Artistic Partners, New Works, and Historic Musical Moments: Houston’s ROCO at 15
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.
Steven Brown
Artful Summer Travels: Santa Fe Opera & Crested Butte Arts Festival
Once Texas’ summer torpor hits, escaping the heat may be priority No. 1. If you’re looking for a reason to flee to a higher, cooler altitude, Santa Fe Opera (June 28-Aug. 24) offers a world premiere, the company’s first staging of a 20th-century classic, and new productions of two perennial favorites.
Dallas Opera’s Season of Celebration
The Dallas Opera commemorates a handful of anniversaries next season, and the most notable involves one of your not-so-catchy numbers.
Fort Worth Opera Festival Kicks off with ‘Porgy and Bess’
Thanks to his boundless optimism, the hero of Porgy and Bess is one of opera’s most lovable characters. Porgy needs all the hope he can summon, because he often contends with the weaknesses and errors of others--especially those of his beloved Bess.
Dallas Symphony’s Soluna Festival Thinks Big
Why does the Dallas Symphony mount its annual Soluna music-and-arts festival? Not because it wants to escape the proverbial same old thing. For an orchestra, “the ‘same old’ is fantastic,” president Kim Noltemy says. With Soluna, the group is thinking bigger.
Out of the Shadows: HGO’s ‘Don Giovanni’ and ‘The Phoenix’ Explore the Mozart & da Ponte Partnership
He helped create an iconic group of operas, but to most of us, he exists as little more than a surname after a hyphen: Mozart-da Ponte. Yet without Lorenzo da Ponte’s librettos, we wouldn’t have Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni or Così fan tutte.
Musical Story Lines: Houston Symphony’s New Season
A festival celebrating arch-Romantic composer Robert Schumann. Spotlights on Richard Strauss, master of orchestral tone-painting, and today’s John Adams. A pairing of dramatic but little-known choral works by Felix Mendelssohn and Gustav Mahler.
Sylvia Continues Houston Ballet’s Storybook Season
Thanks to Welch’s love for the music, he and the company are about to unveil their first staging of the mythology-based work, which premiered in a luxe Paris Opera Ballet production in 1876. Sylvia, the tale of a shepherd’s love for a forest nymph, is the first of four full-length story ballets that Houston Ballet has in store from now through June. The coming ones include the other great beneficiary of Delibes’ gifts, Coppélia.
REVIEW: Ars Lyrica’s ‘Agrippina’
When Matthew Dirst was a graduate student in France, a splashy revival of a long-neglected 17th-century opera galvanized his love of baroque music.
Dialogues Between Art and Music/Soundings: New Music at the Nasher
Listen to music in a roomful of visual art, and your eyes and ears may pick up parallels thanks to sheer serendipity.
Art for All at Austin’s SAGE Studio
Even though Katie Stahl enjoyed painting when she was growing up, she earned her college degree in psychology. Later, a friend’s suggestion led her to visit Creativity Explored, a San Francisco art center with a special mission: helping people with developmental disabilities become working artists.
Playful Challenges Ahead: Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company’s Austin Season
Kathy Dunn Hamrick begins with a really clean slate.