Renegade Orchestra co-founder and cellist Rebecca Roudman says in an interview that the Piedmont Center for the Arts occupies a special place in her heart and in the ensemble’s history.
“Our very first concert in 2021 was at the Brooklyn Basin in Oakland, and we sold that out right away,” Roudman says. “We needed a place to have a second show for the overflow. Fortunately, the PCA said, ‘Let’s do it.’ I remember we had an outdoor concert, which you don’t picture when you think about a rock ‘n’ roll orchestra.
“We’ve performed in a single-resident occupancy in the Tenderloin (district of San Francisco), a boathouse theater in Tahoe, we’ll go almost anywhere. That’s one thing that makes us renegade.”
Returning this Saturday to the PCA — this time indoors — Roudman and co-founder/conductor Jason Eckl will bring a set list packed with surprising adaptations of well-known songs and compositions (piedmontcenterforthearts.org).
The group’s nine musicians (renegadeorchestra.com) are steeped in decades of classical music training and experienced in performing in everything from small venues like the PCA to major concert halls that seat audiences of more than 500 people. Roudman says intimate stages gain advantage by allowing an audience to “feel like one of us, like a part of what we’re doing.”
What they’re doing, of course, is performing rock songs, jazz standards and other compositions that people may have heard played for years but just in one, expected way and not an orchestral version.
“Choosing iconic songs that are played by a rock orchestra means the songs are familiar but also different,” Roudman says.
Asked if the band makes adjustments to accommodate its proximity to the audience (changes that may not have been necessary during their first, outdoor appearance at the PCA), she says, “Yes. When we played outdoors, I think there was construction nearby, and we competed with those sounds. But I later played inside with Dirty Cello (the cello-led combo group she founded that plays their instruments in equally renegade fashion).
“We dialed down the volume, but the space retained all of its energy and fun. From my experience playing with Oakland Symphony and other large orchestras, the audience sits far, far away. Sometimes at Oakland Symphony, people paid extra to sit onstage with the orchestra and loved it. With this show, you don’t have to pay extra and you can sit close enough to feel the power of our rock orchestra.”
The set list for the roughly 75-minute program that runs without intermission includes, among others, “I Wanna Be Sedated,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Sweet Home Alabama,” “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” “Riders on the Storm” and “Mary Had A Little Lamb.”
The last song, a 19th century nursery rhyme, offers intriguing possibilities and is exactly why a person might choose to attend a Renegade Orchestra concert. At every show, Roudman or Eckl invite people to make requests for favorite works — or in this case, present a song to satisfy curiosity about what may happen to an improbable suggestion.
“With any suggestion, we tell them we can’t play it right away, because it needs to be arranged for the orchestra. Which means we have to research, get the chords and charts and Jason has to decide what adaptations for strings are needed. It takes sometimes a year to get it ready to perform.”
They soon discovered that “Mary Had a Little Lamb” is actually a Stevie Ray Vaughan standard.
“We had thought it was an audience member playing a joke on us,” Roudman says. “But in our adaptation, there’s the main melody at the beginning, which goes into members of the orchestra taking a blues solo if they choose. What I like is that this isn’t set who will want to play.”
During concerts and what will happen at the PCA, Eckl scans the orchestra to see who signals they want a solo turn.
“They nod at him, he nods, and then they can play however long they want, until they feel the’ve completed the solo. As the conductor, he feels musically, in the moment, if it needs another solo or not. Sometimes, he’ll make two soloists go back-and-forth, trading passages. We never know in advance what will happen.”
Although less improvisational, other works convey the same, electric, in-the-moment energy. The famous Doors song “Riders on the Storm,” was requested more than a year ago.
“Jason arranged it to sound mysterious. It’s the intricacy of what the strings are doing. The violins don’t play all in unison. There are quarter and 16th notes that intertwine, and you often can’t tell who is playing what.”
Roudman says she actually thinks of traditional classical orchestras as cover bands.
“They’re playing songs that have existed for centuries, and inevitably instruments develop, new musicians develop, so those works are covers of the music when it was originally written. With our choosing rock songs people have heard their whole lives but done in a different way — people like it. Iconic songs played by a rock orchestra are both familiar and new.”
Noting significant changes in the music industry and how musicians perform, record, market themselves and are produced, brings unexpected — maybe even renegade — comments.
“As much as everyone bashes social media, there are great parts. To be able to create videos and put them on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube — that provides interest. It’s true, people’s attention spans are shorter than 10 years ago. So now, we put up a 10-second video that’s like a teaser or a movie preview. If we can pique their interest, then they look at all of our stuff and they come to our shows. Everybody benefits.”
Renegade Orchestra has another gig March 30 at the Martinez Campbell Theater. Tickets are moving swiftly, and Roudman says, “We’re going to try and cram our chamber orchestra on that stage, a stage usually reserved for musicals. If it sells out, Bay Area audiences can look for us on April 5 in Petaluma in an event space that used to be a bank, and anyone can visit our website to learn of future shows.”
For more information and tickets (if still available), visit bit.ly/pcarenorchshow online.
Lou Fancher is a freelance writer. Reach her at lou@johnsonandfancher.com.