Music
Review: The Rumi Concert
The Rumi-atics came out in full force to the Brown Foundation Performing Arts Theater at the Asia Society Texas Center on May 22 to see the great sage and Rumi translator and scholar Coleman Barks. If anyone can bring the 13th [...]
Review: Don Carlos
What does a choir of red crosses, pyrotechnics, and a wooden cart carrying chained heretics make? In Houston Grand Opera’s version of Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlos, it’s the turning point from a mediocre opera to a memorable one. Don [...]
Review: Houston Grand Opera’s Mary Stuart
The tragedy of Geatano Donizetti’s Mary Stuart, which had its Houston Grand Opera premiere last month, is that there’s so much drama, intrigue and passion in the real story behind rival queens Elizabeth I of England and Mary, Queen of Scots [...]
Cultural Warrior: Mercury’s Antoine Plante
One of the city’s leading early music organizations, Mercury Baroque, has recently re-branded itself as Mercury-the Orchestra Redefined. Antoine Plante, conductor and artistic director, left Montreal to attend Rice University’s [...]
WindSync: Savvy, Smarts, & Sass
There’s nary a music stand in sight when woodwind quintet, WindSync, swaggers street-gang-style to tunes from Bernstein’s West Side Story or adorably masks as woodland denizens for a whimsical rendition of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf [...]
Filling the Air with Beautiful Music
A trained pianist and radio executive, Sarah B. Colmark has taken over the reigns as the new General Manager of WRR Classical 101.1 FM, North Texas’ classical music station. Prior to Dallas, she was station manager of Classical KHFM-FM (95.5 and 102.9 FM) in the Albuquerque/Santa Fe [...]
Review: American Sabor, Latinos in U.S. Popular Music
In Spanish the word “sabor” means “flavor” and is often used to describe good music. The traveling exhibition “American Sabor” explores the influence of Latino musicians in post-World War II America through the lens of major centers of Latino music production. Physical space limitations [...]
Song in the Key of Life
Turtle Creek Chorale Moves Forward with Positive Attitude After a year as the interim director of the Turtle Creek Chorale, Trey Jacobs accepted the position of artistic director. Founded in 1980, the Morton Meyerson Symphony Center is home for the 225-member men’s chorus [...]
Review: La Resurrezione
After hearing Ars Lyrica’s rendition of Handel’s oratorio “La Resurrezione,” one must wonder why this little-known work about the story of Jesus’ resurrection is not performed more often. With gifted musicians on period instruments [...]
Review: Debussy’s Paris
Long known for its inventive and contextualized programs, Da Camera Houston did what it does best with its recent presentation of “Debussy’s Paris.” “Lisle Joyeuse,” the Debussy favorite for solo piano was paired with the Sonata [...]
Review: Il Trovatore
With hidden identities, passionate love, and a gypsy’s vicious revenge, it is no wonder that Verdi’s dramatic “Il Trovatore” remains so popular. It’s a task to add passion to this already effusive opera, but this is precisely [...]