Steven Brown

Anthony Brandt urges his composition students at Rice University to keep an open mind about the musical styles that influence them. “I often say, ‘Don’t put a fence around yourself. Feel the joy of having an open field around you, and discover what you might love that you didn’t know you would,’” he explains.

After staging its first full-length opera last season, Houston’s Ars Lyrica is giving itself a year’s break before it presents the second.

Houston’s Da Camera bills itself as a presenter of chamber music and jazz, but that hardly gives you the whole picture.

The project could hardly have a catchier title: 20x2020. But the Apollo Chamber Players faced the challenge of bringing it off. With only six years to go, could the group choose and commission 20 composers to create works it could premiere by 2020?

Don’t hold your breath waiting for Houston’s River Oaks Chamber Orchestra (ROCO) to anoint a conductor as its music director. Being player-driven is in ROCO’s DNA.