The Pacific Chamber Symphony will begin its first season of concerts at the Napa Valley Opera House with a performance of "Traditions" March 9.

Now in its 17th year, the symphony has several homes in the Bay Area, performing in Pleasanton, Lafayette and San Francisco. After an single performance in Napa last year ("Echoes of Prague") conductor Lawrence Kohl, decided Napa just might be the North Bay location.

In this difficult time for classical orchestras, this Bay Area symphony has survived and prospered with high artistic standards and the canny leadership of Orinda-resident Kohl.

"You have the perfect venue for this orchestra," Kohl said, during a recent visit to the Register. "You have two sides of music (in Napa), the Napa Valley Symphony and the wonderful chamber music series (Chamber Music in Napa Valley). We are the piece that is in between, smaller than a symphony but bigger than a quartet."

Typically between 18 and 36 members perform with the Pacific Chamber Orchestra, presenting themed concerts that celebrate the rich diversity of music written for a midsized orchestra.

"The term intimate grandeur is really the perfect description for a chamber orchestra," Kohl said.

Kohl will present three concerts in Napa in 2006, Kohl said, starting with "Traditions."

This concert "will venture down the joyous, creative and sometimes heartbreaking path of Jewish composers in America," Kohl said. " Copland, Gershwin, they created the American style."

Starting with the roots in the Yiddish theater, which became popular in New York in the late 19th century, Kohl said the program will present music that grew out of the cultural opportunity that immigrant Jews found to make better lives for themselves -- through music. "Music drama dance became the way to work your way out of the ghetto," Kohl said.

Kohl said his own father was a musician in New York in the early 20th century - and used his talent to finance his education, studying architecture at Columbia.

On the program is George Gershwin's "Melodies" and Aaron Copland's "Quiet City for English Horn, Trumpet and Strings."

The second part of the program will look at music after the Holocaust, with Lucas Foss' "Elegy for Anne Frank," Michael Issacson's bittersweet "Remembrance for Strings, and Fanfare and Belief," and concluding with the world premier e of Jorge Liderman's "Wholetone Freilach."

"It looks to the future," Kohl said. "I like to think that when one comes to the concert, one will just have an experience that doesn't have to be intellectual."

The additional concerts planned for this season include "Rendering and Revelation," April 7, which is described as a celebration of Bay Area composers Gorden Getty and Pulitzer Prize winner Wayne Peterson a long with "Rendering," Berio's "imaginative rendering Schubert's fragments for a 10th symphony."

May 20 the Pacific Chamber Orchestra will present its tribute to Mozart 250 years after his birth, "Amadeus." On this program is Mozart's "Contredances," "Sinfonia Concertante," "March in C," "Adante for Flute and his "work of towering emotional magnitude," the Symphony No. 40.

Tickets for the Napa concerts are $35 each, or $90 for a season ticket ($52 for students; $32 for children under 15). To reserve tickets contact the Opera House at 226-7372.