Contents:
Official Program Magazine of the Houston Symphony 615 Louisiana, Suite 102, Houston, Texas 77002 (713) 224-4240 | houstonsymphony.org
March | 2013
PROGRAMS
12 March 1 - 2 20 March 7, 9 - 10 24 March 15 - 17 29 March 22 - 24 32 March 28 35 March 30
Magical Music from the Movies
ON STAGE AND OFF
this month, the Symphony a star-studded Centennial Pops 35 Late 10 It’s will perform the music to Season! Check the dates so that you
5 Credits 43 Donors 39 Education and Community Engagement 40 Endowment Trust 7 Hans Graf 38 Houston Symphony Chorus 4 Letter to Patrons 4 New Century Society 6 Orchestra and Staff 42 Symphony Society
some of Disney’s most beloved animated films. Bring the kids out to this evening of family fun!
don’t miss out!
FEATURES
52 Backstage Pass 10 Centennial Pops Season 8 Special Events 26 Upcoming Performances
is still space at the table for the Maestro’s Wine Dinner 8 There and Collector’s Auction in May. Turn to page 8 for details on how to get your ticket.
Cover photo by Anthony Rathbun. On the cover: Houston Symphony or advertising contact New Leaf Publishing at (713) 523-5323 F info@newleafinc.com | www.newleafinc.com | 2006 Huldy, Houston, Texas 77019 The Houston Symphony currently records under its own label, Houston Symphony Media Productions, and for Naxos. Houston Symphony recordings also are available on the Telarc, RCA Red Seal, Virgin Classics and Koch International Classics labels.
Acknowledgements
The Official Airline of the Houston Symphony
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LETTER TO PATRONS
Photo by Anthony Rathbun
We are excited to welcome you back to Jones Hall this month for a wide variety of performances that speak to the Houston Symphony’s breadth and ambition. A busy March begins with the greatly anticipated performances on March 1 and 2 of Wozzeck, Alban Berg’s 20th-century masterpiece and a work of deep significance to our Maestro and the ongoing artistic development of the orchestra. The following week, Hans Graf welcomes his talented friend, violinist Leonidas Kavakos, back to the Jones Hall stage on March 7, 9 and 10 for performances of Shostakovich’s 1st Violin Concerto followed by Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony. In between these concerts, the 2013 Houston Symphony Ball Russian Rhapsody: A White Night Salute to Hans and Margarita Graf takes place on March 8. Under the inspired leadership of chairs Phoebe and Bobby Tudor, the 2013 Ball is well on the way to setting another fundraising milestone in excess of $1 million. Please join us for this opulent white tie affair in a tented ballroom on the campus of Rice University, this year’s recipient of our Community Partner Award. To reserve your table and tickets, please contact specialevents@houstonsymphony.org or (713) 238-1485. Thanks to the generous support of Spec’s Charitable Foundation, our annual Salute to Educators concert is free for all teachers and their guests and provides the Symphony with an opportunity to honor their important work. This year’s performance on March 28 will feature pianist Anna Han, winner of the Houston Symphony League 2012 Concerto Competition and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in a side-byside performance with Virtuosi of Houston Chamber Orchestra, one of our youth orchestra partners. Finally, aspiring musicians, take note of this exciting announcement! The Gold Medal winner for the 2013 Houston Symphony Ima Hogg Competition will take home five times more prize money than last year. Through the generous donation of Symphony patrons, John and Tracy Dennis, and in honor of John’s grandmother, the Grace Woodson Memorial Award has been increased from $5,000 to $25,000, in addition to an increase in the entire prize pool from $9,300 to $42,000. The Finals Concert will be held on Saturday, June 1, at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and broadcast live on Houston’s Classical 91.7 FM.
Photo by bruce bennett
Robert A. Peiser President
Mark C. Hanson Executive Director/CEO
New Century Society for Artistic Excellence and Innovation The New Century Society recognizes the Houston Symphony’s most committed and loyal supporters who have pledged their leadership support over a three-year period to help secure the orchestra’s financial future. For more information or to pledge your support, please contact Mark C. Hanson, Executive Director/CEO, at (713) 238-1411 or David Chambers, Chief Development Officer, at (713) 337-8525.
Janice H. Barrow Mr. George P. Mitchell Mrs. Kitty King Powell Bobby & Phoebe Tudor Margaret Alkek Williams Lieutenant Governor & Mrs. David H. Dewhurst Mr. & Mrs. Jim R. Smith Mr. Mike Stude Mr. & Mrs. Jesse B. Tutor
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Rochelle & Max Levit Cora Sue & Harry Mach Joella & Steven P. Mach The Methodist Hospital System Nancy & Robert Peiser Laura & Michael Shannon Baker Botts L.L.P. Mr. & Mrs. Edward F. Blackburne Jr. Mr. & Mrs. John P. Dennis III Stephen & Mariglyn Glenn Wells Fargo
CREDITS
Mark C. Hanson Executive Director/CEO Holly Cassard Editor Carl Cunningham Program Annotator Elaine Reeder Mayo Editorial Consultant
www.newleafinc.com (713) 523-5323 Janet Meyer Publisher janetmeyer@newleafinc.com Keith Gumney Art Director kgumney@newleafinc.com Jennifer Greenberg Projects Director jenniferg@newleafinc.com Kaitlyn Dubose Intern Frances Powell Account Executive divascenes@aol.com Tricia Pucciarello Account Executive Carey Clark CC Catalyst Communications Marlene Walker Walker Media LLC The activities and projects of the Houston Symphony are funded in part by grants from the City of Houston, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Texas Commission on the Arts. The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion at The Woodlands is the Summer Home of the Houston Symphony. Digital pre-media services by Vertis APS Houston Contents copyright Š 2013 by the Houston Symphony
LATE SEATING In consideration of audience members, the Houston Symphony makes every effort to begin concerts on time. Ushers will assist with late seating at pre-designated intervals. You may be asked to sit in a location other than your ticketed seat until the end of that portion of the concert. You will be able to move to your ticketed seat at the concert break. CHILDREN AT CONCERTS In consideration of our patrons, we ask that children be 6 years and older to attend Houston Symphony concerts. Children of all ages, including infants, are admitted to Family Concerts. Any child over age 1 must have a ticket for those performances. CAMERAS, RECORDERS, CELL PHONES & PAGERS Cameras and recorders are not permitted in the hall. Patrons may not use any device to record or photograph performances. Please silence cell phones, pagers and alarm watches and refrain from texting during performances. March 2013
ORCHESTRA AND STAFF Hans Graf, Music Director
Mark C. Hanson, Executive Director/CEO
Roy and Lillie Cullen Chair
Michael Krajewski,
Principal Pops Conductor
AndrĂŠs Orozco-Estrada, Music Director Designate
Robert Franz,
Associate Conductor Sponsor, Beth Madison
FIRST VIOLIN: Frank Huang, Concertmaster Max Levine Chair Eric Halen, Associate Concertmaster Ellen E. Kelley Chair Assia Dulgerska, Assistant Concertmaster** Cornelia and Meredith Long Chair Qi Ming, Assistant Concertmaster Fondren Foundation Chair Marina Brubaker Hewlett-Packard Company Chair Alexandra Adkins** Sergei Galperin MiHee Chung Rodica Gonzalez Ferenc Illenyi Si-Yang Lao Kurt Johnson Christopher Neal Oleg Chelpanov* SECOND VIOLIN: Jennifer Owen, Principal Tina Zhang, Associate Principal** Sophia Silivos, Acting Associate Principal Hitai Lee Kiju Joh Mihaela Frusina Ruth Zeger Margaret Bragg Martha Chapman Kevin Kelly** Tong Yan Christine Pastorek Amy Teare David Brubaker* VIOLA: Wayne Brooks, Principal Mr. & Mrs. Jesse B. Tutor Legacy Society Chair Joan DerHovsepian, Associate Principal George Pascal, Assistant Principal Wei Jiang Linda Goldstein Sheldon Person Fay Shapiro Daniel Strba Mr. and Mrs. Jesse B. Tutor Chair Thomas Molloy Phyllis Herdliska CELLO: Brinton Averil Smith, Principal Janice and Thomas Barrow Chair Christopher French, Associate Principal Haeri Ju** Jeffrey Butler Kevin Dvorak Xiao Wong Myung Soon Lee James R. Denton** Anthony Kitai Hellen Weberpal*
DOUBLE BASS: David Malone, Acting Principal Eric Larson, Acting Associate Principal Mark Shapiro Robert Pastorek Burke Shaw Donald Howey Michael McMurray FLUTE: Aralee Dorough, Principal General Maurice Hirsch Chair Judy Dines, Acting Associate Principal Allison Jewett** Gina Hughes* Rebecca Powell Garfield* PICCOLO: Allison Jewett** Rebecca Powell Garfield* OBOE: Jonathan Fischer, Principal Lucy Binyon Stude Chair Anne Leek, Associate Principal Colin Gatwood Adam Dinitz
TRUMPET: Mark Hughes, Principal George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Chair John DeWitt, Associate Principal Robert Walp, Assistant Principal Anthony Prisk Speros P. Martel Chair TROMBONE: Allen Barnhill, Principal Bradley White, Associate Principal Phillip Freeman BASS TROMBONE: Phillip Freeman TUBA: Dave Kirk, Principal TIMPANI: Ronald Holdman, Principal Brian Del Signore, Associate Principal PERCUSSION: Brian Del Signore, Principal Mark Griffith Matthew Strauss
ENGLISH HORN: Adam Dinitz
HARP: Paula Page, Principal
CLARINET: David Peck, Principal Thomas LeGrand, Associate Principal Christian Schubert Alexander Potiomkin
KEYBOARD: Scott Holshouser, Principal Neva Watkins West Chair
E-FLAT CLARINET: Thomas LeGrand BASS CLARINET: Alexander Potiomkin Tassie and Constantine S. Nicandros Chair
ORCHESTRA PERSONNEL MANAGER: Michael Gorman ASSISTANT ORCHESTRA PERSONNEL MANAGER: Linda Oper LIBRARIAN: Thomas Takaro
BASSOON: Rian Craypo, Principal Stewart Orton Chair Eric Arbiter, Associate Principal American General Chair Elise Wagner J. Jeff Robinson** Benjamin Atherholt*
ASSISTANT LIBRARIANS: Erik Gronfor Michael McMurray
CONTRABASSOON: J. Jeff Robinson** Benjamin Atherholt*
STAGE TECHNICIAN: Toby Blunt Zoltan Fabry Cory Grant
HORN: William VerMeulen, Principal Robert Johnson, Acting Associate Principal* Brian Thomas Robert and Janice McNair Foundation Chair Nancy Goodearl Wade Butin*
STAGE MANAGER: Donald Ray Jackson ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER: Kelly Morgan
*Contracted Substitute **On Leave
Steinway is the official piano of the Houston Symphony. James B. Kozak, Piano Technician. Local assistance is provided by Forshey Piano Co. The Houston Symphony’s concert piano is a gift of Mrs. Helen B. Rosenbaum.
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Meg Philpot, Director of Human Resources Stacey Spears, Executive Assistant and Board Liaison Amanda T. Dinitz, Director, Executive Operations Steve Wenig, Director, Community Partnerships
Steven Brosvik,
General Manager Roger Daily, Director, Education and Community Engagement Michael Gorman, Orchestra Personnel Manager Kristin L. Johnson, Director, Operations and Production Allison Conlan, Education and Community Engagement Coordinator Donald Ray Jackson, Stage Manager Kelly Morgan, Assistant Stage Manager Linda Oper, Assistant Orchestra Personnel Manager Kathryn Wene, Operations Assistant Meredith Williams, Operations Manager
Michael D. Pawson, Chief Financial Officer Sally Brassow, Controller Philip Gulla, Director, Technology Amed Hamila, Director, Database Support Heather Fails, Manager, Ticketing Database Janis Pease LaRocque, Manager, Patron Database Kay Middleton, Receptionist Maria Ross, Payroll Manager Armin (A.J.) Salge, Network Systems Engineer Chris Westerfelt, Manager, Accounts Payable and Special Projects
Aurelie Desmarais, Senior Director, Artistic Planning Merle N. Bratlie, Director, Artist Services Lesley Sabol, Director, Popular Programming Thomas Takaro, Librarian Sarah Berggren, Chorus Manager Erik Gronfor, Assistant Librarian Michael McMurray, Assistant Librarian Rebecca Zabinski, Artistic Associate
Glenn Taylor, Senior Director, Marketing Melissa H. Lopez, Director of Marketing, Single Tickets and Group Sales Carlos Vicente, Director of Marketing, Subscriptions and Digital Media/Creative Services Jenny Zuniga, Director, Patron Services Jeff Gilmer, Patron Services Coordinator, Group Sales/ Ticket Inventory Jason Landry, Senior Manager, Patron Services Georgia McBride, Assistant Marketing Manager, Digital Media/Young Audience Engagement Erin Mushalla, Assistant Marketing Manager, Single Tickets Sarah Rendon, Patron Services Representative Valerie Richmond, Marketing Assistant Derrick Rose, Marketing Coordinator, Group Sales and Promotions Courtney Ryan, Graphic Designer
Jennifer R. Mire, Senior Director, Communications Holly Cassard, Manager, Communications Clair Studdard, Assistant, Communications
David Chambers, Chief Development Officer Stephanie Jones, Senior Director, Events and League Relations Mark Folkes, Director, Individual Giving and Major Gifts Vickie Hamley, Director, Volunteer Services Brandon VanWaeyenberghe, Director, Corporate Relations Darryl de Mello, Annual Fund Manager Jennifer Martin, Institutional Giving Coordinator Irma Molina, Development Assistant, Gifts and Records Annette Moore, Development Operations Manager Nicole Peralta, Associate Director, Events Sarah Beth Seifert, Manager, Events Sarah Slemmons, Patron Donor Relations Manager Lena Streetman, Manager, Prospect Research Alexandra Yates, Development Officer, Individual Giving
HANS GRAF BIOGRAPHY Photo by bruce bennett
Known for his wide range of repertoire and creative programming, Austrian conductor Hans Graf—the Houston Symphony’s 15th Music Director—is one of today’s most highly respected musicians. He began his tenure here on Opening Night of the 2001-02 season. Prior to his appointment in Houston, he was music director of the Calgary Philharmonic, the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra and the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra. A frequent guest with all of the major North American orchestras, Graf appears regularly with the Boston Symphony during its subscription season and at the Tanglewood Music Festival. He made his Carnegie Hall debut with the Houston Symphony in 2006 and returned with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in 2007. He and the Houston Symphony were invited to appear at Carnegie Hall in 2010 to present the New York premiere of The Planets—An HD Odyssey and returned in 2012 for the Spring for Music Festival. Internationally, Graf conducts in the foremost concert halls of Europe, Japan and Australia. In 2012, he and the Houston Symphony became the first American orchestra ever to perform at the Festival of the World’s Symphony Orchestras in Moscow, Russia. He also led a tour of the UK in 2010 to present the international premiere of The Planets—An HD Odyssey. He has participated in the Maggio Musi-
cale Fiorentino, Bregenz, Aix en Provence and Salzburg Festivals. His U.S. festival appearances include Tanglewood, Blossom Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival and the Grant Park Music Festival. An experienced opera conductor, Graf first conducted the Vienna State Opera in 1981 and has since led productions in the opera houses of Berlin, Munich, Paris and Rome. Born in 1949 near Linz, Graf studied violin and piano as a child. He earned diplomas in piano and conducting from the Musikhochschule in Graz and continued his studies with Franco Ferrara, Sergiu Celibidache and Arvid Jansons. His career was launched in 1979 when he won first prize at the Karl Böhm Competition. His extensive discography includes recordings with the Houston Symphony, available through houstonsymphony.org: works by Bartók and Stravinsky, Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony, Berg’s Three Pieces from the Lyric Suite, a DVD of The Planets—An HD Odyssey and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. Graf has been awarded the Chevalier de l’ordre de la Legion d’Honneur by the French government for championing French music around the world and the Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold for Services to the Republic of Austria. Hans and Margarita Graf have homes in Salzburg and Houston. They have one daughter, Anna, who lives in Vienna.
March 2013
SPECIAL EVENTS
photos by Michelle Watson / CatchLight Group
Houston Symphony Children’s Fashion Show & Luncheon
Featuring Fashions by Neiman Marcus April 21, 2013 11:30
am
to 1:30
pm
River Oaks Country Club Chairs: Catherine Baen Hennessy, Peggy Hennessy, Megan Hennessy Parker Supporting the Houston Symphony’s Education and Outreach Programs, Music Matters!
Maestro’s Wine Dinner and Collector’s Auction “If music be the food of love, play on.” Join us for a very special night as we celebrate Maestro Hans Graf at his final Wine Dinner as Music Director. May 19, 2013 6:00
pm
On the Stage of Jones Hall Chairs: Judy and Rodney Margolis, Mary Lynn and Steve Marks Wine Chairs: Lindy and John Rydman Collector’s Auction Chairs: Tom Nichols and Robert Sakowitz Supporting the Houston Symphony Ima Hogg Competition Tables of 10: $7,500 (limited), $10,000, $15,000, $25,000, $50,000
For more information and to purchase tickets to these and other exciting Houston Symphony Special Events: specialevents@houstonsymphony.org or (713) 238-1485
www.houstonsymphony.org
photos by Jenny Antill
Individual Tickets: $750, $1,500
2013-14 POPS SEASON
Don’t miss the “I’ve never had so much fun at an orchestra concert” Season.
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5
irque de la Symphonie New Acts! C August 30, 31, September 1, 2013
he Soundtrack of Our Lives T with Tony DeSare January 24, 25, 26, 2014
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ymphonic Spectacular! See the Music S With Host Sigourney Weaver May 23, 24, 25, 2014
Symphony Special
2
lassic Soul C October 4, 5, 6, 2013
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6
uck be a Lady L Starring Megan Hilty from NBC’s Smash November 15, 16, 17, 2013
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usic of the Mad Men Era M February 21, 22, 23, 2014
00 Years of Broadway 1 March 28, 29, 30, 2014
Steve Tyrell & Friends Thursday, March 13, 2014, 7:30 pm With a little help from his friends, GRAMMY® award-winning vocalist and Houston hero Steve Tyrell returns to the Jones Hall stage. Legendary friends will cameo with Steve Tyrell and the Houston Symphony for a night filled with once in a lifetime performances of American standards. Hear favorites like “The Way You Look Tonight,” “The Simple Life” and “Crush on You.” Seats will go on sale to the general public on November 1, 2013.
4
ery Merry Pops V December 13, 14, 15, 2013
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hris Botti C April 25, 26, 27, 2014
POPS
Cynthia Woods Mitchell at Jones Hall
POPS Presenting Sponsor
Subscribe now, for as low as $132! Subscribers get flexible ticket exchange privileges. Call or click (713) 224-7575 or houstonsymphony.org. 10
www.houstonsymphony.org
MARCH 1 - 2, 2013
Wozzeck in Concert Hans Graf, conductor Roman Trekel, Wozzeck | Anne Schwanewilms, Marie
Gordon Gietz, Drum Major | Marc Molomot, Captain | Nathan Berg, Doctor | *Robert McPherson, Andres Katherine Ciesinski, Margaret | *Calvin Griffin, Apprentice 1 | Samuel Schultz, Apprentice 2 | Brenton Ryan, Fool Chorus: Students and Alumni of Rice University, Shepherd School of Music Members of the Houston Grand Opera Children’s Chorus Karen Reeves, director Creative Team: Kristin L. Johnson, director | Katrina Bachus, assistant director | Meredith Williams, assistant stage manager Terri Batcheller, lighting designer | Glenn Lewis, piano/musical preparation
Friday, March 1, 2013 8 pm Saturday, March 2, 2013 8 pm
Jones Hall
Berg Wozzeck, Opus 7 Act I Scene 1 (Captain’s Quarters): Sehr mäßig Viertel— Scene 2 (Field Outside the City): Sehr langsam— Scene 3 (Marie’s Room): Marschtempo— Scene 4 (Doctor’s Study): Sehr langsam— Scene 5 (Marie’s Street): Andante affetuoso Act II Scene 1 (Marie’s Room): Scene 2 (City Street): Scene 3 (Marie’s Street): Scene 4 (Beer Garden): Scene 5 (Barracks):
Poco allegro—Allegro leggiero— Mäßig Viertel— Largo— Langsamer Ländler— Sehr Langsam
Act III Scene 1 (Marie’s Room): Scene 2 (Forest Pond): Scene 3 (A Tavern): Scene 4 (Forest Pond): Scene 5 (Marie’s Street):
Grave— Tempo I— Mäßig— Poco Allegro— Fließende Achtel, aber mit viel Rubato
Hans Graf’s biography appears on page 7. *Houston Symphony debut Opera in three acts (15 scenes) after the drama by Georg Büchner Used by arrangement with European American Music Distributors Company, U.S. and Canadian agent for Universal Edition Vienna, publisher and copyright owner. 12
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ca. 1:30
WOZZECK IN CONCERT | MARCH 1-2 The Houston Symphony gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the following donors to this important project: Guarantor The Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts Underwriter The Brown Foundation, Inc. Mr. Mike Stude
Shell Favorite Masters Series
The Houston Symphony would like to thank the following community partners who have helped to make Wozzeck a success: Christ the King Lutheran Church Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center
Sponsor Janice H. Barrow Mr. Michael H. Clark and Ms. Sallie Morian Rochelle and Max Levit Marathon Oil Corporation National Endowment for the Arts Partner Robin Angly and Miles Smith Drs. Dennis and Susan Carlyle Laura and Michael Shannon Bobby and Phoebe Tudor The Vaughn Foundation Patron Catherine Jane Merchant Benefactor Mrs. William Estrada and Vicki West Dr. Susan Gardner and Dr. Philip Scott Drs. Rita and Blair Justice Birgitt van Wijk Friend Meg Boulware / Boulware & Valoir Lee Huber
The Classical Season is endowed by The Wortham Foundation, Inc. in memory of Gus S. and Lyndall F. Wortham. The SoundPlusVision series is sponsored by Margaret Alkek Williams and supported in part by The Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts Endowed Fund for Creative Initiatives.
March 2013 13
NOTES BY CARL CUNNINGHAM | WOZZECK IN CONCERT | MARCH 1-2 WOZZECK, OPUS 7 Alban Berg (1885-1935) Recording Pierre Boulez conducting the Orchestra and Chorus of the Paris National Opera; Walter Berry (Wozzeck), Isabel Strauss (Marie), Fritz Uhl (Drum Major), Albert Weikenmeier (Captain), Carl Doench (Doctor) (Sony) Instrumentation four flutes (all doubling piccolo), four oboes (one doubling English horn), four clarinets (two doubling E-flat clarinets), bass clarinet,
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three bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, four trumpets, four trombones, tuba, two pairs of timpani, percussion, harp, celesta, piano, accordion, guitar and strings
T
he insanity-fueled tragedy of murder-suicide, leaving children orphaned or also dead, has become a constant occurrence on television and in real life. It is a tragedy that has been documented throughout the pages of human history. One similar instance involved the former
soldier and Leipzig barber, Johann Christian Woyzeck, who murdered his allegedly unfaithful mistress in 1821. At his trial, medical testimony that he suffered hallucinations was rejected by the court, and he was executed three years later, causing a terrible protest. In 1825, details of the controversial case were published and became the basis of a theatrical sketch written by 24-year-old Georg Büchner, son of a Darmstadt physician, in 1837, the last year of the young playwright’s life. After two painstaking efforts to publish and revise a complete edition of Büchner’s works over the next 72 years, the 25-scene theatrical sketch was reduced to a threeact, 15-scene opera by Alban Berg between 1914 and 1921. A misspelling of the title character’s name, as Wozzeck in the literary edition, was retained in Berg’s opera. Wozzeck was completed at a crucial moment in Berg’s career and in history. As a prominent member of the Second Viennese School of composers (along with Schoenberg and Webern), he had already embraced an atonal musical idiom—but applied it far more freely and expressively than the other two composers. Already in his 30s, he was proving to be an especially gifted vocal composer. And Berg’s musical drama of an impoverished, abused and ridiculed soldier also reflected the experience of the defeated, disillusioned German and Austrian people at the end of World War I. The opera is remarkably compact, lasting barely 90 minutes, and it is often performed without intermission. Such was the case when former Houston Symphony music director Lawrence Foster conducted a deeply moving stage production of the work in Jones Hall for the Houston Grand Opera in 1982. Act One introduces all the main characters. Wozzeck, who takes on extra jobs to support his mistress, Marie, and their child, is seen shaving the pompous Captain, who reproaches him for his immoral life. “We poor people” (“Wir arme Leut”), Wozzeck cries out. “If I were a gentleman with a hat, watch and eyeglass, I could be virtuous.” This remark serves as the keynote for the tragic events that follow, and its melodic line serves as the leading musical motif throughout the opera. In the second scene, Wozzeck is gathering firewood with a friend, Andres, when he has a hallucination about the meaning of the fiery sunset. In Scene Three, Marie secretly lusts after the handsome Drum Major, while singing a bitter lullaby to their illegitimate child. In Scene Four, a Doctor uses Wozzeck
BIOGRAPHIES | WOZZECK IN CONCERT | MARCH 1-2 as a guinea pig, paying him small sums of money while analyzing his mental disorder, and in Scene Five, Marie gives in to the Drum Major’s sexual advances. Musically, the first act is composed as a set of brief character pieces: a little suite, a rhapsody for the hallucination scene, a march and cradle song for Marie’s scene, a quasi-baroque passacaglia for the Doctor’s scene and a passionate andante for the Drum Major’s seduction scene. Suggestions of a five-movement symphony underlie the five scenes in Act Two, where increasingly public displays of Marie’s infidelity result in taunts by the Captain and Doctor, a humiliating beating by the Drum Major, and finally, Wozzeck’s hallucinogenic vision of a knife as the solution to his problems. Things unravel completely in Act Three. Despite Marie’s remorse over the affair with the Drum Major, Wozzeck lures her to a lakeside bench, where he stabs her. Discovered with blood on his hand in the subsequent Tavern Scene, he rushes back to the lake to wash it off and throw the knife deep into the water. In the act of doing so, the deranged soldier drowns. As the opera ends, the unknowing child slowly follows after his playmates, who have heard that Marie’s body has been found by the lake. Like the preceding acts, the scenes of Act Three take the musical form of six little “inventions,” successively based upon a theme, a note, a rhythm, a six-tone chord and a persistent “perpetual motion” rhythm. Berg uses these various instrumental musical forms—suite, march, rhapsody, symphonic movement and invention—as subliminal structures in the musical drama. While his method is more systematic than one finds in the operas of his predecessors, it stems from a long operatic tradition from Mozart through Massenet and Richard Strauss. These instrumental forms animate the character of the action at given points, and they provide an important structural foundation for any composer working in a freely atonal harmonic medium. But they are only intended to be subconsciously perceived by the listener, since the forces of intensity, relaxation and climax are essential in any musical experience, operatic or not. Wozzeck, of course, is a prime musical document of Expressionism, the artistic movement which pervaded literature, art, sculpture, theatre and dance, especially in Germanic lands during the first quarter of the 20th century. If one would seek its counter-
part in the visual arts, it would be the silent “scream” of the distraught woman peering out of Edvard Munch’s famed painting of the same title—the desperate, unheard cry for help from the poor and dispossessed in the midst of an uncaring mass of humanity. ©2013, Carl R. Cunningham
BIOGRAPHIES ROMAN TREKEL, Wozzeck Roman Trekel has distinguished himself as one of the most sought-after baritones today.
A close collaborator of Staatsoper Berlin and Daniel Barenboim, he has sung to great acclaim on the most important stages of the world. One of the most revered Wolframs of our time, Trekel has starred at the Bayreuther Festspiele for more than 11 consecutive years. Throughout his career, he has been an acclaimed Count (Le nozze di Figaro), Marquis of Posa (Don Carlos), Valentin (Faust), Don Alfonso (Così fan tutte); and most recently, with dramatic roles such as Beckmesser (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Amfortas (Parsifal) and Faust (Doktor Faust). His phe-
March 2013 15
BIOGRAPHIES | WOZZECK IN CONCERT | MARCH 1-2 nomenal debut as Wozzeck received outstanding critical and public acclaim. The haunting portrayal of Berg´s character was deemed as “expressive and deeply shocking with every sentence, every bar, every note” by Berliner Morgenpost, while the Observer called it “heart breaking” and “impeccable.” As a concert singer, Trekel collaborates with the world’s leading orchestras and conductors. He is considered one of the outstanding Lieder interpreters of his generation. His Liederabends have been celebrated all over the world, and his appearances with notable pianists have brought award-winning records. Trekel is a professor at the Hanns Eisler College for Music. He also teaches masterclasses all over the world and serves as guest juror at major vocal competitions. This season, he can be heard at Staatsoper Berlin as Schischkow in Janácˇek’s Aus einem Totenhaus, Papageno (Die Zauberflöte) and in the title role of Eugene Onegin. Berlin audiences can hear him as Kuwernal in Tristan und Isolde. Another season highlight is his Belcore at Baden Baden Festspielhaus. On the concert and recital platform, he can be heard in performances of L’enfance du Christ and Brahms’ Requiem in Madrid and Seville.
ANNE SCHWANEWILMS, Marie German soprano Anne Schwanewilms is considered one of today’s finest interpreters of music by Strauss and Wagner. She works in the world’s most renowned opera houses (Staatsoper Vienna, Covent Garden, La Scala, Salzburg Festival and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, among others) and with leading orchestras (Berlin Philharmonic, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Orchestre National de France, for example) led by the most distinguished conductors. Schwanewilms has a wide operatic repertoire that ranges from lyrical German, Italian and French works to modern composers. She is particularly fond of Richard Strauss. As an eminent lieder singer, she has formed close working relationships with leading pianists (Roger Vignoles and Malcolm Martineau), with whom she gives recitals worldwide. Numerous CD and DVD recordings capture the singer’s art. For Decca, she recorded Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 and Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang. Further recordings are Chrysothemis (in Strauss’ Elektra) with the WDR Symphony Orchestra of Cologne, Mahler’s Second Symphony, Messiaen’s Poèmes pour Mi, as well as Otello. As DVD documents, there are the Salzburg Festival production of Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten, the Dresden Der Rosenkavalier and Wagner’s Lohengrin live from the Concertgebouw. A DVD of her role debut as Strauss’ Kaiserin (Die Frau ohne Schatten) at the 2011 Salzburg Festival is available, as well as two solo CDs—Wagner, Schreker and Mozart with the WDR Symphony Orchestra of Cologne and Strauss with the Gürzenich Orchestra—and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach. She was honored with a Singer of the Year Award by the magazine, Opernwelt, in 2002.
GORDON GIETZ, Drum Major Gordon Gietz is one of the most prolific tenors of his generation praised for his “effortless legato” and his singing which is both “virile and sensitive.” His career is focused equally on operatic and concert repertoire, encompassing a wide range of musical styles. He last performed with the Houston Symphony in 2011 on Opening Night in a performance of 16
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BIOGRAPHIES | WOZZECK IN CONCERT | MARCH 1-2 Wozzeck: A Patron’s Perspective Native Houstonian, long-time symphony-goer and supporter, Mike Stude, immediately began studying Wozzeck when he heard the Symphony was performing it. “I had never heard of Wozzeck before. I bought six different recordings to get familiar with it, and then I learned that it was the swan song piece for a favorite conductor, Carlos Kleiber’s father (Erich Kleiber), to perform, so I had to learn it,” said Stude. And learn it, he did. Stude became very involved in introducing Wozzeck to his friends and hosting parties at his home where the work was discussed. “I even took a group to the Santa Fe Opera last summer to see a performance of it, and I just loved it.” So what about Wozzeck did Stude find so captivating? “The plot and the music of Wozzeck greatly appeal to me. The Greek tragedies, the stories of Steinbeck and even Job, from the Bible, are all mixed into Wozzeck. They ask the question, why did all these people suffer so much?” Wozzeck is a monumental work to perform and promises to be a memorable experience for the audience. Stude hopes that his fellow patrons will be moved by the plot and maybe even gain “...respect and appreciation of the music. Some parts are very ugly, powerful and overwhelming, but it is truly a lasting and great experience. The really unique scene to me is the last one with the little boy, where he is saying, “hop hop, hop hop.” He is a little boy, all by himself, and doesn’t know what has happened or what is going to happen.” As for those who end up with mixed feelings about Wozzeck, Stude stays optimistic, “Picasso’s Guernica, is not a pretty work of art, but it is something that you remember for the rest of your life.”
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. Gietz’ 2012-13 season highlights include operatic performances of Albi in Franz Schreker’s Der Schatzgräber with the Netherlands Opera, the Duke in Opera Ontario’s production of Rigoletto, the Male Chorus in Britten’s Rape of Lucretia at the Maggio Musicale in Florence, Italy and concert performances of Harbison’s The Great Gatsby in the role of Jay Gatsby. His concert engagements include Handel’s Messiah with Nashville Symphony, Mozart’s Mass in C with the Vancouver Symphony and Requiem Mass with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra as well as a New Year’s Eve concert with the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra in Toronto. Gietz’ performances last season included the role of Roméo in Roméo et Juliette with Vancouver Opera, Cavaradossi in Tosca with Opera Memphis, Narraboth in Salomé at La Monnaie in Brussels, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with Tucson Symphony, Don José in Carmen with Vlaamse Opera and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He has performed with some of the major North American orchestras like the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and collaborated with notable conductors like Kurt Masur, Sir Colin Davis, Leonard Slatkin, Charles Dutoit, Sir Simon Rattle and Wolfgang Sawallisch. Other significant performances include his London debut with John Eliot Gardiner in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at the BBC Proms Concert and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde at the Toronto Summer Music Festival.
MARC MOLOMOT, Captain Possessed of a rare high-tenor voice, Marc Molomot enjoys an international career in opera and on the concert stage. While his voice type, haute-contre, is most closely associated with March 2013 17
BIOGRAPHIES | WOZZECK IN CONCERT | MARCH 1-2 French Baroque, he is exploring more varied repertoire. Molomot debuted with the Houston Symphony last May in Orff’s Carmina Burana. Best known for his appearances with the world’s leading early music ensembles and conductors, he has recently ventured from Baroque to repertoire like Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro and Auber’s 1830 opera Fra Diavolo to the title role in Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring. Molomot is a self-described natural comedian. His turn as the nurse Arnalta in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea—one of his signature roles—“brought down the house” (Opera News), and was hailed as “scene-stealing” (Vancouver Sun). He is also widely praised as “an excellent actor-singer” in opera. A recent production of Charpentier’s Orphée in Chicago was “dominated by the wondrous high tenor of Marc Molomot” (Chicago Tribune). Having made his debut as the Evangelist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with New York Collegium, he is becoming known for his heartfelt portrayal. His recent performances include the St. John Passion in Kraków, Tel Aviv and with the Chicago Bach Choir and Orchestra, and a St. Matthew in Norway’s historic Nidaros Cathedral. He continues to appear worldwide with leading early music ensembles, including the Green Mountain Project in New York City in Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610; Rameau’s Castor et Pollux and Campra’s Requiem at the BBC Proms in London and Salle Pleyel in Paris; concerts at the Chapelle Royale de Versailles, London’s Barbican Centre and a tour of South America with Les Arts Florissants. Molomot’s recording of Lully’s Thésée with the Boston Early Music Festival was nominated for a Grammy® Award. He is also featured on recordings of Charpentier’s Judicium Salomonis with Les Arts Florissants, Handel’s Acis and Galatea with Les Boréades, and Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo with Apollo’s Fire.
NATHAN BERG, Doctor Nathan Berg’s career to date has encompassed a vast range of styles and repertoire, and he is currently in demand by some of the world’s most distinguished conductors. In his early career, Berg made his name as an outstanding interpreter of the baroque and pre-classical repertoire in both concert and opera performances in many of the world’s leading houses and venues. More recently, he 18
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added the title roles in Don Giovanni and Le nozze di Figaro to his repertoire, as well as debuts in the title roles of The Flying Dutchman and Bluebeard’s Castle and as Scarpia in Puccini’s Tosca. Highlights of the 2012-13 season include these performances, Haydn’s Die Schöpfung with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s under Harold Rosenbaum and Rachmaninoff’s The Bells with the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Three Choirs Festival. Berg also continues his collaboration with John Nelson in Brahms’ Requiem with the Indianapolis Symphony and Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the Gulbenkian Orchestra. He also sings Bach’s St. John Passion with Music for the Baroque in Chicago. A Grammy® nominated and Juno Award-winning artist, Berg’s recording highlights include extensive collaborations with Les Arts Florissants, including Handel’s Messiah and Mozart’s Requiem, various lieder recordings, including songs by Othmar Schoeck and the album Lieder Recital with Julius Drake, Dvorˇák’s Stabat Mater with Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Recent DVD releases include Lully’s Armide from the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées under William Christie and Alidoro in the Glyndebourne Festival’s production of Rossini’s La Cenerentola. Born in Saskatchewan, Berg studied in his native Canada, as well as America, Paris and at the Guildhall School of Music where he won the Gold Medal for Singers. In recital, he has appeared at Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center and other venues around the world.
ROBERT MCPHERSON, Andres Praised by the New York Times for his “robust voice, agility and confidence,” Robert McPherson makes his Houston Symphony debut in these performances. This season, he debuts the roles of Tamino in Die Zauberflöte with English National Opera and Peter Quint in Turn of the Screw with a return to New Israeli Opera. He returns to Utah Opera for Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia and sings Handel’s Messiah with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. Future seasons include his return to Vlaamse Opera for Iago in Rossini’s Otello and a debut with Welsh National Opera as Lord Percy in Anna Bolena. Last season included his first performances of the title role Rigoletto with Utah Opera, Arbace in Ciro in Babilonia at the Rossini Opera Festival, Mayor Upfold in Albert Herring in his Los Angeles Opera debut, and Narciso Il turco in Italia in a return to Tacoma Opera, where he began his career in his home state of Washington. Other performances include Guillaume Tell (Polish National Opera), La cenerentola and L’italiana in Algeri (Washington National Opera), La fille du regiment and La Juive (New Israeli Opera), La donna del lago (New York City Opera, Teatro Carlo Felice, Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Opéra-Théâtre d’Avignon), Der Rosenkavlier (San Francisco Opera), Rossini’s Otello (Opera Orchestra of New York), and Don Pasquale (Utah Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City). On the concert stage, he joined the Seattle Symphony for repeat
BIOGRAPHIES | WOZZECK IN CONCERT | MARCH 1-2 performances of Handel’s Messiah; Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings; Bach’s Magnificat and the Shepherd in Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. He has also sung Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri (Mostly Mozart Festival), Haydn’s Creation (Tacoma Master Chorale), Handel’s Judas Maccabeus (Orchestra Seattle) and further performances of Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings (Mexico City Philharmonic). He made his national television debut on PBS as the angel Gabriel in Andrew T. Miller’s The Birth Of Christ (Sony BMG Masterworks) and reprised that role in Rome at the invitation of the Vatican.
KATHERINE CIESINSKI, Margaret The New York Times has called Katherine Ciesinski “a singer of rare communicative presence, and a musician of discrimination and intelligence.” Operatic credits include Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, and operas of Paris, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and Santa Fe, among others. Her world premieres include Mark Adamo’s Little Women, Dominick Argento’s The Aspern Papers, Jake Heggie’s The End of the Affair and the title role of Maurice Ohana’s La Celestine. She has performed on PBS’ Great Performances and NPR’s World of Opera. Ciesinski has also performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras in Cleveland, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco; and in Europe, Berlin, Vienna, Paris, London and Dresden. She has performed recitals across the United States, Paris, Cologne, Zurich, Milan and at the Aix-en-Provence, Geneva, Spoleto and Salzburg Festivals. Her contemporary chamber music activities have included performances at the Caramoor Festival; Musica Festival,
Strasbourg; Ars Musica Festival, Brussels; and with the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris. Ciesinski is just returning from performing the role of Mere Marie in Dialogues des Carmélites with Hawaii Opera. She is a frequent clinician at the annual International Symposium on Care of the Professional Voice in Philadelphia. She is on the international faculty of the Artescénica Encuentro Operistico in Mexico. Most recently, she has been elected to the American Academy of Teachers of Singing. She joined the faculty of the Eastman School of Music in August 2008.
CALVIN GRIFFIN, Apprentice 1 Calvin Griffin is making his Houston Symphony debut in this production of Wozzeck. A native of Columbus, Ohio, Calvin Griffin is a secondyear graduate student working toward a Master of Music degree in vocal performance at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, under the direction of Dr. Stephen King. Griffin recently graduated from Ohio State University where he performed the roles of Superintendent Budd in Albert Herring, Bartolo in Le nozze di Figaro and continued on page 51
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MARCH 7, 9 - 10, 2013
Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Plus Kavakos Hans Graf, conductor | Leonidas Kavakos, violin
Thursday, March 7, 2013 8 pm Saturday, March 9, 2013 8 pm Sunday, March 10, 2013 2:30 pm
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Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Opus 99 I Nocturne: Moderato II Scherzo: Allegro III Passacaglia: Andante— IV Burlesca: Allegro con brio—Presto I
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Hans Graf’s biography appears on page 7.
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TOTAL Gold Classics Series
The Houston Symphony gratefully acknowledges the following supporters of this concert weekend: Sponsor The Joan and Marvin Kaplan Foundation Mr. and Mrs. Rodney H. Margolis Partner Gene and Linda Dewhurst Patron Leslie Barry Davidson and her daughter Noblet Germaine in loving memory of Dr. Patrick Ross Davidson and Ross Davidson The Classical Season is endowed by The Wortham Foundation, Inc. in memory of Gus S. and Lyndall F. Wortham. In recognition of Hans Graf’s 12 years as Music Director of the Houston Symphony, these concerts are also generously supported in part by The Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts.
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NOTES BY CARL CUNNINGHAM | TCHAIKOVSKY’S PATHÉTIQUE PLUS KAVAKOS | MARCH 7-10 Scherzo suggests a Jewish folk dance, and several commentators have observed that Shostakovich composed the concerto simultaneously with another work secretly withheld for many years, the song cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry. The heart of the A minor Violin Concerto lies between these two fast movements in a spacious Passacaglia whose slow, repeated bass line serves as the foundation of the movement. It is joined to the Burlesca by an immensely long solo cadenza which rises in a careful arc from quiet broken-chord patterns to ever-more intense, difficult technical challenges. The 39-minute concerto is interestingly scored for an orchestra which banishes the bright, gleaming tone of trumpets and trombones from the brass section, but retains the darker, ominous, sometimes more murky sound of the horns and tuba.
A fine orchestra achieves a balance of sound and experience. And, like a great symphony, Total works to balance the world’s demand for energy with the effort to ensure sustainable resources. As a member of the Houston business community, we are proud to sponsor the Houston Symphony and support its mission to foster excellence and innovation in performance and presentation. Total is the fifth largest publicly traded integrated international oil and gas company in the world, with some 97,000 employees in 130 countries. In the U.S., we have been in business for more than half a century. Today, more than 5,900 employees focus on exploration and production, natural gas trading and marketing, crude oil and refined products trading and shipping, refining, petrochemicals, renewable energies and specialty chemicals. We operate 71 locations throughout the U.S. and manufacturing facilities in 24 states. For more information about Total in the United States, please visit www.usa.total.com.
VIOLIN CONCERTO NO. 1 IN A MINOR, OPUS 99 Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) Recording Vladimir Spivakov with James Conlon conducting the Cologne Philharmonic (Capriccio) Instrumentation three flutes (one doubling piccolo), three oboes (one doubling English horn), three clarinets (one doubling bass clarinet), three bassoons (one doubling contrabassoon), four horns, tuba, timpani, percussion, two harps, celesta and strings
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n the repressive cultural climate of Stalinist Russia, Dmitri Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto became known as one of those works written “for the drawer.” Having faced official Soviet condemnation in 1934 for his scandalous opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, he dared not let it be known that he was writing a highly personal, politically incorrect Violin Concerto at the very moment he was again being vilified by the Union of Soviet Composers, as part of a cultural purge instigated by Communist party leader Andrei Zhdanov in February 1948. Though this alternately sad and satirical concerto was completed a month later, its premiere by Shostakovich’s loyal friend, David Oistrakh (to whom the concerto was dedicated) and the Leningrad Philharmonic was delayed until 1955—two years after Stalin’s death and seven long years after the ink had dried on the manuscript. Even then, the work faced an awkward silence from the press, until Oistrakh defended it in a scholarly article written after the premiere. The A minor Violin Concerto is noteworthy in several respects. In imitation of Bach’s use of the notes B-flat, A, C, B to spell out his name in German musical letters (B-A-C-H), this is the first of numerous works in which Shostakovich imbedded the notes D, E-flat C, B, as his own Germanicized monogram, DSCH, into the fabric of the second movement. As in his Sixth and Tenth symphonies, the concerto begins with a long, desolate slow movement, illustrating Shostakovich’s ability to repeat, manipulate and extend slender, seemingly inconsequential scraps of thematic material into melodic lines of amazing length. The second-movement Scherzo and the blustering fourth movement, titled Burlesca, offer relentless doses of the acidic satire that wells up periodically in Shostakovich’s music. The trio section of the 22
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SYMPHONY NO. 6 IN B MINOR, OPUS 74 (PATHÉTIQUE) Pyotr Ily’ich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) Recording Mariss Jansons conducting the Oslo Philharmonic (Chandos) Instrumentation three flutes (one doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion and strings Images of death have repeatedly been attached to Tchaikovsky’s final symphony. Though Tchaikovsky was in good spirits after its premiere, he ignored warnings not to drink unboiled water during a cholera epidemic a few days later and reportedly died of the disease. A letter from his physician bears out this version, but some modern scholars and others have questioned it in favor of a more sensational tale. They cite long-suppressed legends that he secretly poisoned himself a few days before drinking the water, obeying orders from a clandestine “court of honor” that threatened to expose an alleged homosexual affair he had with a military academy student. Currently, that theory has been largely disregarded. Although Tchaikovsky never publicly described the symphony’s meaning, a written sketch found among his papers indicates that death was indeed on his mind. “The ultimate essence of the plan of symphony is LIFE,” he wrote. “First part—all impulsive passion, confidence, thirst for activity. Must be short. (Finale: DEATH—result of collapse.) Second part love; third disappointments; fourth ends dying away (also short).” The title of the symphony, which was supplied by Tchaikovsky’s brother, Modest, the morning after the premiere, reflects the character of the composer’s description. Biographer John Warrack notes that “patetichesky,” the Russian equivalent of “Pathétique,” suggests meanings of “passionate,” “emotional” and “suffering,” rather than “pathetic.” Tchaikovsky sketched out the entire symphony during a twomonth period beginning February 16, 1893, and orchestrated it
NOTES | TCHAIKOVSKY’S PATHÉTIQUE PLUS KAVAKOS | MARCH 7-10 during the month of August. He conducted the official premiere on October 28 in St. Petersburg. Though the work received a mixed critical reception, Eduard Nápravnik garnered international fame for the symphony when he included it on a memorial concert for the composer on November 18 of that year. The Pathétique Symphony represents Tchaikovsky’s most plastic adaptation of symphonic form to his dramatic purposes. The opening sonata movement begins with the gloomiest of slow introductions in the bassoons and low strings. Its thematic motive soon becomes the anxiously pleading main theme, which is rigorously worked out before giving way to a relaxed, lyrical second theme in the violins. The development suddenly explodes upon the scene as an agitated contrapuntal episode, coming to its climax in the return of the first theme followed by the second and a solemn processional for a coda. The two central movements are among the most engaging of Tchaikovsky’s numerous symphonic waltzes and marches. The second movement is distinguished by the use of an irregular 5/4 meter rather than the standard ¾ meter, thus extending the arch of its phrases. A moody minor-mode trio is sent in contrast to its lyrical outpouring. The third-movement march is noteworthy for its relentless, carefully-scaled growth into overpowering climaxes. As in the first movement, the strings and bassoon set the tone for the sighing, dejected music of the finale, a daring departure from the exuberant, even bombastic finales typical of 19th-century symphonies, most especially those by Tchaikovsky. The printed music for Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 was donated by Mr. Charles King Sanders. ©2013, Carl R. Cunningham
BIOGRAPHY LEONIDAS KAVAKOS, violin Leonidas Kavakos has established himself as a violinist of rare quality, known for his virtuosity, superb musicianship and the integrity of his playing. International recognition first came while Kavakos was still in his teens, winning the Sibelius Violin Competition in 1985 and, three years later, the Paganini Competition.
Kavakos now works with the world’s major orchestras and conductors. This season, he is the focus of the London Symphony Orchestra’s UBS Soundscapes LSO Artist Portrait and is the Berlin Philharmoniker’s artist-inresidence. Kavakos brings authority and depth of expression to the great concerti of the 19th and 20th centuries. He is also known for his interpretations of Bach and Mozart, as well as of works such as Dutilleux’ L’arbre des songes and Hartmann’s Concerto funèbre. A committed chamber musician and recitalist, Kavakos is a favored artist at music festivals, including the Salzburger Festival where, in 2012, he played Beethoven’s complete violin sonatas with Enrico Pace. Their recording for Decca Classics was released earlier this year. This season, he performs the cycle with Emanuel Ax in the Musikverein in Vienna, and again with Pace at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Kavakos is increasingly recognized as a conductor of considerable gift and musicianship. Conducting debuts this season include the Finnish Radio Symphony and the Vienna Symphony Orchestras; he returns to the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Now an exclusive Decca recording artist, his discography includes a number of awardwinning recordings. Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto (Sony Classical) received an ECHO Klassik award for Best Concerto Recording 2009. In 1991, shortly after winning the Sibelius Violin Competition, Kavakos won a Gramophone Award for the first recording of the original version of Sibelius’ Violin Concerto (BIS). For ECM, he has released recordings of sonatas by Enescu and Ravel with pianist Péter Nagy, and a recording of works by Bach and Stravinsky. Leonidas Kavakos plays the Abergavenny Stradivarius of 1724. March 2013 23
MARCH 15 - 17, 2013
Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast Hannu Lintu, conductor | Stephen Powell, baritone Houston Symphony Chorus: Charles Hausmann, director
Friday, March 15, 2013 8 pm Saturday, March 16, 2013 8 pm Sunday, March 17, 2013 2:30 pm
Vaughan Williams
Jones Hall
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
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Haydn Symphony No. 98 in B-flat major I Adagio—Allegro II Adagio cantabile III Menuet and Trio: Allegro IV Finale: Presto I
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NOTES BY CARL CUNNINGHAM | MARCH 15-17 FANTASIA ON A THEME BY THOMAS TALLIS Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) Recording Richard Hickox conducting the City of London Sinfonia (EMI Classics) Instrumentation Double string orchestra
The Classical Season is endowed by The Wortham Foundation, Inc. in memory of Gus S. and Lyndall F. Wortham. The SoundPlusVision series is sponsored by Margaret Alkek Williams and supported in part by The Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts Endowed Fund for Creative Initiatives.
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hile current copyright laws strictly regulate the practice of appropriating the creative property of others, it was a sign of esteem for a composer of the Renaissance to borrow a tune—or even a whole piece—from one of his colleagues and rearrange it in a new setting. Thus, there are countless interborrowings among Renaissance composers of masses and motets. There are also numerous “In nomine” pieces in the English string-ensemble literature, all based on a fragment of plainchant used in a mass setting by the early 16th-century composer, John Taverner. Ralph Vaughan Williams honored that practice in borrowing a theme from his great 16th-century English forbear, Thomas Tallis, and extending it into an elaborate, richly textured string fantasia. The theme is the third of nine tunes (each one that Tallis contributed to a metrical psalter compiled by Archbishop Matthew Parker in 1567). John Addison, a hymn writer born 15 years after the psalter was published, later added the text: “When rising from the bed of death, O’erwhelmed with guilt and fear, I see my Maker face to face, O how shall I appear?” It was this composite version that Vaughan Williams encountered when he was asked to edit the English Hymnal in 1906. Tallis’ plaintive Phrygian-mode melody again came to mind in 1910 when he was commissioned to write a work for the famed Three Choirs Fes-
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UPCOMING PERFORMANCES APRIL 2013
Spanish Masters—Rodrigo & Falla April 5, 6, 7, 2013 Carlos Kalmar, conductor Shell Favorite Pablo Sainz-Villegas, guitar Masters Series Haydn: Symphony No. 37 Ginastera: Variaciones concertantes Rodrigo: Fantasia for a Nobleman for Guitar and Orchestra Falla: Suite No. 2 from The Three-Cornered Hat Composed at the request of the legendary Spanish guitarist Andrés Segovia, who is referenced in the work’s title as the “Nobleman,” Joaquin Rodrigo’s Fantasia para un gentilhombre will transport you to 17th-century Spain where the composer found his inspiration. Based on six short dances for solo guitar, travel from the melodic opening movement, to the lyrical theme and energetic dance beats, on to a folk dance from the Canary Islands. Experience the rich sounds of rising star and Spanish guitar virtuoso Pablo Sainz-Villegas.
Debussy’s La Mer April 11, 13, 14, 2013 Hans Graf, conductor Benjamin Schmid, violin Ariane Haering, piano Mendelssohn: Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Orchestra Mendelssohn: Capriccio brillant Kreisler: Violin Concerto—after Paganini Debussy: La Mer As in Impressionist paintings, Debussy uses colorful musical brush strokes to conjure images of his travels to the seaside at Cannes and the Mediterranean. The shimmering movement of the ocean left him with deep inspiration, illustrated in this orchestral work of beauty, which continually resists customary analysis. “We must agree,” Debussy wrote, “that the beauty of a work of art will always remain a mystery.”
Cavanaugh Sings Elton John & More
POPS
Cynthia Woods Mitchell at Jones Hall
POPS Presenting Sponsor April 19, 20, 21, 2013 Robert Franz, conductor Michael Cavanaugh, pianist and vocalist Back by popular demand, pianist and singer Michael Cavanaugh, of Broadway fame, performs songs from Elton John and other classic hits from bands such as Journey, Chicago, the Eagles and Styx.
Dinosaurs! April 20, 2013 Robert Franz, conductor Get ready! The Symphony’s gonna take you all the way back to prehistoric times. Join us as we explore dinosaurs, fossils and more. From the music of John Williams’ Jurassic Park and Morton Gould’s The Jogger and the Dinosaur, to a special look at the percussion family, this concert will be earth-shaking.
Thank you to our media partners:
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NOTES | WALTON’S BELSHAZZAR’S FEAST | MARCH 15-17 tival at Gloucester Cathedral. The melody consists of two large sections, the first of which is subdivided into two nearly identical phrases. The two phrases in the second half complement each other in a question/ answer profile, and this half of the melody is further enlivened by constantly changing meters that alter the pulse in successive measures of the melody. After a short introduction, the fantasia begins with two complete statements of the theme by the combined string orchestras. In the second of these, the melody rises high in the violins and the accompanying figuration is more elaborate. Then, Vaughan Williams begins a process of dividing his forces and his musical materials. The two orchestras echo each other in a musical conversation based on the first half of the theme. The solo viola takes up the second half of the theme, later joined by the solo violin, the string quartet and eventually the two orchestras. This turns into a lengthy discussion of various thematic fragments from the melody before the complete theme returns in an elaborate violin/viola duet accompanied by the full orchestra.
theme in the slow introduction and again as the main theme of a first-movement sonata form. In Symphony No. 98, he used a rising broken-chord motive as the thematic kernel of its somber introduction, and then turned it into the springboard for the bright, sunny main theme, finally moving it to a higher pitch level as the second theme gets under way. The unity gives the movement a singleminded sense of purpose, propelling the music through the exposition and into an action-packed quasi-fugal development. The slow movement is famous for its
quotation of the initial phrase of “God Save the Queen.” Certain writers, beginning with Sir Donald Francis Tovey, have speculated that this movement might be Haydn’s elegy on the death of Mozart, which occurred about a month before this symphony was begun. In particular, some scholars have cited the second theme of the movement as being modeled on a similar theme in the slow movement from Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony. If so, the connection seems tenuous, and there is no proof that Haydn had heard the Jupiter Symphony in the two years between
The printed music for Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis was donated by the Houston Symphony Orchestra Committee in memory of Susan Valkovich, Houston Symphony violinist.
SYMPHONY NO. 98 IN B-FLAT MAJOR Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) Recording Frans Brüggen conducting the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century (Philips) Instrumentation flute, pairs of oboes, bassoons, horns and trumpets, timpani and strings Almost all of Haydn’s 12 London symphonies seem to have their own memorable facets, even the less familiar symphonies that weren’t awarded special nicknames such as Surprise, Clock, Military and Drumroll. Symphony No. 98 in B-flat major might well have been nicknamed “Powerhouse” for all the concentrated energy the composer built into its opening movement. Previously, only once—in No. 90 in C major—had Haydn experimented with a monothematic exposition, employing a single March 2013 27
NOTES | WALTON’S BELSHAZZAR’S FEAST | MARCH 15-17 its composition and his departure for England. Nevertheless, the Haydn slow movement is notably lyrical and, as Haydn expert H.C. Robbins Landon observes, it rises to moments of great distress. The minuet is typically robust and good-humored, with a droll trio section. The finale, set in a sonata form like the first movement, reserves some surprises for the listener. Its rhythm is that of a lively jig, following a pattern of many 18th-century symphonies. But as the final statement of its main theme comes around, Haydn slows the tempo emphatically to that of a swaying, rolling dance.
BELSHAZZAR’S FEAST William Walton (1902-1983) Recording Simon Rattle conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony and Chorus, and the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus; Thomas Hampson, soloist (EMI Classics) Instrumentation piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, three clarinets (one doubling E-flat clarinet, one doubling bass clarinet), alto saxophone, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, two harps, organ and strings In 1929, William Walton was one of three composers commissioned by the BBC to write short works for small ensembles, suitable for broadcast, as part of the network’s patronage of composers and the establishment of its own radio orchestra. At the time, Walton was pondering a choral work as his next composition, and Osbert Sitwell suggested the biblical subject of Belshazzar’s feast and the handwriting on the wall, condemning the Babylonian king’s godless corruption and prophesying the destruction of his empire. Sitwell fashioned a libretto on the subject for Walton, largely choosing texts from psalms and Chapter 5 of the Book of Daniel. Over the two years it was composed, the work grew to gargantuan proportions, far exceeding the budget and production facilities available to the BBC’s classical music division. So, Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast was premiered at the famed Three Choirs Festival at Leeds on October 8, 1931. Malcolm Sargent conducted the London Symphony Orchestra and the festival choirs, with Dennis Noble as baritone soloist. The work became an instant hit, and Walton was especially praised for his virtuosic handling of the choral parts, since it was the composer’s first large choral work since he was 16 years old. The cantata begins solemnly with a choral recitative on Isaiah’s prophecy of the Israelites’ enslavement and proceeds with a mournful polyphonic setting of Psalm 137, “By the Waters of Babylon,” lamenting their requirement to sing joyously in a pagan environment. The baritone soloist and chorus conclude the section, foretelling the fall of Babylon. A lengthy recitative, in which the baritone soloist describes the great material wealth of the city of Babylon, separates the sad introduction from the faster choral-orchestral Allegro section. It describes the royal feast ordered by Belshazzar, and the city’s worship of “the gods of gold, silver, iron and brass.” At the frenzied height of the celebration, when Belshazzar is saluted as “King of Kings,” destined to live forever, the baritone soloist interrupts with another recitative, quoting the ominous words silently being written on the wall. With the sudden slaying of Belshazzar and the fall of Babylon, the music turns joyously fast and triumphant again in the final section. Though interrupted by quieter moments for a reduced chorus or unaccompanied double choir, the work comes to a bombastic conclusion, bolstered by two brass bands. ©2013, Carl R. Cunningham
BIOGRAPHIES HANNU LINTU, conductor Currently artistic director and chief conductor of the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, Hannu Lintu was appointed chief conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. continued on page 37
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MARCH 22 - 24, 2013
West Side Story® Associates presents
WEST SIDE STORY Film with Live Orchestra Steven Reineke, conductor Friday, March 22, 2013 8 pm Saturday, March 23, 2013 8 pm Sunday, March 24, 2013 7:30 pm
Jones Hall
MIRISCH PICTURES Presents WEST SIDE STORY A ROBERT WISE Production Starring NATALIE WOOD RICHARD BEYMER RUSS TAMBLYN RITA MORENO GEORGE CHAKIRIS Directed by ROBERT WISE & JEROME ROBBINS Screenplay by ERNEST LEHMAN Associate Producer SAUL CHAPLIN Choreography by JEROME ROBBINS Music by LEONARD BERNSTEIN Lyrics by STEPHEN SONDHEIM Based upon the Stage Play Produced by ROBERT E. GRIFFITH and HAROLD S. PRINCE Book by ARTHUR LAURENTS Play Conceived, Directed and Choreographed by JEROME ROBBINS Film Production Designed by BORIS LEVEN Music Conducted by JOHNNY GREEN Presented by MIRISCH PICTURES, INC. In Association with SEVEN ARTS PRODUCTIONS INC. Filmed in PANAVISION® TECHNICOLOR®
Film screening of West Side Story courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. WEST SIDE STORY © 1961 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved. West Side Story 50th Anniversary Blu-ray and Limited Edition Blu-ray Box Set available now. Tonight’s program is a presentation of the complete film West Side Story with live performance of the film’s entire score. The program runs 2 hours and 32 minutes, plus a 20-minute intermission. It also includes the underscoring played by the orchestra during the Saul Bass-designed End Credits. We ask that, out of respect for the music, for the musicians playing it and for your fellow audience members, you remain in your seats until the End Credits are completed. March 2013 29
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Cynthia Woods Mitchell at Jones Hall
POPS Presenting Sponsor
The Houston Symphony gratefully acknowledges the following supporters of this concert weekend: Underwriter The Humphreys Foundation Margaret Alkek Williams Sponsor Mr. and Mrs. Edward F. Blackburne Jr. Partner Stephen and Mariglyn Glenn Perkins+Will Mr. and Mrs. Ulyesse LeGrange
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ifty years after the international release of its beloved screen adaptation, the Houston Symphony is performing West Side Story—composed by Leonard Bernstein and the winner of 10 Academy Awards®—in its entirety, for the first time. In 1955, a conducting engagement at the Hollywood Bowl brought 36-year-old composer Leonard Bernstein to Los Angeles. That August, a chance meeting at the Beverly Hills Hotel with playwright Arthur Laurents reignited the two artists’ stalled plan to collaborate on a musical. Seven years earlier, choreographer/director Jerome Robbins had approached Bernstein with what the composer called in his diary “a noble idea: a modern version of Romeo and Juliet set in slums at the coincidence of Easter-Passover celebrations. Feelings run high between Jews and Catholics…Street brawls, double death—it all fits.” The idea lay dormant until that day in 1955, when an L.A. newspaper headline about Latino gang problems inspired an exciting new path. With the hiring of 25-year-old composer Stephen Sondheim, who reluctantly signed on to provide lyrics only, the final pieces fell into place. After two years of rewrites and struggles to raise financing, West Side Story’s 1957 Broadway opening elicited reactions that ranged from passionate raves to stunned walkouts. The latter were sparked by the musical’s depiction of gang warfare and prejudice, and its near-unprecedented body count for a musical on the Great White Way. The show was largely snubbed at the Tony® Awards in favor of a more accessible rival, The Music Man. Nevertheless, audiences in New York and London (where the show was an instant smash) quickly caught up with the innovations of Robbins’ explosive, character-driven choreography, Laurents’ ingenious transposition of Shakespeare, and the thrilling Bernstein score, with lyrics by Sondheim that included Tonight and Maria. When Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise joined forces to co-direct the 1961 screen version for United Artists, starring box office favorite Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer (The Diary of Anne Frank), the result was one of the decade’s greatest commercial and critical triumphs. The film’s co-stars, George Chakiris (Bernardo) and Rita Moreno (Anita), took home Academy Awards® for Best Supporting Actor and Actress. Their victories were echoed by Oscars® for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color; Best Cinematography, Color; Best Costume Design, Color (winner Irene Sharaff also worked on the Broadway original); Best Film Editing; Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture; Best Sound; Best Director (for both Robbins and Wise, the first time this award was shared); and Best Picture. Jerome Robbins also received an honorary Academy Award® “for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film.” Half a century after its original release, West Side Story, the motion picture, will be presented tonight in a format that brings its own innovations. MGM has created a restored, high-definition print of the film that reveals details unseen since 1961. A new sound technology developed by Paris-based Audionamix and utilized by Chace Audio by Deluxe, one of the film industry’s top restoration companies, has isolated vocal tracks from the feature, using new source-separation technology that separates elements within a monophonic soundtrack. In the case of West Side Story, Audionamix “taught” its technology to recognize and then remove orchestral elements on the soundtrack while retaining vocals, dialogue and effects. This allows tonight’s conductor, Steven Reineke, to accompany the vocals with the Houston Symphony, in a live performance of the complete Bernstein score. Although the original musical materials for the movie arrangements were lost, 14 months of research by Eleonor M. Sandresky of The Leonard Bernstein Office brought to light a trove of important finds in private collections and library archives around the country. From materials discovered in the papers of orchestrator Sid Ramin, as well as in the archives of conductor/music supervisor Johnny Green, director Robert Wise and producer Walter Mirisch, she was able to assemble a mock-up short score of the complete film. Senior Music Editor Garth Edwin Sunderland, of the Bernstein Office, restored and adapted the orchestration for live performance. At the same time, Sunderland oversaw the creation of a brand new engraving of the entire film score, right down to last-minute modifications made on the scoring stage in 1961. The final result is a presentation of West Side Story unlike any in the history of this screen musical—one held, appropriately, at a concert site that celebrates the best in American music and the best of Hollywood filmmaking—two categories in which West Side Story
NOTES | WEST SIDE STORY | MARCH 22 - 24 will forever reside. Steven Smith is an Emmy-nominated documentary producer, journalist and author of the biography A Heart at Fire’s Center: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann.
BIOGRAPHY STEVEN REINEKE, conductor Steven Reineke’s exceptional artistry has made him one of the nation’s most sought-after pops conductors, composers and arrangers. He is the newly appointed principal pops conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, music director of The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall and principal pops conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Previously, he held posts with the Long Beach and Modesto Symphony Orchestras and Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. The Houston Symphony welcomes him back to the podium. He is a frequent guest conductor with The Philadelphia Orchestra; and in the past year, he’s been on the podium with the Boston Pops and The Cleveland Orchestra. He debuted with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia on July 4. His extensive North American conducting appearances include Los Angeles, Seattle, Edmonton, Vancouver, Ottawa (National Arts Centre), Detroit, Fort Worth, Jacksonville, Tampa (The Florida Orchestra), Calgary, Memphis and Oklahoma City.
Now Online.
Production Credits: Producer: Paul H. Epstein for The Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc. Associate Producer: Eleonor M. Sandresky for The Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc. Production Supervisor: Steven A. Linder Technical Director: Mike Runice Sound Engineer: Matt Yelton
As the creator of more than 100 orchestral arrangements for the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, Reineke’s work has been performed worldwide and can be heard on numerous Cincinnati Pops Orchestra recordings on the Telarc label. His symphonic works Celebration Fanfare, Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Casey at the Bat are performed frequently. His Sun Valley Festival Fanfare commemorated the Sun Valley Summer Symphony’s pavilion, and his Festival Te Deum and Swan’s Island Sojourn were debuted by the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops Orchestras. His numerous wind ensemble compositions are performed by concert bands around the world. A native of Ohio, Reineke is a graduate of Miami University of Ohio, where he earned bachelor of music degrees with honors in both trumpet performance and music composition. He currently lives in New York City. He is represented by Peter Throm Management, LLC.
Music Supervision: Garth Edwin Sunderland Original Orchestrations: Leonard Bernstein, Sid Ramin, Irwin Kostal Additional Orchestrations: Garth Edwin Sunderland & Peter West Music Preparation: Peter West Original Manuscript Reconstruction: Eleonor M. Sandresky Technical Consultant: Laura Gibson Soundtrack Adaptation—Chace Audio by Deluxe: Robert Heiber, Chris Reynolds, Andrew Starbin, Alice Taylor
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Sound Separation Technology provided by Audionamix Click Tracks and Streamers created by: Kristopher Carter and Mako Sujishi With special thanks to: Arthur Laurents and his Estate, Stephen Sondheim, The Robbins Rights Trust, The Johnny Green Collection at Harvard University, The Sid Ramin Collection at Columbia University, The Robert Wise Collection at the University of Southern California, Lawrence A. Mirisch, David Newman, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., MGM HD, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment LLC, Ken Hahn and Sync Sound
West Side Story is a registered trademark of The Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries.
We’ll keep you posted on “Publications That Perform,” special offers and onstage happenings in and around Houston. www.newleafinc.com 713.523.5323 March 2013 31
MARCH 28, 2013
Spec’s Charitable Foundation Salute To Educators Concert Robert Franz, conductor *Anna Han, piano Gold Medal winner, 2012 Houston Symphony League Concerto Competition Virtuosi of Houston Chamber Orchestra Andrzej Grabiec, Franz Anton Krager, directors
Thursday, March 28, 2013 7:30 pm
Jones Hall
Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Opus 11 I Allegro maestoso II Romance: Larghetto— III Rondo: Vivace I
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NOTES BY CARL CUNNINGHAM | MARCH 28 PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1 IN E MINOR, OPUS 11 Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849) Recording Pianist Emanuel Ax, with Sir Charles Mackerras conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Sony) Instrumentation pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, trombone, timpani and strings
Tonight we honor the dedicated men and women who work in schools of the greater Houston area for their devotion and the crucial difference they make in the lives of young people. To honor the work of an administrator active in encouraging music education in schools, the Spec’s Charitable Foundation Award for Excellence in Music Education will be presented this evening. The evening’s presentation of The Jacob L. and Sophia Meyer Farb School Bell Award is sponsored by the Farb Family Endowment Fund.
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oth of Chopin’s concertos were composed in anticipation of a grand European tour he planned to take during the season of 1830-31. He won acclaim for his Viennese debut in 1829, then returned to Warsaw and wrote the F minor Concerto that winter. He gave its premiere on March 17, then immediately began the E minor Concerto and performed it on October 11. He set off to repeat his Viennese success the following month, but an uprising in Warsaw suddenly changed his political fortunes and he was unable to schedule a concert there until the following summer. He continued on to Munich, Stuttgart and finally Paris, where he remained for the rest of his life. As a performer, Chopin seemed to prefer the E minor Concerto but played it only four or five times during the rest of his life, the last occasion being in 1835. Structurally, the concerto follows the general plan of a late Classical-era concerto, alternating between orchestra and soloist at specified points as exemplified in the concertos of Mozart and Beethoven. But Chopin grew up in the early Romantic era of such virtuoso pianists as Hummel, Czerny, Kalkbrenner and Liszt. Thus, the solo part is much more florid and technically demanding, and the balance of thematic interest is tipped heavily in favor of the soloist. Documents tracing the performance history of the work suggest that on some occasions, the orchestral accompaniment was reduced to a string quintet or a second piano. The orchestra leads off with a pair of themes in E minor, the first being rather stern in character, then turns to E major for a more relaxed, lyrical secondary theme. The soloist then takes up all three themes, decorating them with elaborate ornamentation, scales and showy double-note passages. This display of virtuosity continues throughout an ambitious development, until the full orchestra restates the opening theme signaling the recapitulation. The slow movement is an early example of Chopin’s nocturne style. Following a soft introduction by muted strings, the soloist intones its limpid main theme. An urgent middle section brings the movement to an intense climax, returning the main theme in a more decorative version by the soloist. The finale is Chopin’s salute to his homeland, a lively dance known as a krakowiak that he set in the general form of a rondo alternating its main theme with several contrasting episodes. Although the dance was known in the region surrounding Kracow as early as the 16th and 17th centuries, it gained popularity in the 19th century, around the time Chopin wrote the concerto.
SYMPHONY NO. 7 IN A MAJOR, OPUS 92 Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Recording Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic (Deutsche Grammophon, #439 003-2) Instrumentation pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets, timpani and strings The year 1812 was a dividing line between the best of times and the worst of times in Beethoven’s life. During that year, he completed both the Seventh and Eighth symphonies, two of his most joyous, carefree pieces. With them, he looked back upon a large catalogue of major works that were bringing him considerable financial prosperity. In July, he had a fateful romantic encounter with an unnamed woman (presumably Antonie Brentano) which resulted in the celebrated letter to his “Immortal Beloved.” By September, however, the morally straight-laced composer was involved in a legal March 2013 33
NOTES | SALUTE TO EDUCATORS | MARCH 28 dispute to break up an illicit affair between his younger brother and the man’s housekeeper. Early in 1813, a state of depression set in, and friends reported finding Beethoven in a weakened, disheveled condition, having gone without food for three days in a possible attempt to end his life. Artistically speaking, were it not for a few late cello, violin and piano sonatas, it could not be said that Beethoven produced any music of serious consequence for nearly another decade, until he began the final string quartets, the Missa Solemnis and Ninth Symphony in the early 1820s. Several aspects of the Seventh Symphony are unusual. Its opening movement is prefaced by the longest introductory section of any symphony until the gigantic symphonies of Mahler at the end of the 19th century. This serene introduction almost constitutes an independent movement, and when its lovely ascending scale passages have run their extended course, it leads into a joyous sonata movement whose dance-like rhythm sets the emotional tone for the whole symphony. The second movement is unusual in that its tempo marking, “Allegretto,” does not constitute a genuine slow movement. (Similarly, Beethoven omitted a slow movement in his Eighth Symphony.) In its formal design, the movement is a hybrid, combining elements of a large three-part song form (A-B-A plus codetta) with a set of variations. The third movement is novel in two respects: it moves to the slightly distant tonalities of F major and D major, and it enlarges the typical Scherzo and Trio from a three-part (A-B-A) form to a five-part design (A-B-A-B-A plus codetta). This was an expansion Beethoven previously attempted but later excised from the Scherzo of his Fifth Symphony—and employed later in the gigantic Scherzo of his Ninth Symphony. Beethoven’s celebration of dance music is completed in the fourth movement, which combines elements of a large rondo form with the spirit of an Irish reel. Its high horn parts are noteworthy for their exuberant sound and the exhausting technical challenges they pose. The premiere of the Seventh Symphony did not take place until more than 18 months after it was completed. Beethoven conducted it along with Wellington’s Victory, his bombastic program symphony describing Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, in concerts December 8 and 12, 1813, benefiting Austrian and Bavarian soldiers wounded in the Napoleonic wars. The two concerts brought in large receipts and an enthusiastic public response to the new symphony. © 2013, Carl R. Cunningham
BIOGRAPHIES ROBERT FRANZ, conductor Since joining the Houston Symphony five seasons ago as Associate Conductor, Robert Franz has led the orchestra with vibrant, athletic and entertaining direction in a broad range of creative education and family concerts. A champion of new music, Franz has conducted numerous world premieres and works by living composers. As associate conductor of the Louisville Orchestra, he re-vitalized an ASCAP award-winning new music concert series and served as co-host of In a Different Key, a weekly contemporary classical music radio program. 34
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A nationally recognized leader of arts education, Franz has forged partnerships with leading arts organizations and educational institutions. He received the ASCAP Leonard Bernstein Award for Educational Programming (2001, 2008) and the BPO/ECMEA Award for Excellence in Music Education (2008), created Kentucky Educational Television’s Creating Music and Stories program and participated in Children’s Center and Enrichment Center chamber music residencies that provide arts enrichment experiences for disabled persons. In addition to his post here, Franz serves as music director of the Boise Philharmonic. He is music director emeritus of the Carolina Chamber Symphony, which he founded, and provides summer educational workshops at the National Repertory Orchestra. Franz received his master’s degree in conducting in 1992 and his bachelor’s degree in oboe performance in 1990 from the North Carolina School of the Arts. He has participated in conducting workshops in the Czech Republic, St. Petersburg (Russia), Nashville and the Festival at Sandpoint, and was a participant in the 1997 National Conductor Preview.
ANNA HAN, piano Anna Han, 18-yearsold and a senior at Katy’s James E. Taylor High School, began playing piano at age 5. She currently studies with Scott Holshouser, the Houston Symphony’s principal keyboardist. She debuts with the orchestra tonight as the Gold Medal winner of the Houston Symphony League Concerto Competition. Han has won numerous other competitions, including first place in the HMTA Piano Contest in 2008, 2009 and 2011; first place in the Sherman Clay Junior Piano Festival in 2008, 2009 and 2011; and first place in the Symphony North of Houston Young Artist Concerto Competition in 2012. She was selected as a Houston Young Artist in 2011. Aside from competing, she enjoys reading and motivating others. She volunteers weekly, playing the piano for senior citizens. In her sophomore year, Han performed as piano soloist for Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy with her school’s choir, orchestra and band. Also a singer, she has been selected, on numerous occasions, into the TMEA District and All Region Choir.
MARCH 30, 2013
POPS SPECIAL
Disney in Concert: Magical Music from the Movies Robert Franz, conductor *Candice Nicole, vocalist | *Whitney Claire Kaufman, vocalist *Aaron Phillips, vocalist | *Andrew Johnson, vocalist Saturday, March 30, 2013 7:30 pm
Arr. B. Healey
Jones Hall
Disney Classics Overture
Menken/R. Merkin-T. Pasatieri-T. Ricketts Disney’s The Little Mermaid Orchestral Suite lyrics by Howard Ashman Menken/D. Troob Colors of the Wind from Pocahontas lyrics by Stephen Schwartz
Menken/Troob-F. van der Heijden
Disney’s Beauty and the Beast Orchestral Suite lyrics by Howard Ashman
R. M. Sherman-R. B. Sherman/Heijden I Wanna Be Like You from The Jungle Book lyrics by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman Sherman-Sherman/Healey-K. Whitcomb Medley from Disney’s Mary Poppins lyrics by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman I
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Suite from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
E. John-H. Zimmer/B. Kelley-Ricketts Disney’s The Lion King Orchestral Song Suite lyrics by Tim Rice
Robert Franz’ biography appears on page 34. *Houston Symphony debut March 2013 35
BIOGRAPHIES | DISNEY IN CONCERT | MARCH 30
BIOGRAPHIES
Disney in Concert Magical Music from the Movies is produced by Symphony Pops Music Sherilyn Draper, director and writer Ted Ricketts, musical director “Disney Classics Overture” Arranged by Bruce Healey © 1993 Walt Disney Music Co. (ASCAP) & Wonderland Music Co., Inc. (BMI) “Disney’s The Little Mermaid Orchestral Suite” Music by Alan Menken Arranged by A. Menken, R. Merkin T. Pasatieri and T. Ricketts © 1990 Wonderland Music Co., Inc. (BMI) “Colors of the Wind” Music by Alan Menken Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz Arranged by Danny Troob © 1995 Wonderland Music Company, Inc. (BMI) & Walt Disney Music Company (ASCAP) “Disney’s Beauty and the Beast Orchestral Suite” Music by Alan Menken Arranged by Danny Troob and Franck van der Heijden Edited by Ted Ricketts © 1992 Wonderland Music Co., Inc. (BMI) “I Wan’na Be Like You” Words and Music by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman Arranged by Franck van der Heijden © 1966 Wonderland Music Company, Inc. (BMI) “Medley From Disney’s Mary Poppins” Words and Music by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman Arranged by Bruce Healey and Ken Whitcomb © 1963 Wonderland Music Company, Inc. (BMI) “Disney’s The Hunchback Of Notre Dame Orchestral Suite” Music by Alan Menken Arranged by Michael Starobin Edited by Ted Ricketts © 1996 Wonderland Music Co., Inc. (BMI) “Disney’s Aladdin Orchestral Suite” Music by Alan Menken Arranged by Danny Troob and Bruce Healey © 1992 Wonderland Music Co., Inc. (BMI) “Pirates of the Caribbean Suite” Music by Klaus Badelt Arranged by Ted Ricketts © 2003 Walt Disney Music Company (ASCAP) “Disney’s The Lion King Orchestral Song Suite” Music by Elton John Words by Tim Rice Score by Hans Zimmer Arranged by Brad Kelley and Ted Ricketts © 1994 Wonderland Music Co., Inc. (BMI) “It’s a Small World” Music by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman Arranged by Ken Whitcomb © 1963 Wonderland Music Co., Inc. (BMI)
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CANDICE NICOLE, vocalist Candice Nicole began her relationship with Disney more than a decade ago as a child soloist. These performances are a dream come true. Nicole has been featured as the guest artist/headliner with the California Symphony and the Reno Philharmonic Orchestra. Her work includes Young Buffy on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Toffee in Zombie Prom and Barbie as The Island Princess. She was part of the closing National Touring Company of the world renowned musical Les Misérables (Fantine U/S); and she performed in the L.A. premiere of How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Scallops Who). Her regional theater highlights include Footloose (Ariel), 1776 (Martha Jefferson), Wizard of Oz (Dorothy), Grease (Sandy), Peter Pan (Wendy, opposite American Idol’s Adam Lambert) and Cinderella (Cinderella). She has enjoyed starring roles in West Coast-staged readings of Roxanne in The Man Who Would Be King opposite Broadway’s Marc Kudisch, Abby in the hilarious comedy Neurosisa: The Musical, plus new musicals at The La Jolla Playhouse and The Festival of New Musicals. A proud Actor’s Equity member, Nicole thanks her loving family for its support.
WHITNEY CLAIRE KAUFMAN, vocalist Whitney Claire Kaufman recently completed two years with the North American Tour of the Broadway smash-hit Mamma Mia! (Ensemble, understudy for Sophie and Lisa). Her performance as Sophie garnered rave reviews from the Boston Globe. She has performed as guest soloist with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Pacific Symphony and the Florida Orchestra. She has appeared in Cabaret (Sally Bowles), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Peaseblossom), Marisol (June), The Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble’s production of Wounded, among many other theatrical productions. TV credits include General Hospital and the hit ABC series, Modern Family. As both a singer and voice-over performer in film and television, Kaufman has been heard in many productions, including That Championship Season, The Secret of NIMH 2 and two MGM animated series: All Dogs Go to Heaven and Noddy. She recently recorded songs written by Oscar-winning composer Dimitri Tiomkin. She graduated with honors from Chapman University with a BFA in Theater Performance. Her favorite Disney movie is The Little Mermaid, with Cinderella as a close second.
AARON PHILLIPS, vocalist A life-long Disney fan, Aaron Phillips is an Ovation Award-nominated actor/singer, proud member of Actor’s Equity and has recently finished the second National Tour of Click, Clack, Moo. Phillips had his New York theatre debut last year as Felix in the new hit rock opera The New Hopeville Comics, written by Nate Weida. Past theatre credits include Jekyll and Hyde (John Utterson), Batboy: The Musical (Batboy/Edgar), Songs for a New World and Les Misérables (Foreman/Combeferre). Opera credits include: La bohème, with the Greensboro Opera Company, Pirates of Penzance (Pirate King) and Lakmé (Frederic) by Delibes. He recently appeared in a staged reading of The Bone Wars (O’Conner) with the prestigious New York playwright group, Youngbloods. An accomplished voice-over talent, Phillips can be heard in video games such as Red
BIOGRAPHIES CONTINUED FROM PAGE 28 | MARCH 15-17
Dead Redemption and Deadmund’s Quest, as well as Lord of the Rings. He is a man of many voices for commercials, cartoons and music sessions everywhere.
His tenure begins next season, following a year as the orchestra’s principal guest conductor. He also is principal guest conductor of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin and was previously artistic director of the Helsingborg Symphony and Turku Philharmonic Orchestras. In addition to this return visit with the Houston Symphony, his season includes appearances with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Sydney Symphony. He debuts with the Minnesota and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras and returns to the St. Louis and Oregon Symphonies. Recent operatic projects have included Tannhäuser with Tampere Opera. With the Finnish National Opera, Lintu has conducted Wagner’s Parsifal, Bizet’s Carmen and Aulis Sallinen’s King Lear. Lintu studied cello, piano and conducting at the Sibelius Academy. He participated in masterclasses at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy, and took first prize at the Nordic Conducting Competition in Bergen in 1994. Hannu Lintu has made several recordings for Ondine, Naxos, Danacord and Hyperion, with whom he recently recorded Schumann’s complete works for piano and orchestra featuring soloist Angela Hewitt. Other recordings include works by Enescu and Jouni Kaipainen with the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, and Schumann, Dietrich, Gernsheim and Volkmann with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. He has received several prizes for his recordings, and in 2011 received a Grammy® nomination in the Best Opera CD category.
STEPHEN POWELL, baritone ANDREW JOHNSON, vocalist Andrew Johnson is a Disney kid at heart. He has toured the United States, Europe and Asia as a lead vocalist and dancer, and his performances have been televised worldwide. Currently, he is a background vocalist and dancer on Fox’ The X Factor. He recently performed on The Conan O’Brien Show in the comedy spoof Broadway Rap Musicals: Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg & Vanilla Ice and with Florence and the Machine at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. Johnson’s theatrical credits include Rent (Benny), Five Guys Named Moe (Four-Eyed Moe), Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Joseph, Asher), Godspell (Jesus) and Pippin (Lead Player). He has shared the stage with Shirley Jones and Bernadette Peters and has performed live duets with recording artists Patti LaBelle and Erykah Badu and singer/actress Jodi Benson (the original voice of Ariel in The Little Mermaid). He recently released his new EP, Elevation, on iTunes under his artist name Drew Michael. He thanks his family for its unconditional love and support.
This season, Stephen Powell sings as Rigoletto with Lyric Opera Baltimore; the title role in Simon Boccanegra (1857 version) in Warsaw; Iago in Otello with Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra; Mozart’s Requiem with St. Louis Symphony; Carmina Burana, with Cleveland Orchestra, Franz Welser-Möst conducting; and Bach’s Mass in B Minor with Atlanta Symphony, under Robert Spano. He recently returned to the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and to Music of the Baroque in Bach’s Mass in B Minor, to Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, to Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in Messiah, to New York City Opera and Pittsburgh Opera as Germont in La traviata, to Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Carmina Burana, to Minnesota Orchestra as Rigoletto and to Aspen Music Festival in Mahler’s Symphony No. 8. He also sang Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor with Atlanta Opera, and Franz Schmidt’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame with the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Concert performances include Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Missa Solemnis, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, Verdi’s Requiem, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, Dvorˇák’s Te Deum, Frank Martin’s In Terra Pax, Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater, Haydn’s The Creation, Copland’s Old American Songs, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 and Das klagende Lied with this orchestra and others throughout the United States and Europe.
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HOUSTON SYMPHONY CHORUS Photo by jeff fitlow
CHARLES HAUSMANN, director Dr. Charles S. Hausmann was named director of the Houston Symphony Chorus in 1986 and celebrated his 25th anniversary last season. He has prepared the group for more than 600 concerts, led them on numerous tours to Mexico and Europe, and worked with more than 40 acclaimed conductors, including Hans Graf, Christoph Eschenbach, Claus Peter Flor and Robert Shaw. His extensive repertoire includes most of the major choral/ orchestral masterworks. As director of graduate choral studies and professor of conducting at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music since 1985, Hausmann supervises the master’s and doctoral programs in choral conducting, teaches choral conducting and literature and conducts the Moores School Choral Artists— a graduate chamber choir. An active church musician, he has conducted church choirs in Colorado, Kentucky, New Jersey and Texas. He currently serves as director of Choral Music at Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church in Houston where he led the Houston Symphony and Chorus in a performance of Mendelssohn’s St. Paul (Spring 2008). He led the Chorus on its fourth European tour in 2007, appearing as guest conductor during the Prague Spring Festival. He and the Chorus share a collaboration with Mexico City’s Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería, and performed Mendelssohn’s Elijah with former Houston Symphony Associate Conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto.
Support the Houston Symphony Chorus Endowment The Houston Symphony Chorus Endowment supports activities that enrich Houston’s musical life and enhance the high professional standards of the all-volunteer Chorus. For more on how you can help ensure the artistic future of the Chorus, call Darryl de Mello, Annual Fund Manager, at (713) 3378529 or visit hschorus.org. 38
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Charles Hausmann, Director Kevin Klotz Assistant Director
Sarah Berggren Chorus Manager
Scott Holshouser Accompanist
Tony Sessions Librarian
First Soprano Ramona Alms Alice Beckstrom Sarah Berggren Robyn Branning Jennifer Campbell Laura Christian Anna Diemer Clarice Gatlin Elise Giles Marta Giles Suzanne Gregory Amanda Harris Sophia Hou Amy Ingram Sarah Keifer Veronica Lorine Pam Magnuson** Marissa McMath Rita Minter Theresa Olin Karen Rennar Wendy Ridings Rhonda Ryan Deborah Spencer Ryan Stickney Cecilia Sun Lisa Trewin Tania Van Dongen Heidi Walton Beth Weidler Pam Wilhite
Corita Dubose Christine Economides Mary Gahr Kelly Goodin Susan Hall* Linda Herron Judy Hill Holly Johnson Berma Kinsey Joyce Lewis Mary Lopushansky Judy Morehouse Lisa Morfin** Cynthia Mulder Marie Parisot Linda Renner Carolyn Rogan* June Russell Maria Schoen Andrea Slack Shelby Stratmann Erin Walsh Vicki Westbrook Kat White Patsy Wilson
Second Tenor Bob Alban Amir Bel-Ami Randy Boatright Harvey Bongers Donn Dubois Jorge Fandino Mark Ferring Joseph Frybert Sajju George John Grady Craig Hill Rolando Leal Philip Lewis Michael McCarver Will Mize David Nussman Greg Railsback Dewell Springer Tony Vazquez Lee Williams**
Alan MacAdams Bryan McMicken Scott Mermelstein Bill Parker John Proffitt Daniel Robertson Jay Rockwell Doug Sander Andrew Schramm Eric Skelly James Wilhite
Second Soprano Yoset Altamirano Lisa Anders Lauren Bass Laura Bohlmann Nancy Bratic* Anne Campbell Diana Candida Debby Cutler Vickie Davis Kellie Garden Debbie Hannah Megan Henry Yukiko Iwata Rashida Moore* Carol Ostlind Linda Peters Belinda Rossiter Susan Scarrow Vicki Seldon Megan Kennedy Shedden Elizabeth Snelling Paige Sommer Veronica Stevens Suzanne Thacker Nancy Vernau First Alto Krista Borstell Pat Bumpus Barbara Bush Thea Chapman Elizabeth Chitwood Nancy Christopherson Robin Clarkson Rochella Cooper
Second Alto Melissa Bailey Adams Sarah Clark* Evelyn Clift Ceci Corredor Andrea Creath Robin Dunn Holly Eaton Rachel El-Saleh Thi Ha Catherine Howard Lois Howell Helen Hughes Miriam Lenon Crystal Meadows** Nina Peropoulos Laurie Reynolds Linda Richardson Holly Soehnge Mary Voigt Bonnie Wilson Kaye Windel-Garza First Tenor Adam Britcher Robert Browning James Carazola Patrick Drake Robert Gomez* Patrick Hanley Steven Hazel Donald Howie Francisco Izaguirre Chris Lund Darrell Mayon Jim Moore** Peter Peropoulos Douglas Rodenberger Gottfried Schiller David Schoen Tony Sessions Charles Thornburg
First Bass Jonathan Aigner Steve Abercia Joe Anzaldua Rich Arenschiedlt Greg Barra Jon Bauer Justin Becker Eldo Bergman Brandon Bingham Claude Bitner John Bond Bruce Boyle Peter Christian Steve Dukes Will Hailey Taylor Harper Scott Hassett Stephen James Cletus Johnson Max Locher Jay Lopez** Ken Mathews* Will McCallum Kevin Newman Gary Scullin Mark Standridge Paul Van Dorn Joe Villareal Kevin Wallace Sean Warley Second Bass Wilton Adams** Keith Burton Bill Cheadle John Colson Roger Cutler Paul Ehrsam Tom Everage Chris Fair Ian Fetterley David Fox Mike Gilbert Matt Henderson* Terry Henderson George Howe Nobuhide Kobori Kevin Kvam
*Council Member **Section Leader As of February 1, 2013
EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY Engagement For many student musicians, there is what I love to do and have the wondersomething much deeper than dediful Houston Symphony accompany my cation alone that provides the energy playing to make better music.” This conand motivation to practice an instrucert also gives one of Houston’s youth ment several hours each day. Making ensembles the chance to perform alongmusic is a form of expression that supside Houston Symphony musicians. plies a feeling of confidence, self-worth Behind every successful musiand pure enjoyment. In 1947, Miss cian, student and professional alike, is Ima Hogg and the Houston Symphony a hard-working, selfless teacher who League recognized this, and began a pushed each student to excel, and Concerto Competition to give talented, provided opportunities to blossom and young musicians an opportunity to perinspiration to make hard work become form with the Houston Symphony. Each “I had the opportunity to, for once, be on the other side of that Jones Hall year, the League hosts 10-20 gifted stage, and more importantly, I got to share this stage with some instrumentalists, ages 18 and under, who perform an entire concerto from all-around fantastic people.” Reshena Liao, 2011 HSL Concerto Competition Winner memory. The winner of this competi- tion performs a concerto the following year at the Spec’s Charitable a passion. Each year, the Houston Symphony honors two of these Foundation’s Salute to Educators Concert. dedicated and committed teachers at the Salute to Educators ConPianist Anna Han, the 2012 Concerto Competition winner, percert. The Spec’s Charitable Foundation Award for Music Excellence forms Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 at this month’s Salute to Educais awarded to a music teacher in the greater Houston area and his tor’s concert on March 28, and she is eagerly anticipating the perforor her music program. The Sophia Meyer Farb School Bell Award mance, “Competing in competitions brings a whole new meaning to recognizes a Houston-area music teacher who has demonstrated life. My excitement is beyond words. This is a great chance to show outstanding service.
The Houston Symphony would like to acknowledge those individuals, corporations and foundations that support our education and community engagement activities. Each year these activities impact the lives of more than 76,000 children and students and provide access to our world-class orchestra for more than 100,000 Houstonians free-of-charge.
GUARANTOR - $100,000+ M.D. Anderson Foundation The Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts Lieutenant Governor David H. Dewhurst Mrs. Alfred C. Glassell Jr. City of Houston through the Miller Theatre Advisory Board Houston Symphony Endowment John & Lindy Rydman / Spec’s Wines, Spirits and Finer Foods UNDERWRITER - $50,000+ Cameron International Corporation ExxonMobil Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Educational Fund GDF SUEZ Energy North America JPMorgan Chase Marathon Oil Corporation John P. McGovern Foundation Shell Oil Company SPONSOR - $25,000+ The Boeing Company Sterling-Turner Foundation
PARTNER - $15,000+ Bank of America Ruth & Ted Bauer Family Foundation CenterPoint Energy The Melbern G. & Susanne M. Glasscock Foundation Macy’s Foundation Wells Fargo PATRON - $10,000+ Enbridge Energy Company George & Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation The Powell Foundation The Schissler Foundation Vivian L. Smith Foundation Vaughn Foundation BENEFACTOR - $5,000+ Devon Energy Corporation Lynne Murray, Sr. Educational Foundation Randalls Food Markets, Inc. Strake Foundation Swift Energy Company DONOR - $1,000+ Kinder Morgan Foundation Robert W. & Pearl Wallis Knox Foundation Lillian Kaiser Lewis Foundation
These programs are also supported by the following endowed funds which are part of the Houston Symphony Endowment: Margaret & Alice Brown Endowment Fund for Education Lawrence E. Carlton M.D. Endowment Fund for Youth Programs The Hearst Foundation Spec’s Charitable Foundation March 2013 39
The Houston Symphony Endowment Trust The Houston Symphony Endowment Trust is a separate nonprofit organization that invests contributions to earn income for the benefit of the Houston Symphony Society.
Trustees Janet F. Clark Michael Mithoff
Steven P. Mach, President Prentiss Burt
Jesse B. Tutor Fredric A. Weber
An endowed fund can be permanently established within the Houston Symphony Society through a direct contribution or via a planned gift such as a bequest. The fund can be designated for general purposes or specific interests. For further information, please contact David Chambers, Chief Development Officer, at (713) 337-8525, Mark Folkes, Director, Individual Giving and Major Gifts, at (713) 337-8521, or Stephanie Ann Jones, Senior Director, Events and League Relations, at (713) 337-8526. The Houston Symphony acknowledges with deep gratitude the following individuals, corporations, foundations and government agencies who have supported the Endowment. General Endowment Funds that support operational and annual activities: Accenture (Anderson Consulting) Fund AIG American General Fund Mr. & Mrs. Philip Bahr Fund Janice H. & Thomas D. Barrow Fund Mrs. Ermy Borlenghi Bonfield Fund The Charles Engelhard Foundation Fund Jane & Robert Cizik Fund Mr. Lee A. Clark Fund Cooper Industries, Inc. Fund Gene & Linda Dewhurst Fund DuPont Corporation Fund Elkins Charitable Trust Agency Fund The Margaret & James A. Elkins Foundation Fund Virginia Lee Elverson Trust Fund Charles Engelhard Foundation Fund William Stamps Farish Fund Dr. Kelli Cohen Fein & Martin J. Fein Fund Stephen & Mariglyn Glenn Fund Jo A. & Billie Jo Graves Fund George & Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation Fund Dr. Gary L. Hollingsworth & Dr. Ken Hyde Fund Houston Arts Combined Endowment Fund Drs. M.S. & Marie-Luise Kalsi Fund Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Kaplan Fund Ann Kennedy & Geoffrey Walker Fund Martha Kleymeyer Fund Rochelle & Max Levit Fund Mr. E. W. Long Jr. Fund
M.D. Anderson Foundation Fund Rodney H. Margolis Fund Jay & Shirley Marks Fund Mr. & Mrs. J. Stephen Marks Fund/ The Marks Charitable Foundation Marian & Speros Martel Foundation Fund Barbara & Pat McCelvey Fund The Menil Foundation Fund Monroe Mendelsohn Jr. Estate Sue A. Morrison & Children Fund National Endowment for the Arts Fund Stewart Orton Fund Papadopoulos Fund Nancy & Robert Peiser Fund Rockwell Fund, Inc. Fund Mr. & Mrs. Clive Runnells Fund Estate of Mr. Walter W. Sapp Fund Mr. & Mrs. Matt K. Schatzman Fund The Schissler Foundation Fund Mr. & Mrs. James A. Shaffer Fund Mr. & Mrs. William T. Slick Jr. Fund Texas Eastern Fund Bobby & Phoebe Tudor Fund Mr. & Mrs. Jesse B. Tutor Fund Dede & Connie Weil Fund The Wortham Foundation Fund Anonymous (5)
Designated funds to support annual performance activity: The Brown Foundation Guest Pianist Fund The Cullen Foundation Maestro’s Fund General & Mrs. Maurice Hirsch Memorial Concert Fund in memory of Theresa Meyer and Jules Hirsch, beloved parents of General Maurice Hirsch, and Rosetta Hirsch Weil and Josie Hirsch Bloch, beloved sisters of General Maurice Hirsch The Houston Symphony Chorus Endowment Fund Fayez Sarofim Guest Violinist Fund through The Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts The Wortham Foundation Classical Series Fund endowed in memory of Gus S. & Lyndall F. Wortham
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The Houston Symphony Endowment Trust Endowed Chairs to assist the Houston Symphony attract, retain and support world class conductors, musicians and guest artists: Janice & Thomas Barrow Chair: Brinton Averil Smith, principal cello Roy & Lillie Cullen Chair: Hans Graf, music director Fondren Foundation Chair: Qi Ming, assistant concertmaster Hewlett-Packard Company Chair: Marina Brubaker, first violin General Maurice Hirsch Chair: Aralee Dorough, principal flute Ellen E. Kelley Chair: Eric Halen, associate concertmaster Max Levine Chair: Frank Huang, concertmaster Cornelia & Meredith Long Chair: Assia Dulgerska, assistant concertmaster George P. & Cynthia Woods Mitchell Chair: Mark Hughes, principal trumpet Tassie & Constantine S. Nicandros Chair: Alexander Potiomkin, bass clarinet Lucy Binyon Stude Chair: Jonathan Fischer, principal oboe Endowed funds to support the Houston Symphony’s annual education and community engagement activities: Margarett & Alice Brown Endowment Fund for Education Lawrence E. Carlton M.D. Endowment Fund for Youth Programs The William Randolph Hearst Endowed Fund for Education Programs Spec’s Charitable Foundation Salute to Educators Concert Fund Endowed funds to support new commissions and innovative artistic projects: The Micajah S. Stude Special Production Fund Endowed funds to support access and expand geographic reach: The Alice & David C. Bintliff Messiah Concert fund for performances at First Methodist Church The Brown Foundation’s Miller Outdoor Theatre Fund in honor of Hanni Orton and in memory of Stewart Orton Mach Family Audience Development Fund George P. & Cynthia Woods Mitchell Summer Concerts Fund Endowed funds to support electronic media initiatives: The Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts Fund for Creative Initiatives Legacy commitments through The Brown Foundation Challenge to support artistic excellence: Janet. F Clark Gloria Goldblatt Pryzant Mr. & Mrs. Jesse B. Tutor Legacy Society Chair: Wayne Brooks, principal viola Ms. Vicki West in honor of Hans Graf Anonymous (1)
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Symphony Society Board Executive Committee President & Vice President, Finance Robert A. Peiser
Chairman of the Board Jesse B. Tutor
Executive Director/CEO Mark C. Hanson
Past President Robert B. Tudor III
Chairman Emeritus Mike Stude
Vice President, Artistic and Orchestra Affairs Justice Brett Busby
Vice President, Board Governance and Secretary Steven P. Mach
Vice President, Volunteers David Wuthrich
Vice President, Development Jerome Simon
Vice President, Popular Programming Allen Gelwick
Vice President, Education Cora Sue Mach
Vice President, Audience Development and Marketing Gloria G. Pryzant
General Counsel Paul R. Morico
President, Endowment Steven P. Mach
EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS Mark Hughes, Orchestra Representative Rodney Margolis Susan Osterberg, President, Houston Symphony League Burke Shaw, Orchestra Representative Brinton Averil Smith, Orchestra Representative Stacey Spears, Assistant Secretary Ed Wulfe, Immediate Past Chair
At-Large Members Marie Bosarge Gene Dewhurst Barbara McCelvey Helen Shaffer Jim R. Smith
Governing Directors * Janice H. Barrow Danielle Batchelor Darlene Bisso Anthony Bohnert Marie Bosarge Terry Ann Brown Ralph Burch Justice Brett Busby Donna Josey Chapman Janet Clark Michael H. Clark Ryan Colburn Scott Cutler Lorraine Dell Viviana Denechaud Gene Dewhurst Michael Doherty
Trustees
Samuel Abraham Philip Bahr Graham Baker Devinder Bhatia Ted Bosquez Meherwan Boyce Walter Bratic Prentiss Burt Cheryl Byington Dougal Cameron Lynn Caruso * John T. Cater Audrey Cochran Mark Day Cindy Deere Louis DeLone John Esquivel Tom Fitzpatrick Past Presidents of the Houston Symphony Society Mrs. Edwin B. Parker Miss Ima Hogg Mrs. H. M. Garwood Joseph A. Mullen, M.D. Joseph S. Smith Walter H. Walne H. R. Cullen Gen. Maurice Hirsch Charles F. Jones Fayez Sarofim John T. Cater Richard G. Merrill Ellen Elizardi Kelley John D. Platt E. C. Vandagrift Jr. J. Hugh Roff Jr.
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Susanna Dokupil Kelli Cohen Fein Julia Frankel David Frankfort Allen Gelwick Mauro Gimenez Stephen Glenn Susan Hansen Gary L. Hollingsworth Brian James Ulyesse LeGrange Rochelle Levit Cora Sue Mach Steven P. Mach * Rodney Margolis Jay Marks Mary Lynn Marks
Jackie Wolens Mazow Billy McCartney Barbara McCelvey * Alexander K. McLanahan Kevin Meyers Paul Morico Arthur Newman Robert A. Peiser Geoffroy Petit David Pruner Stephen Pryor Gloria G. Pryzant Ron Rand Kathi Rovere John Rydman Manolo Sanchez Helen Shaffer
Jerome Simon Jim R. Smith David Steakley Mike Stude Ileana Trevi単o * Robert B. Tudor III * Betty Tutor * Jesse B. Tutor Margaret Waisman Fredric A. Weber Vicki West Margaret Alkek Williams * Ed Wulfe David Wuthrich Robert A. Yekovich
Craig A. Fox Mary Fusillo Stanley Haas Eric Haufrect Kathleen Hayes Catherine Kaldis Joan Kaplan I. Ray Kirk Roslyn Larkey Nancy Littlejohn Carolyn Mann Michael Mann Paul M. Mann Judy Margolis David Massin Brian McCabe * Gene McDavid Marilyn Miles
Michael Mithoff Dave Mueller Tassie Nicandros Scott Nyquist Edward Osterberg Jr. Chester M. Pitts II Greg Powers Roman F. Reed Richard Robbins * J. Hugh Roff Jr. Donna Shen Mark Schusterman * Michael E. Shannon Jule Smith David Stanard David Tai Michael Tenzer L. Proctor (Terry) Thomas
Stephen G. Tipps Mrs. S. Conrad Weil Robert Weiner David Ashley White James T. Willerson Steven J. Williams Ex-Officio Mark C. Hanson Mark Hughes Carole Murphy Susan Osterberg Burke Shaw Brinton Averil Smith Stacey Spears
Robert M. Hermance Gene McDavid Janice H. Barrow Barry C. Burkholder Rodney H. Margolis Jeffrey B. Early Michael E. Shannon Ed Wulfe Jesse B. Tutor Robert B. Tudor III Past Presidents of the Houston Symphony League Miss Ima Hogg Mrs. John F. Grant Mrs. J. R. Parten Mrs. Andrew E. Rutter Mrs. Aubrey Leon Carter Mrs. Stuart Sherar
www.houstonsymphony.org
Mrs. Julian Burrows Ms. Hazel Ledbetter Mrs. Albert P. Jones Mrs. Ben A. Calhoun Mrs. James Griffith Lawhon Mrs. Olaf La Cour Olsen Mrs. Ralph Ellis Gunn Mrs. Leon Jaworski Mrs. Garrett R. Tucker Jr. Mrs. M. T. Launius Jr. Mrs. Thompson McCleary Mrs. Theodore W. Cooper Mrs. Allen H. Carruth Mrs. David Hannah Jr. Mary Louis Kister Ellen Elizardi Kelley Mrs. John W. Herndon
* Life Trustee
Mrs. Charles Franzen Mrs. Harold R. DeMoss Jr. Mrs. Edward H. Soderstrom Mrs. Lilly Kucera Andress Ms. Marilou Bonner Mrs. W. Harold Sellers Mrs. Harry H. Gendel Mrs. Robert M. Eury Mrs. E. C. Vandagrift Jr. Mrs. J. Stephen Marks Terry Ann Brown Nancy Strohmer Mary Ann McKeithan Ann Cavanaugh Mrs. James A. Shaffer Lucy H. Lewis Catherine McNamara Shirley McGregor Pearson
Paula Jarrett Cora Sue Mach Kathi Rovere Norma Jean Brown Barbara McCelvey Lori Sorcic Nancy Willerson Jane Clark Nancy Littlejohn Donna Shen
Houston Symphony Donors The Sustainability Fund
The Houston Symphony pays special tribute to those who support our Sustainability Fund, whose extraordinary leadership investment has made it possible for the Symphony to provide the deep level of cultural service so richly deserved by the communities of the greater Houston area and Gulf Coast region. For further information about The Sustainability Fund, please contact Mark C. Hanson, Executive Director/CEO, at (713) 238-1412.
Houston Endowment The Estate of Jean R. Sides Bobby & Phoebe Tudor Mrs. Alfred C. Glassell Jr.
Mrs. Kitty King Powell Janice H. Barrow The Cullen Foundation The Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts
Annual Support
The Houston Symphony gratefully acknowledges those who support our artistic, educational and community engagement programs through their generosity to our Annual Fund and our Special Events. Below is a listing of those who have so generously given within the past year. We are honored to count these donors among our closest Houston Symphony friends, and we invite you to consider becoming a member of one of our giving societies. For more information, please contact David Chambers, Chief Development Officer, at (713) 337-8525.
Leadership Circle Ima Hogg Society $150,000 or More Janice H. Barrow Mrs. Marie T. & Dr. Ed Bosarge Lieutenant Governor & Mrs. David H. Dewhurst Mrs. Alfred C. Glassell Jr. Mr. George P. Mitchell Mrs. Kitty King Powell John & Lindy Rydman / Spec’s Wines, Spirits & Finer Foods Mr. Mike Stude Bobby & Phoebe Tudor Margaret Alkek Williams Centennial Society $100,000 - $149,000 Jane & Robert Cizik Beth Madison Barbara & Pat McCelvey Janice & Robert McNair Mr. & Mrs. Jim R. Smith Mr. & Mrs. Jesse B. Tutor
President’s Society $75,000 - $99,999 Nancy & Robert Peiser March 2013 43
Houston Symphony Donors Maestro’s Society $50,000 - $74,999
Concertmaster’s Society $25,000 - $49,999
Mr. & Mrs. Philip A. Bahr
Mr. & Mrs. Edward F. Blackburne Jr.
Darlene & Cappy Bisso
Mr. Michael H. Clark & Ms. Sallie Morian
Gene & Linda Dewhurst
Mr. & Mrs. John P. Dennis III
Mr. Monzer Hourani
Mr. & Mrs. Russell M. Frankel
Drs. M.S. & Marie-Luise Kalsi
Mr. & Mrs. Melbern G. Glasscock
Rochelle & Max Levit
Stephen & Mariglyn Glenn
Cora Sue & Harry Mach
Maestro Hans Graf & Mrs. Graf
Joella & Steven P. Mach
Jo A. & Billie Jo Graves
Mr. & Mrs. James A. Shaffer
Dr. Gary L. Hollingsworth & Dr. Ken Hyde
Laura & Michael Shannon
The Joan & Marvin Kaplan Foundation Mr. & Mrs. Ulyesse J. LeGrange Cornelia & Meredith Long Mr. & Mrs. J. Stephen Marks Mr. & Mrs. Alexander K. McLanahan Dave & Alie Pruner Ann & Hugh Roff Mrs. Sybil F. Roos Mr. & Mrs. Clive Runnells Alice & Terry Thomas Mr. & Mrs. Fredric A. Weber Steven & Nancy Williams Anonymous (2)
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Houston Symphony Donors Conductor’s Circle, Platinum Baton $15,000-$24,999 Robin Angly & Miles Smith Mr. Gary V. Beauchamp & Ms. Marian Wilfert Beauchamp Mr. & Mrs. David J. Beck Mr. Ralph Burch Justice Brett & Erin Busby Drs. Dennis & Susan Carlyle Mr. & Mrs. Max Chapman Janet F. Clark
Audrey & Brandon Cochran Alexander & Lorraine Dell Allen & Almira Gelwick, Lockton Companies Susan & Dick Hansen Ms. Nancey Lobb Dr. & Mrs. Michael Mann Mr. & Mrs. Rodney H. Margolis Mr. & Mrs. Billy McCartney Mr. Walter & Mrs. Maryjane Scherr
Jule & Albert Smith / Julia & Albert Smith Foundation Mr. & Mrs. Tad Smith Mr. & Mrs. Robert R. Springob, Laredo Construction, Inc. David & Paula Steakley Dede & Connie Weil
Conductor’s Circle, Gold Baton $10,000-$14,999 Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Abraham Rolaine & Morrie Abramson Mr. & Mrs. Joshua L. Batchelor Dr. & Mrs. Meherwan P. Boyce Mr. & Mrs. Walter V. Boyle Mr. & Mrs. Walter Bratic Mrs. Catherine Campbell Brock & Dr. Gary Brock Ruth White Brodsky Mr. & Mrs. Donald Childress Dr. Scott Cutler Mr. Richard Danforth Leslie Barry Davidson & W. Robins Brice Mr. & Mrs. Michael Dokupil Mrs. William Estrada Aubrey & Sylvia Farb Dr. Kelli Cohen Fein & Martin J. Fein
Angel & Craig Fox Mr. David Frankfort & Ms. Erika Bermeo Mr. Michael B. George Mr. & Mrs. Fred L. Gorman Christina & Mark Hanson Larry & Susan Kellner Dr. & Mrs. I. Ray Kirk Mr. & Mrs. Michael Linn Dr. & Mrs. Paul M. Mann Jay & Shirley Marks Dr. & Mrs. Malcolm L. Mazow Brian & Elisabeth McCabe Betty & Gene McDavid Catherine Jane Merchant Susan & Edward Osterberg Mr. & Mrs. James Postl Gloria & Joe Pryzant
Mrs. Lila Rauch Mr. & Mrs. Thomas R. Reckling III Donna & Tim Shen Mr. & Mrs. Jerry Simon Mr. Louis H. Skidmore Jr. Ms. Kelly Somoza James Stein / Bank of Houston Mr. & Mrs. Troy Thacker Paul Strand Thomas Stephen & Pamalah Tipps Ms. Judith Vincent Margaret Waisman, M.D. & Steven S. Callahan, Ph.D. Vicki West Mr. & Mrs. C. Clifford Wright Anonymous (1)
Conductor’s Circle, Silver Baton $7,500-$9,999 Eric S. Anderson & R. Dennis Anderson Graham & Janet Baker Mrs. Bonnie Bauer Mr. & Mrs. Karl H. Becker Dr. Alan Bentz & Ms. Sallymoon S. Benz Dr. & Mrs. Devinder Bhatia Mr. & Mrs. Charles G. Black III Ms. Terry A. Brown Mr. & Mrs. Noel Coon Judge & Mrs. Harold DeMoss Jr. Mr. & Mrs. David Denechaud Mr. Mauro Gimenez & Ms. Connie Coulomb Mr. & Mrs. Frank Herzog Mr. Brian James Mrs. Gloria Pepper & Dr. Bernard Katz Mr. & Mrs. Thomas J. Lykos Jr.
Mr. Keith McFarland Mr. & Mrs. Kevin O. Meyers Dr. & Mrs. Robert M. Mihalo Cameron Mitchell Sidney & Ione Moran Paul & Rita Morico Mr. & Mrs. Lucian L. Morrison Jr. Sue A. Morrison Bobbie & Arthur Newman Mrs. Tassie Nicandros Peggy Overly & John Barlow Mr. & Mrs. Jonathan E. Parker Kathryn & Richard Rabinow Mr. & Mrs. Ron R. Rand Roman & Sally Reed Mr. & Mrs. Ken N. Robertson Mr. Glen A. Rosenbaum
Dr. Carlos Rossi William J. Rovere & Kathi F. Rovere Ms. Amanda Savo Dr. Alana R. Spiwak & Sam Stolbun Mr. Stephen C. Tarry Mr. & Mrs. Leland Tate Shirley Toomim Shirley & Joel Wahlberg Stephen & Kristine Wallace Robert G. Weiner & Toni Blankmann Dr. Jim T. Willerson Nancy Willerson Cyvia & Melvyn Wolff Mr. & Mrs. Ed Wulfe Nina & Michael Zilkha
Conductor’s Circle, Bronze Baton $5,000-$7,499 Mrs. Nina Andrews Mr. Richard C. Bailey Mr. Teodoro Bosquez Mr. & Mrs. Michael E. Bowman Hon. Peter & Mrs. Anne S. Brown Toba Buxbaum Marilyn Caplovitz Mrs. Lily Carrigan Mr. & Mrs. William T. Carter IV William J. Clayton & Margaret A. Hughes Mr. & Mrs. Bert Cornelison Roger & Debby Cutler J.R. & Aline Deming
Ms. Sara Jo Devine Mr. & Mrs. Carr P. Dishroon Mr. Robert Durst Mrs. Jane Egner Mr. Roger Eichhorn Mr. William Elbel & Ms. Mary J. Schroeder Mr. Scott Ensell Mr. Shane T. Frank Ms. Beth Freeman & Mr. Dave Stanard Mr. Edwin C. Friedrichs & Ms. Darlene Clark Dr. Robert H. & Mrs. Mary M. Fusillo Mrs. Aileen Gordon William A. & Dorothy H. Grieves
Mr. & Mrs. Robert M. Griswold Ms. Kathleen Hayes Mr. & Mrs. James E. Hooks Debbie & Frank Jones Drs. Blair & Rita Justice Mr. & Mrs. Andrew Kaldis Mr. & Mrs. Richard D. Kinder Mary Louis Kister William & Cynthia Koch Mr. Willy Kuehn Marilyn Lummis Mr. & Mrs. David Massin Mrs. Beverly T. McDonald March 2013 45
Houston Symphony Donors Mr. & Mrs. J. Douglas McMurrey Jr. Mr. & Mrs. D. Bradley McWilliams Mr. Gary Mercer Stephen & Marilyn Miles Ginni & Richard Mithoff Mr. & Mrs. Richard P. Moynihan Terry Murphree Mr. & Mrs. Robert E. Nelson Mr. & Mrs. Charles G. Nickson Mr. & Mrs. Eugene O’Donnell Jennifer Owen & Ed Benyon Mr. Howard Pieper Mr. Robert J. Pilegge Jean & Allan Quiat Vicky & Michael Richker Mr. & Mrs. Manolo Sanchez Mr. & Mrs. Richard P. Schissler Jr. Dr. Philip D. Scott & Dr. Susan E. Gardner Mr. & Mrs. Mark R. Smith Mr. & Mrs. Antonio M. Szabo Nancy & David Tai Mr. Brian Teichman Ms. Beverly Turner McDonald Mrs. Birgitt van Wijk Dr. David A. White Ms. Jennifer R. Wittman Woodell Family Foundation Winthrop A. Wyman & Beverly Johnson Dr. & Mrs. Robert Yekovich Erla & Harry Zuber Anonymous (1)
Grand Patron’s Circle $2,500 - $4,999
Mr. & Mrs. Mickey Ables Mr. & Mrs. Thurmon Andress Mr. & Mrs. John S. Arnoldy Dr. & Mrs. Jeffrey B. Aron Mr. & Mrs. John C. Averett Mr. & Mrs. Carlos Barbieri Mr. James M. Bell Mr. & Mrs. Anthony W. Bohnert Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Bolam Mr. & Mrs. James D. Bozeman Maurice & Karey Bresenhan Mr. Larry C. Brookshire Mr. & Mrs. Thierry Caruso David Chambers & Alex Steffler Dr. Robert N. Chanon Courtney & John Chapoton Mr. & Mrs. Kent Chenevert Mr. & Mrs. Gerald F. Clark Mr. William E. Colburn Lois & David Coyle Mr. & Mrs. James W. Crownover Mr. & Mrs. Mark P. Day Ms. Niki DeMaio James R. Denton Mr. & Mrs. Mark Diehl Mr. & Mrs. Jack N. Doherty Mr. & Mrs. Michael Doherty Carolyn & David Edgar Mr. Parrish N. Erwin Jr. Mr. & Mrs. J. Thomas Eubank Mr. & Mrs. Jonathan B. Fairbanks Mary Ann & Larry Faulkner Mr. & Mrs. Donald Faust Sr. Mr. & Mrs. Bruce Ference Mr. & Mrs. George Ferguson Mr. & Mrs. Tom Fitzpatrick Andy Fullen 46
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Young Associates Council Young Associate, Premium $2,500 or more David Chambers & Alex Steffler Audrey & Brandon Cochran Christina & George Ferguson Andy Fullen Jimmy Hubbell Juliet Moths Young Associate $1,500 - $2,499 Lindley & Jason Arnoldy James M. Bell Ting & John Bresnahan Divya & Chris Brown
Thomas & Patricia Geddy Mrs. Lila-Gene George Mr. Bert & Mrs. Joan Golding Mr. & Mrs. Herbert I. Goodman Robert & Michele Goodmark Mr. & Mrs. Stanley Haas Dr. & Mrs. Eric J. Haufrect Mr. & Mrs. Eric Heggeseth Mr. & Mrs. Matt Hennessy Mark & Ragna Henrichs Mr. & Mrs. George Hricik Mr. Jimmy Hubbell Marianne & Robert Ivany Marzena & Jacek Jaminski Mr. & Mrs. John F. Joity Ms. Roslyn Larkey Mr. & Mrs. Andrew Linbeck Ms. B. Lynn Mathre & Mr. Stewart O’Dell Mr. & Mrs. Lance McKnight Ms. Vickie McMicken Mr. & Mrs. William B. McNamara Dr. & Mrs. John Mendelsohn Mr. & Mrs. Robert Mitchell Mr. & Mrs. Michael Mithoff Julia & Chris Morton Juliet Moths Mr. & Mrs. Geoffroy Petit Mr. James D. Pitcock Jr. Dr. Gregory & Mrs. Cathie Powers Mr. Timothy Presutti Mr. & Mrs. Stephen D. Pryor Mr. & Mrs. Joseph H. Pyne Jeremy & Linsay Radcliffe Shirley & Marvin Rich Mr. & Mrs. Nathaniel Richards Allyn & Jill Risley Dr. & Mrs. Richard Robbins Mr. & Mrs. James L. Robertson Ms. Regina J. Rogers Drs. Alex & Lynn Rosas Carole & Barry Samuels Mr. & Mrs. Raymond E. Sawaya Mr. & Mrs. Rufus S. Scott Mr. & Mrs. John Seaberg Mr. & Mrs. George A. Shannon Jr. Mr. & Mrs. William T. Slick Jr. Mr. & Mrs. Keith Stevenson Mr. & Mrs. Hans Strohmer Dr. & Mrs. Karl Tornyos Ann Trammell Ms. Emily Van Houtan C. Harold & Lorine Wallace Dr. & Mrs. Jasper Welch
Peter James Cazamias Sarah & Ben Cotting Katie Flaherty Mark Folkes & Christopher Johnston Jessica Ford Hali Ganbold Samantha M. Gonzalez Jessica Q. Johnston Jennifer & David Mire Sami & Jud Morrison Brooke & Nathaniel Richards Amanda & John Seaberg Jo A. Simmons Evelyn & Francisco Uzcategui Rachael & Jason Volz, A Fare Extraordinaire
Dr. & Mrs. Rudy C. Wildenstein Mr. & Mrs. David J. Wuthrich Mr. Keith Yanez Edith & Robert Zinn
Patron
$1,000 - $2,499
Dr. & Mrs. George J. Abdo Mrs. Harold J. Adam Joan & Stanford Alexander Mrs. Nancy C. Allen Mr. John Alvarado Frances & Ira Anderson John & Pat Anderson Mr. William J. Anderson Dr. Angela R. Apollo Lindley & Jason Arnoldy Mr. & Mrs. John M. Arnsparger Paul H. & Maida M. Asofsky Mr. Jeff Autor Ms. Mary S. Axelrad Dr. & Mrs. Jamil Azzam Susie & John Bace Mrs. Nancy Bailey Mr. & Mrs. Stephen J. Banks Mr. David Barnham Mr. & Mrs. Paul M. Basinski Richard & Trish Battaglia Dr. & Mrs. Arthur L. Beaudet Drs. Henry & Louise Bethea Mrs. Trisha Biasotti Dr. Joan Hacken Bitar Mrs. Mary Blake Mr. & Mrs. Michael Blitzer Mr. & Mrs. George Boerger Mrs. Danya M. Bogart Meg Boulware/Boulware & Valoir Mrs. Joanie Bowman Mr. Sonny Brandtner Mr. & Mrs. Robert Bray Joe Brazzatti Mr. & Mrs. Daniel A. Breen Sr. Ting & John Bresnahan Katherine M. Briggs Mr. Thomas Nyle Britton Mr. Chester Brooke & Dr. Nancy Poindexter Divya & Chris Brown Mr. & Mrs. Terry Bryant Dr. & Mrs. Fred Buckwold Lilia Khakinova & C. Robert Bunch Mrs. Anne H. Bushman Dr. & Mrs. William T. Butler Mr. & Mrs. Raul Caffesse Ms. Cathy M. Cagle Margot & John Cater Mr. Peter J. Cazamias The Chambers Family in memory of Margaret Sylvia Chambers Mr. & Mrs. Allen Clamen Mr. Robert L. Clarke Dr. Paul Cloutier Mr. & Mrs. Ryan Colburn Dr. Carmen Bonmati & Mr. Ben Conner
Houston Symphony Donors Mr. Mark C. Conrad Ms. Barbara A. Conte Mr. & Mrs. Byron Cooley Mr. & Mrs. William Cotting Dr. & Mrs. James D. Cox Mr. & Mrs. Timothy J. Crull Mr. & Mrs. Harry H. Cullen Jr. Mr. Carl Cunningham Mr. Jeffrey Daniels Mr. Fulton & Mrs. Reece Davenport Mrs. Helen Davis Mr. & Mrs. Paul Davis Mr. Denis A. DeBakey & Ms. Lavonne Cox Ms. Elizabeth Del Pico Ms. Aurelie Desmarais Christopher & Annamarie Dewhurst Bruce B. Dice Mike & Debra Dishberger Mr. Michael Dooley Mr. & Mrs. James P. Dorn Egon & Elisa Durban Ms. Consuelo Duroc-Danner Drs. Gary & Roz Dworkin Mr. & Mrs. David Dybell Mr. & Mrs. Edward N. Earle Mr. & Mrs. Sheldon R. Erikson Mr. & Mrs. Jon Evans Mr. Mike Ezzell Dr. Louis & Mrs. Paula Faillace Mrs. Carolyn Grant Fay Dr. Judith Feigin & Mr. Colin Faulkner Ms. Ursula H. Felmet Jerry E. & Nanette B. Finger Dr. & Mrs. Ronald Fischer Dr. & Mrs. Richard Fish Barbara S. Fitch Mr. Dale Fitz Katie Flaherty Mr. & Mrs. Harvey Fleisher Eugene Fong William & Deborah Fowler Mr. & Mrs. James E. Furr Hali Ganbold Martha & Gibson Gayle Jr. Mr. & Mrs. John Gee Mr. & Mrs. Harry Gendel Mrs. Joan M. Giese Dr. & Mrs. Jack Gill Walter Gilmore Mrs. James J. Glenn Jr. Mr. Morris Glesby Mr. & Mrs. David Glodt Mr. Robert Gomez Mr. Michael Gonser Samantha Gonzalez Ms. Melissa Goodman Dr. & Mrs. Bradford S. Goodwin Jr. Mr. Kendall Gray Ms. Joyce Z. Greenberg Mr. Charles H. Gregory Mary & Paul Gregory Mr. & Mrs. Doug Groves Mr. & Mrs. James Hackett Mr. Michael Haigh Eric & Angelea Halen Mrs. Thalia Halen Mr. & Mrs. Charles W. Hall Dr. & Mrs. Carlos R. Hamilton Jr. Mr. & Mrs. Robert C. Hanna Mr. & Mrs. Warren W. Harris David & Claudia Hatcher Mr. & Mrs. Houston Haymon Mr. & Mrs. David J. Hemenway Marilyn & Robert M. Hermance Bob & Yoli Herrmann Ann & Joe Hightower Dr. Volker Hirsinger Mr. Robert Hoff Mr. Tim Hogan Mrs. Evelyn Howell Mark & Marilyn Hughes Mrs. Julia Humphreys Mr. & Mrs. Robert Humphries Mr. & Mrs. Edward F. Jackson Dr. & Mrs. Joseph Jankovic Ms. Ann Jennings
Mr. & Mrs. Okey B. Johnson Jessica Q. Johnston Mr. & Mrs. Steve Jones Mr. & Mrs. Harvey Katz Lynda & Frank S. Kelley Mr. & Mrs. David Kennedy Nora J. Klein, M.D. Mr. & Mrs. J.C. Kneale Mr. Jimmy Koch Lucy & Victor Kormeier Mr. & Mrs. Sam Koster Ms. Ilene Kramer Ms. Joni Latimer Mr. & Mrs. Gordon Leighton Mr. & Mrs. William R. Leighton Dr. & Mrs. Morton Leonard Jr. Dr. Golda & Dr. Robert B. Leonard Mr. & Mrs. Robert Leonard Mr. Edwin N. Letzerich H. Fred & Velva G. Levine Mr. & Mrs. Philip Lewis Mr. William W. Lindley Mr. & Mrs. H. Arthur Littell Dr. & Mrs. James R. Lloyd Ms. Sylvia Lohkamp Robert & Gayle Longmire Mr. & Mrs. W. Gregory Looser Mr. Elario Lozano Mr. & Mrs. Bob Lunn Tom & Kathleen Mach Mr. & Mrs. Barry H. Margolis Mrs. Sasha Davis & Mr. Joseph Matulevich Mr. & Mrs. J.A. Mawhinney Jr. Linda & Jim McCartney Dr. A. McDermott & Dr. A. Glasser Mr. & Mrs. Michael McGuire Mr. Edward McIntosh Ms. Karen McRae Mr. & Mrs. John Merrill Melba Hoekstra Miers Jennifer & David Mire Mr. Jamal Mollai Mr. & Mrs. John C. Molloy Dr. Eleanor D. Montague Mr. Joshua Morris Sami & Jud Morrison Mr. & Mrs. Gerald Moynier Mr. & Mrs. Marvin Mueller Mr. & Mrs. Richard Murphy Newman/Strug/Wadler families in honor of Ida & Irving Wadler Mr. & Mrs. Geoffrey B. Newton Ms. Sheila Neylon John & Leslie Niemand Mr. & Mrs. Ralph S. O’Connor Mr. & Mrs. Staman Ogilvie Mr. & Mrs. Patrick Olfers Steve & Sue Olson Mr. & Mrs. Sheldon I. Oster Jane & Kenneth Owen Mr. & Mrs. Robert Page Christine & Robert Pastorek Mr. & Mrs. Raul Pavon Michael & Shirley Pearson Pamela & James Penny JoAnn & John Petzold Ms. Debra Phillips Mr. & Mrs. W. Hugh Phillips III Ms. Meg Philpot Ms. Mariela Poleo Mr. Thomas Power Michael & Darla Price Mrs. Dana Puddy Darla & Chip Purchase Mr. & Mrs. David Pursell Mr. Tom Purves Dr. & Mrs. Henry H. Rachford Jr. Mr. & Mrs. Perry Radoff Clinton & Leigh Rappole Anne D. Reed Mr. & Mrs. Michael A. Reeves Mr. & Mrs. Allan Reich Mr. & Mrs. Dave Roberts Ms. Janice Robertson & Mr. Douglas Williams
Mr. & Mrs. Edward Ross Mr. Kent Rutter Mr. Robert T. Sakowitz Mr. & Mrs. Hugo Sand Chris & Don Sanders Harold H. Sandstead, M.D. Mrs. Holly Sansing Ms. Susan E. Scarrow Mr. & Mrs. Lawrence Schanzmeyer Beth & Lee Schlanger Mrs. Toni Oplt & Mr. Ed Schneider Dr. Mark A. Schusterman Drs. Helene & Robert Schwartz Mr. & Mrs. Gustavo Scuseria Mr. & Mrs. Ash Sharma Jo A. Simmons Mr. & Mrs. Steve Sims Barbara & Louis Sklar Mr. Brinton Averil Smith & Ms. Evelyn Chen Mr. & Mrs. William A. Smith Dean & Kay L. Snider Ms. Aimee Snoots John L. Snyder Mary Louise Spencer Carol & Michael Stamatedes Ms. Georgiana Stanley Mr. & Mrs. James R. Stevens Cassie B. Stinson & Dr. R. Barry Holtz Mr. & Mrs. Stopnicki Emily C. Sundt Susman Family Foundation/Ellen & Steve Susman Ms. Jeanine Swift Mr. & Mrs. Albert S. Tabor Jr. Jean & Doug Thomas Jacob & Elizabeth Thomas Mr. & Mrs. Gerald Thurmond Mr. Gerard Trione Ms. Karin Peterson Tripp Mr. & Mrs. Timothy J. Unger Mr. & Mrs. Francisco Uzcategui Mr. & Mrs. Donn K. Van Arsdall Dr. & Mrs. Charles T. Van Buren Mr. & Mrs. William A. Van Wie Ms. Jana Vander Lee Rachael & Jason Volz, A Fare Extraordinaire Betty & Bill Walker Mr. Danny Ward & Ms. Nancy Ames Mr. & Mrs. James A. Watt Mr. & Mrs. K.C. Weiner Ms. Joann E. Welton Mr. & Mrs. Eden N. Wenig Ms. Paula O. Whyte Ms. Melanie S. Wiggins Carlton & Marty Wilde Mr. & Mrs. James R. Wilhite Dr. Robert Wilkins & Dr. Mary Ann Reynolds Wilkins Mr. & Mrs. Jerry Witte Mr. Karl Heinz Wolf Ms. Elizabeth Wolff Dr. & Mrs. Jerry S. Wolinsky Ms. Daisy Wong Mr. & Mrs. Jeff Wray Mr. & Mrs. William A. Young Mr. & Mrs. Charles Zabriskie Anonymous (10)
Director $500 - $999
Mr. & Mrs. Justin Abbott Mr. William L. Ackerman Ms. Joan Ambrogi Mr. & Mrs. Steve Ameen Mrs. Roya Arfa Mr. & Mrs. Lowell Armstrong Dr. & Mrs. Roy Aruffo Corbin & Char Aslakson Ms. Erin S. Asprec Mr. & Mrs. Jerry Axelrod Mr. Richard Bado Mr. & Mrs. Arthur Baird Mr. & Mrs. David M. Balderston Mr. & Mrs. Richard Ball Ms. Anne Barrett
Mr. A. Greer Barriault & Ms. Clarruth A. Seaton Ms. Bernice Beckerman Mr. Ricky R. Behrend Mr. & Mrs. Lloyd M. Bentsen III Mr. & Mrs. John Berger Mr. & Mrs. Philippe Berteaud Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Bickel Mrs. Ann M. Bixby Dr. William Black Jr., M.D. Mr. & Mrs. Jack S. Blanton Jr. Mrs. Noemi Blum-Howard Anne & Edward Bornet Bob Frank Boydston Mr. James Bragg Ms. Sally Brassow Mr. & Mrs. Jos C. Brown Fred & Judy Brunk Mrs. Shirley Burgher Ms. Helen P. Burwell Mr. Carl Butler Mr. & Mrs. Joseph L. Campbell Mrs. H. E. Carrico Mr. Petros Carvounis Mr. & Mrs. John M. Cavanaugh Mr. & Mrs. E. Thomas Chaney Mr. & Mrs. David Chang Ms. Anna Charlton Virginia A. Clark Jim R. & Lynn Coe Donna M. Collins Mr. H. Talbot Cooley Mr. William S. & Dr. Mary Alice Cowan Dr. Edward Cox Mr. & Mrs. T. N. Crook Dr. & Mrs. Lee Daniels Ms. Caroline Deetjen Mr. & Mrs. Rene Degreve Mr. Joseph A. Dellinger Ms. Diane DelSignore & Mr. Robert S. Strait Mr. & Mrs. Joseph C. Dilg Mr. Charles Dishman Elizabeth H. Duerr Mr. & Mrs. A. C. Dumestre John & Joyce Eagle Ms. Paula Eck Mildred & Richard Ellis Mr. & Mrs. Knut Eriksen Ms. Tanya Evanoff & Mr. Ed Spire Diane Lokey Farb Mrs. Kelli Fereday Mr. Stephen J. Folzenlogen Mr. & Mrs. Michael S. Francisco Rachel Frazier Mrs. Cathy Friestch Mrs. Martha Garcia Mrs. Holly Garner Mr. & Mrs. Neil Gaynor Ms. Lucy Gebhart Mrs. Barbara Goedecke Mr. Glenn C. Goedecke Dr. John Gomez & Dr. Cora Mihu Ms. Elaine C. Gordon Dr. & Mrs. Harvey L. Gordon Mr. & Mrs. Mark Gordon Mr. & Mrs. Arthur Gottschalk Mr. Ned Graber Mr. & Mrs. Tony Gracely Mr. Garrett Graham Mr. & Mrs. Tim Graham Mr. George Green Dennis Griffith & Louise Richman Mr. & Mrs. Steve K. Grimsley Gaye Davis & Dennis B. Halpin Ms. Vickie Hamley Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Harbachick Michael D. Hardin Marion S. Hargrove W. Russel Harp & Maarit K. Savola-Harp Dr. & Mrs. William S. Harwell Thomas F. & Catherine Mary Hastings Dr. & Mrs. Robert N. Healy Mr. & Mrs. Frank L. Heard Jr. Sheila & Isaac Heimbinder Mr. & Mrs. Fred D. Herring Mr. & Mrs. W. Grady Hicks Mr. David Hoffman Dr. Matthew Horsfield & Dr. Michael Kauth Mr. David Houston Mr. & Mrs. Ted Hsieh Ms. Lee M. Huber Mr. & Mrs. Dean Huffman
March 2013 47
Houston Symphony Donors Ms. Rebecca Hutcheson Mr. & Mrs. Kenneth A. Jacobson Mr. & Mrs. Paul M. Janicke Mr. Mark Johansson Ms. Sheila K. Johnstone Mr. Bill Jones Mrs. Jillian Jopling Dr. & Mrs. Robert E. Jordon Mr. & Mrs. Yoshi Kawashima Sam & Cele Keeper Mr. & Mrs. Richard P. Keeton Mr. & Mrs. Keith Kelley Mr. John Kelsey & Ms. Gaye Davis Mr. & Mrs. Tom Kelsey Louise & Sherwin Kershman Mr. Ron Kesterson Ms. Malgosia Kloc Mr. & Mrs. William H. Knull III Mr. Dennis Kroeger Suzanne A. & Dan D. Kubin Mr. Vijay Kusnoor Dr. & Mrs. Shane Lanys Michael & Sharon Lewis Dr. & Dr. Richard A. Lewis Annie & Kenneth Li Mr. James C. Lindsey Dr. & Mrs. Kelly B. Lobley Renee & Michael Locklar Mr. Alberto Lozano Ms. Renee Margolin Ms. Diane Markesich & Mr. James Hamblet Ms. Faerie Marston Mr. Howard Martin Mr. & Mrs. Robert Martin Mr. James G. Matthews Dr. & Mrs. Glen E. Mattingly Mr. & Mrs. Rod McAdams Mr. & Mrs. James McBride Lawrence McCullough & Linda Jean Quintanilla
Mr. & Mrs. David R. McKeithan Jr. Mr. & Mrs. Lawrence McManus William E. Joor, III & Rose Ann Medlin Ms. Maria Carolina Mendoza Mr. & Mrs. Gerard Meneilly Mr. Ronald A. Mikita Mr. & Mrs. Arnold M. Miller Mr. & Mrs. Herbert G. Mills Mr. & Mrs. Thomas J. Mireles Mr. Willis B. Mitchell John & Ann Montgomery Ms. Deborah Moran Mr. William R. Mowlam Daniel & Karol Musher Ms. Jennifer Naae Mr. & Mrs. Kevin Neumann Ms. Khanh Nguyen Mr. & Mrs. Rufus W. Oliver III Drs. M. & V. Orocofsky Mrs. Caroline Osteen Mr. & Mrs. Steven Owsley Ms. Martha Palmer Mr. & Mrs. Peter C. Peropoulos Grace & Carroll Phillips Ms. Antoinette Post Mr. Robert W. Powell Kim & Ted A. Powell Mr. & Mrs. Gary Prentice Mr. William E. Pryor Mr. & Mrs. J. E. Pybus Jr. Elias & Carole Qumsieh Mr. & Mrs. Paul Ramirez Mr. & Mrs. Scott Ramsey Dr. Mike Ratliff Mr. & Mrs. William B. Rawl Dr. Alexander P. Remenchik & Ms. Frances Burford Mr. & Mrs. Norman T. Reynolds Ms. Rachaelle Reynolds Mr. & Mrs. Walter Rhodes Mr. & Mrs. William C. Richter
Mr. & Mrs. Claud D. Riddles Mr. & Mrs. Charles E. Rinehart Kelly & David Rose Milton & Jill Rose Mr. Autry W. Ross Mrs. Holly Rubbo Brenda & Mansel Rubenstein Mr. & Mrs. John Ryder Mr. Derek Salvino Mrs. Jennifer K. Salyer Mr. Charles King Sanders Ms. Cynthia Sanford Dr. & Mrs. David Sapire Ms. Stacey Saunders & Mr. Jeff Smith Mr. & Mrs. Eric Schaeffer Mr. & Mrs. Donald Schmuck Mr. David Schultz & Ms. Beth Stegle Jean & Robert Schwarz Dr. & Mrs. H. Irving Schweppe Jr. Ms. Donna Scott Charles & Andrea Seay Mr. & Mrs. Vic Shainock Claudette & Tim Shaunty Mrs. Melissa Shaw Mr. & Mrs. Russell Sherrill Mr. Hilary Smith Mr. & Mrs. Tom Smith Mr. & Mrs. Wesley Smith Mr. & Mrs. William Smith Ms. Joyce Steensrud Mr. Ronald B. Stein Mr. & Mrs. Donald K. Steinman Mr. & Mrs. Gary Stenerson Dr. John R. Stroehlein & Ms. Miwa Sakashita Mr. Alan Stuckert Dr. & Mrs. David Sufian Mr. & Mrs. John F. Sullivan Ms. Bobbie Sumerlin Dr. & Mrs. Frank C. Sung Mrs. Louise Sutton
Mr. Clifford A. Swanlund Jr. Ms. Barbara Swartz Dr. Jeffrey Sweterlitsch Ms. Carolyn Tanner Mr. Kerry Taylor Mr. & Mrs. Van Teeters Mr. John F. Terwilliger & Ms. Laura Codman Ms. Betsy Mims & Mr. Howard D. Thames Mr. & Mrs. M. Dale Tingleaf Mr. G. M. Tolunay David & Ann Tomatz Mr. & Mrs. Louis E. Toole Ms. Cathleen J. Trechter Mr. & Mrs. Robert A. Tremant Mrs. Eliot P. Tucker Mr. & Mrs. D.E. Utecht Mr. & Mrs. Jon P. Valfre Dr. & Mrs. Gage Van Horn Mr. Charles Veith Dean B. Walker Mr. & Mrs. Alton L. Warren Mr. Kenneth W. Warren Ms. Bryony Jane Welsh Mrs. Johannah Wilkenfeld Dr. Wayne Wilner Ms. Susan N. Wilson Mr. & Mrs. Thomas H. Wilson Miss Susan Wood Mr. & Mrs. Emil Wulfe Mr. Scott Wynant Anonymous (16)
Mr. & Mrs. George A. Helland Michael & Darcy Krajewski Mr. & Mrs. Wilfred M. Krenek Mr. & Mrs. Michael Lang Mr. & Mrs. Robin Lease Mr. & Mrs. John Matzer Mr. & Mrs. J.A. Mawhinney Jr. Mr. & Mrs. Alan May Jr. Mr. & Mrs. Terry McGill Barnett & Diane McLaughlin Mr. & Mrs. Joe T. McMillan Mr. Marvin McMurrey & Mrs. Martha Rocks Dr. & Mrs. Raghu Narayan Mr. & Mrs. Anthony G. Ogden Mrs. Kay M. Onstead Margaret & V. Scott Pignolet W. R. Purifoy Mr. & Mrs. John T. Riordan Mrs. Annetta Rose Mr. Morris Rubin Dr. & Mr. Adrian D. Shelley Mr. Charles Stewart Mr. & Mrs. Robert C. Thompson Ms. Virginia Torres Mr. Roger Trandell Ms. Jody Verwers Mr. & Mrs. Lawrence D. Wallace
Mr. & Mrs. George Dobbin Barbara Dokell Mr. & Mrs. Randy Dunn Mr. Richard Fanning Mr. John Geigel Mr. & Mrs. L. Henry Gissell Jr. Mr. Garland Gray Mr. & Mrs. Dale Hardy Mr. & Mrs. Don Harrison Richard & Beverly Hickman Mr. & Mrs. John Homier Mr. & Mrs. Alex Howard Ms. Margy Keaton Mr. Don E. Kingsley Ms. Amy Lacy Mr. & Mrs. Roger Lindgren Mr. & Mrs. James D. Long Ms. Doris M. Magee Mr. & Mrs. Kevin McEvoy Mr. James Miner Jim & Arlene Payne Dr. & Mrs. Albert E. Raizner Mrs. Pamela Royal Mr. Michael Shawiak James C. Stanka Mr. & Mrs. Jonathan Symko Mr. & Mrs. Eugene N. Tulich Mrs. Patricia Twining Mr. Gary Van Rooyan Mr. & Mrs. Thomas L. Venus Mr. & Mrs. Jaime Viancos Mr. & Mrs. Michael Villarreal Dr. & Mrs. William C. Watkins Anonymous (1)
As of February 1, 2013 To note any errors or omissions, please call Darryl de Mello at (713) 337-8529
Houston Symphony Pops Donors Ima Hogg Society $150,000 or More Mr. George P. Mitchell
Concertmaster’s Society $25,000-$49,999
Mr. & Mrs. Edward F. Blackburne Jr. Mrs. Sybil F. Roos
Conductor’s Circle, Platinum $15,000-$24,999
Allen & Almira Gelwick, Lockton Companies Susan & Dick Hansen Ms. Nancey Lobb Mr. Walter & Mrs. Maryjane Scherr David & Paula Steakley
Conductor’s Circle, Gold $10,000-$14,999 Mr. & Mrs. Fred L. Gorman Dr. & Mrs. Paul M. Mann Ms. Judith Vincent
Conductor’s Circle, Silver $7,500-$9,999
Graham & Janet Baker Mrs. Gloria Pepper & Dr. Bernard Katz Paul & Rita Morico Roman & Sally Reed Mr. & Mrs. Ken N. Robertson Mr. & Mrs. Leland Tate
Conductor’s Circle, Bronze $5,000-$7,499
Mr. & Mrs. Michael E. Bowman Marilyn Caplovitz Mr. & Mrs. Bert Cornelison Ms. Sara Jo Devine Mr. & Mrs. Jerry L. Hamaker Terry Murphree Mr. & Mrs. Robert E. Nelson Mr. & Mrs. Charles G. Nickson Mr. Robert J. Pilegge Jean & Allan Quiat Vicky & Michael Richker
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Grand Patron $2,500-$4,999
Rita & Geoffrey Bayliss Dr. Christopher Buehler & Ms. Jill Hutchison Mr. & Mrs. Byron F. Dyer Mr. & Ms. Eric J. Gongre Mr. Robert Grant & Ms. Christine Romsdahl Marianne & Robert Ivany Rex & Marillyn King Mr. & Mrs. Michael L. Mason Alice R. McPherson, M.D. Mr. & Mrs. Ben A. Reid Shirley & Marvin Rich Mr. & Mrs. George A. Rizzo Jr. Linda & Jerry Rubenstein Mr. & Mrs. William Thweatt Mr. & Mrs. William B. Welte III Sally & Denney Wright Anonymous (1)
Patron $1,000-$2,499
Mr. & Mrs. J. Emery Anderson Mrs. Nancy Bailey Stanley & Martha Bair Mr. John S. Beury Ellen Box Ms. Barbara A. Brooks Mr. & Mrs. Bruce G. Buhler Mr. David Carrier Mr. William V. Conover Mr. & Mrs. Robert Creager Ms. Ann Currens Mr. & Mrs. James E. Dorsett Dr. Burdett S. & Mrs. Kathleen C.E. Dunbar Mark Folkes & Christopher Johnston Ms. Jessica Ford Carol & Larry Fradkin Paula & Alfred Friedlander Mr. & Mrs. James K. Garner Mrs. Lillian Gaylor Mr. Evan B. Glick Julius & Suzan Glickman Mr. & Mrs. Robert L. Hansen
Director $500-$999
Mr. & Mrs. Kingsley Agbor Rev. & Mrs. H. Eldon Akerman Ms. Suan Angelo Dr. & Mrs. William S. Banks III Ann B. Beaudette Mr. Allen J. Becker Ms. Suzie Boyd Mr. Billy Bray Mr. & Mrs. Bruce Cantrell Jr. Dr. Cecil Christensen Richard & Marcia Churns Mrs. Barbora Cole Mr. & Mrs. Robert A. Colton Mr. & Mrs. Michael F. Cook Mr. & Mrs. H. L. Coon Mr. Warren Dean
As of February 1, 2013 To note any errors or omissions, please call Darryl de Mello at (713) 337-8529
Corporations
Houston Symphony Business Council Co-Chairs Ralph Burch, ConocoPhillips David Wuthrich, MARSH Private Client Prentiss Burt, J.P. Morgan Janet F. Clark, Marathon Oil Corporation Gene Dewhurst, Falcon Seaboard Mike Doherty, Frost Bank Allen Gelwick, Lockton Companies Roz Larkey, Cameron International Corporation Steven P. Mach, Mach Industrial Group, LP Billy McCartney, Vitol Inc. (retired)
Paul Morico, Baker Botts L.L.P. Robert A. Peiser, Imperial Sugar Company (retired) Geoffroy Petit, TOTAL David Pruner, Wood Mackenzie Ltd. John Rydman, Spec’s Wines, Spirits and Finer Foods Manolo Sanchez, BBVA Compass
Jerome Simon, Northern Trust Bobby Tudor, Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Company Jesse Tutor, Accenture (retired) Margaret Waisman, Affiliated Dermatologists of Houston Fredric Weber, Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P.
Corporations As of February 1, 2013
$100,000 and above
BBVA Compass ConocoPhillips The Methodist Hospital System Spec’s Charitable Foundation * United Airlines $50,000-$99,999
American Express Philanthropic Program * Baker Botts L.L.P. Cameron International Corporation Cameron Management Chevron ExxonMobil Frost Bank GDF SUEZ Energy North America Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo * Jackson and Company JPMorgan Chase Marathon Oil Corporation * Neiman Marcus Rose Hill Meadows Corporation Shell Oil Company TOTAL
$25,000-$49,999
* Aztec Bank of America The Boeing Company * Bright Star * Christofle Chubb Group of Insurance Companies * Darryl & Co. Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P. * Houston Chronicle KPMG LLP Memorial Hermann Health System * PaperCity The Rand Group, LLC * Spec’s Wines, Spirits & Finer Foods Vinson & Elkins LLP Wells Fargo
$10,000-$24,999
Anadarko Petroleum Corporation Avalon Advisors, LLC Bank of Houston Bank of Texas Beck Redden LLP Bisso Marine Co., Inc. Bracewell & Giuliani LLP CenterPoint Energy Cooper Industries, Inc. * Crown Castle International Corp. Enbridge Energy Company Ernst & Young Halliburton H-E-B Locke Lord LLP Lockton Companies of Houston Macy’s / Macy’s Foundation Merrill Lynch Private Bank & Investment Group MetroBank, N.A. Northern Trust
Palmetto Partners, Ltd. Regions Bank SPIR STAR, Ltd. Star Furniture UBS USI Insurance Services LLC $5,000-$9,999 Bloomberg, L.L.P. Michem International, Inc. New Era Life Insurance Randalls Food Markets, Inc. Russell Reynolds Associates, Inc. Salient Partners Spectra Energy Stewart Title Company Swift Energy Company Gifts below $4,999
Air Liquide American Corporation Boulware & Valoir EOG Resources, Inc. GEM Insurance Agencies Geste LLC Gulf Marine Product Co., Ltd JaPage Partnership La Esperanza Oil & Gas, LLC / La Esperanza Christian Foundation Louis Vuitton Martha Turner Properties SEI, Global Institutional Group Smith, Graham & Company Williams Companies, Inc. Wolff & Associates, Inc.
* Contribution includes in-kind support
Corporate Matching Gifts As of February 1, 2013 Aetna Apache Corporation Bank of America BBVA Compass Boeing BP Foundation
Caterpillar Chevron Chubb Group Coca-Cola ConocoPhillips Eli Lilly and Company ExxonMobil
General Electric General Mills Goldman, Sachs & Company Halliburton Hewlett-Packard Houston Endowment IBM
ING Financial Services Corporation KBR Merrill Lynch NAACO Industries, Inc. Neiman Marcus Northern Trust
Occidental Petroleum Shell Oil Company Spectra Energy Williams Companies, Inc.
March 2013 49
LEGACY SOCIETY The Legacy Society honors those who have included the Houston Symphony in their long-term estate plans through bequests, life-income gifts or other deferred-giving arrangements. Members of the Legacy Society enjoy a variety of benefits, including an annual musical event. The Houston Symphony would like to extend its deepest thanks to the members of the Legacy Society—and with their permission, we are pleased to acknowledge them below. If you would like to learn more about ways to provide for the Houston Symphony in your estate plans, please contact Mark Folkes, Director of Individual Giving & Major Gifts, at (713) 337-8251 or mark.folkes@houstonsymphony.org. Janice H. Barrow George & Betty Bashen Dorothy B. Black Ermy Borlenghi Bonfield Ronald C. Borschow Joe Brazzatti Zu Broadwater Terry Ann Brown Dr. Joan K. Bruchas & H. Philip Cowdin Eugene R. Bruns Sylvia J. Carroll Janet F. Clark William J. Clayton & Margaret A. Hughes Leslie Barry Davidson Harrison R. T. Davis Judge & Mrs. Harold DeMoss Jr. Jean & sJack Ellis The Aubrey and Sylvia Farb Family Eugene Fong Ginny Garrett Michael B. George Stephen & Mariglyn Glenn Mr. & Mrs. Keith E. Gott Randolph Lee Groninger Mrs. Gloria Herman
Marilyn & Robert M. Hermance Dr. Gary L. Hollingsworth Dr. Edward J. & Mrs. Patti Hurwitz Kenneth Hyde Mr. Brian James Drs. Rita & Blair Justice Dr. & Mrs. Ira Kaufman, M.D. John S. W. Kellett Ann Kennedy & Geoffrey Walker Dr. & Mrs. I. Ray Kirk Mr. & Mrs. Ulyesse LeGrange Mrs. Frances E. Leland Dr. Mary R. Lewis E. W. Long Jr. Sandra Magers Rodney H. Margolis Mr. & Mrs. Jay Marks James Matthews Dr. and Mrs. Malcolm Mazow Mr. & Mrs. Gene McDavid Charles E. McKerley Mr. & Mrs. Alexander K. McLanahan Miss Catherine Jane Merchant Dr. & Mrs. Robert M. Mihalo Ron Mikita
Katherine Taylor Mize Ione Moran Sidney Moran Sue A. Morrison and Children Mr. & Mrs. Richard P. Moynihan Gretchen Anne Myers Bobbie & Arthur Newman John & Leslie Niemand Dave B. Nussmann Edward C. Osterberg Jr. Joan D. Osterweil Imogen “Immy” Papadopoulos Sara M. Peterson Mr. Howard Pieper Geraldine S. Priest Daniel F. Prosser Gloria & Joe Pryzant Mrs. Dana Puddy Walter M. Ross Mr. & Mrs. Michael B. Sandeen Charles K. Sanders Charles King Sanders Mr. & Mrs. Charles T. Seay II Mr. & Mrs. James A. Shaffer Dr. & Mrs. Kazuo Shimada
Jule & Albert Smith Mr. & Mrs. Louis J. Snyder Mike & sAnita Stude Emily H. & David K. Terry Stephen G. Tipps Steve Tostengard, in memory of Ardyce Tostengard Mr. & Mrs. Jesse B. Tutor Dr. Carlos Vallbona & Children Margaret Waisman, M.D. & Steven S. Callahan, Ph.D. David M. Wax & Elaine Arden Cali Robert G. Weiner Vicki West, in honor of Hans Graf Geoffrey Westergaard Jennifer R. Wittman Mr. & Mrs. Bruce E. Woods Mr. & Mrs. David Wuthrich Anonymous (9) As of February 1, 2013 sDeceased
IN MEMORIAM We honor the memory of those who in life included the Houston Symphony in their estate plans. Their thoughtfulness and generosity will continue to inspire and enrich lives for generations to come! Mr. Thomas D. Barrow W. P. Beard Mrs. H. Raymond Brannon Anthony Brigandi Lawrence E. Carlton, M.D. Mrs. Albert V. Caselli Lee Allen Clark Jack Ellis Mrs. Robin A. Elverson Frank R. Eyler
Helen Bess Fariss Foster Christine E. George Mrs. Marcella Levine Harris General & Mrs. Maurice Hirsch Miss Ima Hogg Burke & Octavia Holman Mrs. L. F. McCollum Joan B. McKerley Monroe L. Mendelsohn Jr. Mrs. Janet Moynihan
Constantine S. Nicandros Hanni Orton Stewart Orton, Legacy Society co-founder Dr. Michael Papadopoulos Miss Louise Pearl Perkins Walter W. Sapp, Legacy Society co-founder J. Fred & Alma Laws Lunsford Schultz Ms. Jean R. Sides
John K. & Fanny W. Stone Dorothy Barton Thomas Mrs. Harry C. Wiess Mrs. Edward Wilkerson
CHORUS ENDOWMENT DONORS $500 or more As of February 1, 2013
Erin Asprec Paul & Vickie Davis Steve Dukes
Robert Lee Gomez Ken Mathews Bryan & Vickie McMicken Dave B. Nussmann
Nina & Peter Peropoulos Jennifer Klein Salyer Susan Scarrow Beth Anne Weidler & Stephen M. James
Pam & Jim Wilhite Anonymous
DocuData Solutions Elaine Turner Designs Elegant Events by Michael Festari Foster Quan LLP Gucci H.E.B. Hilton Americas – Houston Hotel Granduca Hotel Icon Houston Astros Houston Chronicle Houston Grand Opera Houston Texans Intercontinental Hotel Houston Jackson and Company
JOHANNUS Organs of Texas John L. Wortham & Son, L.P. John Wright/Textprint The Lancaster Hotel Limb Design Martha Turner Properties Meera Buck & Associates Minuteman Press – Post Oak Momentum Jaguar Mr. Carl R. Cunningham Music & Arts Neiman Marcus New Leaf Publishing, Inc. Nos Caves Vin PaperCity Pro/Sound
Rice University Saint Arnold’s Brewery Shecky’s Media, Inc. Spec’s Wines, Spirits & Finer Foods Staging Solutions Stewart Title Tony’s Tootsies United Airlines Valobra Jewlery & Antiques VISION Production Group Yahama
IN KIND DONORS As of February 1, 2013
A Fare Extraordinaire Alexander’s Fine Portrait Design Aztec Baker Botts L.L.P. Bergner & Johnson BKD, LLP Boat Ranch Bright Star Christofle Classical 91.7 FM Cognetic Culinaire Darryl & Co. DLG Research & Marketing Solutions
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FOUNDATIONS AND GOVERNMENT AGENCIES As of February 1, 2013
$1,000,000 & above
Houston Endowment Houston Symphony Endowment Houston Symphony League The Wortham Foundation, Inc. $500,000-$999,999 City of Houston and Theater District Improvement, Inc. The Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts $100,000-$499,999
Albert & Margaret Alkek Foundation M.D. Anderson Foundation The Brown Foundation, Inc. City of Houston through the Miller Theatre Advisory Board The Cullen Foundation The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation / Palmetto Partners Ltd. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation The Cynthia & George Mitchell Foundation
$50,000-$99,999
$2,500-$9,999
John P. McGovern Foundation Ray C. Fish Foundation $25,000-$49,999
Ann & Gordon Getty Foundation The Humphreys Foundation National Endowment for the Arts Sterling-Turner Foundation
$10,000-$24,999 Bauer Family Foundation Carleen & Alde Fridge Foundation The Melbern G. & Susanne M. Glasscock Foundation George & Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation Albert & Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation Houston Symphony League Bay Area Jack S. & Donna P. Josey Foundation Alvin & Lucy Owsley Foundation The Powell Foundation Radoff Family Foundation Vivian L. Smith Foundation The Schissler Foundation Vaughn Foundation
LTR Lewis Cloverdale Foundation William E. & Natoma Pyle Harvey Charitable Trust The Hood-Barrow Foundation Leon Jaworski Foundation William S. & Lora Jean Kilroy Foundation Robert W. & Pearl Wallis Knox Foundation Lubrizol Foundation Mithoff Family Foundation Kinder Morgan Foundation Lynne Murray, Sr. Educational Foundation Nightingale Code Foundation Keith & Mattie Stevenson Foundation Strake Foundation Texas Commission on the Arts $1,000-$2,499 Diamond Family Foundation The Mary & Thomas Graselli Endowment Foundation The Helmle-Shaw Foundation Huffington Foundation The Lilian Kaiser Lewis Foundation The Oshman Foundation State Employee Charitable Campaign
BIOGRAPHIES CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19 | WOZZECK IN CONCERT | MARCH 1-2 Gustavo in Faramondo. Last summer, he covered Leporello in Don Giovanni at the Des Moines Metro Opera Apprentice Artist Program. At The Shepherd School, Griffin played the role of Don Alfonso in last year’s production of Così fan tutte and performed the title role in Volpone this fall.
SAMUEL SCHULTZ, Apprentice 2 Samuel Schultz debuted with the Houston Symphony in 2011 and was hailed as “the particular standout” by the Houston Chronicle. He has sung with Houston Grand Opera, Baltimore Concert Opera, Aspen Music Festival and Opera North. His upcoming engagements include performances with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Schultz has been seen in L’elisir d’amore (Belcore), Così fan tutte (Guglielmo), The Rape of Lucretia (Junius), Street Scene (George Jones), A Little Night Music (Mr. Lindquist) and Viva la mamma! (Maestro). He covered roles in Don Giovanni (Masetto) and The Mikado (Poobah). His solo concert repertoire includes performances of Handel’s Messiah, the Fauré Requiem, the
Bach Magnificat, Saint-Saëns’ Christmas Oratorio, Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on Christmas Carols and Poulenc’s Rapsodie nègre. A graduate of Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, he represented the University in the Shepherd School of Music’s regional opera concerts in Aspen, Chicago, Dallas, New York City and San Francisco. As an alumnus of the United States Senate Page Program, he had the prestigious honor of singing for Congress.
BRENTON RYAN, Fool A Missouri native, tenor Brenton Ryan recently performed Mosca in John Musto’s opera, Volpone, as a guest artist with the Shepherd School Opera. He debuted with Hans Graf and the Houston Symphony in 2011 in a concert performance of Ravel’s L’heure espagnole. He covered a role at Houston Grand Opera during its 2010-11 season in Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos. Ryan has completed his graduate studies at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where his performances included George Gibbs in Rorem’s Our Town and Nerone in Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea. He was awarded the three-year New Horizons Fellowship for the Aspen Music Festival and School where he sang the roles of Tony in Bernstein’s West Side Story and Leon in Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles. Last summer, he was a voice fellow with the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California, and next summer he will be a Filene Young Artist with Wolf Trap Opera Company, singing Belfiore in Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims. March 2013 51
BACKSTAGE PASS Lucian and Nancy Morrison, musician sponsors
Wayne Brooks, viola Birthplace: I was born in Los Angeles, CA.
First became involved with the Houston Symphony: We have been patrons for many years, but we served on the Board during Rodney Margolis’ tenure as President. Birthplace: Lucian—San Antonio, TX; Nancy—native Houstonian Education: Lucian—UT Austin, BBA (accounting) and JD Nancy—St. Thomas University, BA (fine arts)
© Chinh Phan / Catchlight Group
Earliest musical memory: Lucian—My mother played the piano for her own pleasure. Nancy—My mother sang constantly to us as children; I knew the words to seemingly every popular song of the ‘30s and ‘40s.
Education: I went to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia for four years and earned a Bachelor of Music degree. The school orchestra was incredible, and it was the experience I had there that made me realize that playing in a symphony orchestra was what I wanted to do. In my last year at Curtis, I started taking orchestra auditions. Joined the Houston Symphony: I joined the Houston Symphony in 1977. I won the position of Associate Principal Viola then, and later, the Principal Viola chair in 1985. I can’t wait for: We are playing so many magnificent works this season. Maestro Graf has programmed a rich season of powerful works for his final year as Music Director. Upcoming concerts that I am personally excited about are Debussy’s La Mer and William Walton’s cantata Belshazzar’s Feast. Belshazzer’s Feast is something I have heard, but never played, so I’m looking forward to it. Beginnings: I started playing the violin at age 9 and switched to the viola at 11. In spite of the fact that my first attempts on the instrument were pretty crude and embarrassing, I loved the potential sound and personality of the viola and felt like it was a good fit for me. Earliest musical memory: When I was around 5 or 6, my father bought an LP of Chopin Waltzes in a drugstore close-out sale, and I remember hearing them and liking what I heard.
Current listening: We are both omnivorous in our musical tastes— jazz, early rock, the classical war-horses, chamber music, opera —the entire spectrum. We can’t wait for: The entire Centennial year will be truly special, and the transition of Musical Directors will be fascinating. Proud support: The Symphony—soon a century old—is one of our community’s cultural and social anchors. It should be protected and nurtured by its patrons. Meeting our musician: We were asked to meet Wayne Brooks as a prospective musician to sponsor, and we immediately became friends. Not only is Wayne a consummate musician, but a truly kind and decent man. We share a love of one of Texas’ great historical places and most unique venues—Galveston. Becoming a musician sponsor: We wanted a personal relationship with one of those incredible musicians we see on the stage every performance. There is great joy in being able to see “our guy” making the amazing music we come to hear—knowing that in some small way we have participated in furthering his career!
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Best thing about being a musician: It has been said often, but it is so true. By far, the best thing is working daily with all of my colleagues in the orchestra, including all the backstage personnel that take such great care of us. More specifically, the pleasure of being a part of the Houston Symphony viola section is something I am incredibly proud of! It is a great section, full of amazing players and wonderful people. I feel very lucky. Meaningful support: Lucian and Nancy Morrison have been my sponsors for a long time. They are wonderful, kind and generous people and a pleasure to know. I admire them tremendously, and it means the world to me to know that they support me in this way. I always look forward to talking with them, and I appreciate and am honored that they lend their generous support to the Symphony and me. Thank you so much, Lucian and Nancy! Notable career moment: A career highlight for me was performing in 2007 as soloist with Hans Graf and the Houston Symphony in Gabriela Lena Frank’s La Llorona, Tone Poem for Viola and Orchestra. This awesome work was commissioned by the Houston Symphony, commemorated my 30th year in the orchestra, and was a fantastic musical experience for me. I loved working on the piece, performing it and especially the positive audience reaction to it! It was something I will never forget.
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