HOUSTON (May 31, 2017) – The Houston Symphony will screen Jurassic Park, one of the biggest summer blockbusters of all time, as the Houston Symphony performs John Williams’ epic score live at 7:30 p.m. June 15 and 16.
From Academy Award-winning director Steven Spielberg, Jurassic Park follows a group of two paleontologists and a mathematician as they tour an island theme park populated by dinosaurs created from prehistoric DNA. Although the park’s billionaire mastermind assures them the facility is safe, they find out otherwise when the ferocious predators break free and go on the hunt. The film was first in the franchise that has since released The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), Jurassic Park III (2001), Jurassic World (2015) and Jurassic World II, set to be released in July 2018.
The film’s score will be perfectly synced to the movie with the help of guest conductor Constantine Kitsopoulos, artistic director of the OK Mozart Festival, Oklahoma’s premier music festival, from 2013-15 and who recently completed an eight-year tenure as music director of the Queens Symphony Orchestra. He is currently the music director of the Festival of the Arts BOCA, an extraordinary multi-day cultural arts event for South Florida.
The concert will take place at Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, 615 Louisiana Street, in Houston’s Theater District. For tickets and information, please call (713) 224-7575 or visit www.houstonsymphony.org. Tickets may also be purchased at the Houston Symphony Patron Services Center in Jones Hall (Monday–Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.). All programs and artists are subject to change.
JURASSIC PARK—FILM WITH LIVE ORCHESTRA
Thursday, June 15, 2017, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, June 16, 2017, at 7:30 p.m.
Constantine Kitsopoulos, conductor
Tickets from $23
About Constantine Kitsopoulos
Constantine Kitsopoulos has made a name for himself as a conductor whose musical experiences comfortably span the worlds of opera and symphony, where he conducts in such venues as Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall and Royal Albert Hall, and musical theater, where he can be found leading orchestras on Broadway. The 2016-17 season marked his 7th as Music Director of the Festival of the Arts BOCA, an extraordinary multi-day cultural arts event for South Florida. He was Artistic Director of the OK Mozart Festival, Oklahoma’s premier music festival, from 2013-15. He also recently completed an eight-year tenure as Music Director of the Queens Symphony Orchestra.
Highlights of recent seasons include appearances with the New York Philharmonic; the Baltimore, Colorado, Detroit, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Toledo, San Antonio and San Francisco symphony orchestras; and the Calgary Philharmonic, National Arts Centre Orchestra and the New York Pops Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Summer concerts have included Saratoga Performing Arts Center with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Ravinia Festival, Blossom Festival with the Blossom Festival Orchestra, Sun Valley Festival, Atlanta Symphony and Dallas Symphony. International appearances have seen him conduct China’s Macao Orchestra with Cuban band Tiempo Libre, Tokyo Philharmonic and the Russian National Orchestra.
Above and beyond his symphonic work, Constantine Kitsopoulos maintains a busy opera schedule. In recent seasons, he has led annual productions at the Indiana University Opera Theater of Menotti’s Last Savage (2014/2015), Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific (2014/2015), Gilbert & Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore (2013/14), Verdi’s Falstaff (2012/13), Bolcom’s A View from the Bridge (2011/2012), Strauss’ Die Fledermaus (2010/11), and Loesser’s The Most Happy Fella.
Also much in demand as a theater conductor, both on Broadway and nationwide, Kitsopoulos has been Music Director and Conductor of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella on Broadway and of The Gershwin’s’ Porgy and Bess, the Tony-Award winning Broadway musical revival featuring Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis, which ran until September 2012. Prior to that, he was Conductor and Musical Director of the Tony-nominated musical A Catered Affair; the Tony-nominated musical Coram Boy; and the American Conservatory Theatre’s production of Kurt Weill’s Happy End, for which he recorded the cast album at Skywalker Ranch. Other musical theater highlights include serving as Music Director and Principal Conductor of Baz Luhrmann’s highly acclaimed production of Puccini’s La Bohème.
Kitsopoulos studied conducting with Gustav Meier, Sergiu Comissiona, Semyon Bychkovk and Vincent La Selva.
About the Houston Symphony
During the 2017-18 season, the Houston Symphony celebrates its fourth season with Music Director Andrés Orozco- Estrada and continues its second century as one of America’s leading orchestras with a full complement of concert, community, education, touring and recording activities. The Houston Symphony, one of the oldest performing arts organizations in Texas, held its inaugural performance at The Majestic Theater in downtown Houston June 21, 1913. Today, with an annual operating budget of $33.9 million, the full-time ensemble of 88 professional musicians presents nearly 170 concerts annually, making it the largest performing arts organization in Houston. Additionally, musicians of the orchestra and the Symphony’s four Community-Embedded Musicians offer over 900 community-based performances each year, reaching thousands of people in Greater Houston. For tickets and more information, please visit www.houstonsymphony.org or call 713-224-7575.