I caught up with musicians from nine distinctive ensembles in Houston to reflect on the past year and look to the future. In Part Three, I visited with the Axiom Quartet, Houston Brass Quintet and Texas New Music Ensemble.
Houston is home to numerous chamber music ensembles that have thrived alongside each other, carving out their own niches with unique visions of how to present music and connect with audiences.
“I mean, I’m exhausted most of the time,” laughs Marlana Doyle, founder and executive/artistic director of Houston Contemporary Dance Company (HCDC), who is also president and CEO of the Institute of Contemporary Dance (ICD).
Thick black smoke clouds engulf the large canvas mural that dominates the entrance of artist Anna Mayer’s solo exhibition, Forms of Inheritance, on view through May 8 at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC).
Of all the best-laid plans of mice and women that went awry in 2020, one I regret missing was a conversation with Stages artistic director Kenn McLaughlin.
The Fort Worth Symphony will spotlight Antonín Dvořák’s melodious but unfamiliar Serenade in E major on Jan. 8-10. The same weekend, Dallas Symphony performances of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony in A-flat--a supersized version of the composer’s Quartet No. 10--will show how intense a string ensemble can be. The Houston Symphony will partner with onetime prodigy, now mature artist Midori in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto on Jan. 15-17.