 2016 while still a Rotaractor.)
Several years ago, the club decided to allow Rotaractors who were still building their careers to join. “When you’re 30, you probably don’t have a managerial position yet,” Maduro notes. She credits Club President Edsel Lopez, who happens to be her supervisor at the accounting firm Grant Thornton, with opening the door to membership. “Several of his employees are or were Rotaractors, including myself,” she says.
Strong connections in the business community have led to successful projects that support the island’s residents. A golf tournament that raises about $70,000 augments the funds from the club’s fiesta to support Centro Kibrahacha, a facility for senior citizens; Sonrisa, which assists people with disabilities; and the YMCA. Rotarians serve on the boards of all three organizations, which also benefit from the participation of Interact and Rotaract volunteers.
Other hands-on initiatives include an End Polio Now walk and a beach cleanup alongside Rotaractors and Interactors, and routine maintenance of Rotary-built playgrounds on the island. In 2017, the club delivered bottled water to St. Martin after Hurricane Irma.
The involvement of Rotaractors has been critical to the success of club efforts, Maduro says, noting that the heightened use of social media helps to let “people know what’s happening, and to let them know where the money is being spent.”
Every Rotaract club member is expected to attend at least two Rotary club meetings annually, and Rotarians reciprocate. Rotarians, says Maduro, “are really interested in what Rotaract is doing, and they are interested in the people. So you get to know them on a personal level.”
And Rotaractors have infused the Rotary club with fresh talent, she adds. “The flavor of the club has changed a little with the narrowing of the age gap between Rotaractors and Rotarians.”
Vocational service can be hard to define, but it is easy to describe: It is simply the point where our Rotary lives and our professional lives intersect. When we put our Rotary ideals to work through our work, that is vocational service.
When I returned to the Bahamas after many years working in health care administration abroad, I realized that my country badly needed a modern health care facility. The resources we had at the time were out of date and inadequate, and people who were unable to travel abroad for care often did not receive the care they needed. Without the experience I had gained in the United States, I could have done nothing to change the status quo. But since I did have that experience, I was in a unique position to have an impact. I knew I could turn my professional path to good and make a career out of improving Bahamian health care.
As Rotary became part of my journey, I discovered that the words of Paul Harris that became the basis of Rotary — that shared effort knows no limitations — were also true for my vocation. I could not bring modern health care to the Bahamas alone. But through partnership, both with the doctors who eventually became my partners in Doctors Hospital and with all the dedicated staff members who worked in the hospital over the years, we could change everything. My goal became a shared goal — and then it became reality.
Rotary emphasizes the dignity of every vocation and the worth of every calling. Remember that the four founding members included no doctors or peacemakers — just an attorney, a mining engineer, a coal dealer, and a printer. From the beginning, the diversity of those vocations gave Rotary a special strength. And that diversity is reflected in our classification system, which aims to ensure that each club represents the full range of businesses and professions that serve each community.
Paul Harris put it this way: "Each Rotarian is the connecting link between the idealism of Rotary and his trade or profession." It was true when he said it and should be equally true now. We only spend an hour or two a week at our Rotary meetings, but most of us spend most of our waking time at work. Through Rotary, those hours are also an opportunity for service: a chance to Be the Inspiration to those we work with, those who work for us, and the communities we serve.
I would be willing to bet that most Rotarians remember the person who sponsored them into their Rotary club. It's a person we will never forget and to whom we will always be grateful for sharing with us such a life-changing opportunity. Having said that, I'm not really sure most of us can pinpoint exactly when our Foundation became so important to us. It's not quite as simple as someone inviting you to a meeting. But I have to think there was some seminal event, project, or happening — whether in your club or district, or internationally — that turned on that light for you.
Since 1905, Rotary clubs have provided the outlet that allows Rotarians to be people of action in their communities. Our local clubs are where we live, work, and make lifelong friends, and where and how we have the most direct, visible impact on the place we call home. I firmly believe that when most Rotarians hear "Rotary International," they think of their Rotary club.
On the other hand, when Rotarians hear "The Rotary Foundation," they think of the myriad humanitarian and educational projects and programs that have made the Foundation the premier foundation in our world today. It is truly the magic that brings Rotary to life for them, makes their community the world, and allows them to be global people of action.
As we begin the new calendar year and think about the many things we would like to get done, many of us make New Year's resolutions. I hope one of yours is greater involvement and participation in our Rotary Foundation. Let's each make our Foundation our charity of choice. If we do that, we can make this Rotary year the very best in our incredible history. Please join me and make Rotary's legacy your promise!
The December 13 edition of Sunriser inadvertently omitted Jack Strange's name as Club Public Relations-Image Director.
Jack has served ably in that capacity during 2017-2018 and has an additional year to serve in this vital role. Often without by-line, Jack has provided seasoned skill in promoting events and creating professional images and copy.
Rotary Club of Santa Rosa Sunrise - Founded June 30, 1986
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