HOUSTON (April 19, 2018) – Houston Symphony Principal Clarinet Mark Nuccio takes center stage in his solo debut May 4-5 at 8 p.m. and May 6 at 2:30 p.m. at Jones Hall to perform Mozart’s illustrious Clarinet Concerto. Nuccio will be featured in Mozart Plus A German Requiem.
Premiered shortly before Mozart’s passing, the composer’s Clarinet Concerto is one of his last important masterpieces and is often referred as one of his most personal works. The intimate and conversational piece is among the most frequently played and popular pieces in the clarinet repertoire.
“It’s very nice to be part of the orchestra, but when they choose to feature you, you feel that it’s a huge responsibility but an opportunity to share your art form,” said Nuccio. “Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto remains the best concerto in the clarinet repertoire and is also thought to be compositionally perfect and truly one of the greatest of all Mozart’s compositions.”
In addition to performing with the Houston Symphony, Nuccio is an active solo and chamber musician and regularly performs recitals in Europe and Asia as well as across the United States. He also participates in the chamber music series at the Strings in the Mountain Music Festival in Steamboat Springs, Colorado and teaches at the Hidden Valley Music Festival in Carmel, California.
The Houston Symphony Chorus, under the direction of Dr. Betsy Cook Weber, is also featured in this program, closing out the evening with Brahms’ large-scale choral piece, A German Requiem. The chorus will be joined by soloists Nicole Heaston (soprano) and Russell Braun (baritone). The choral masterwork comprised of seven movements is Brahms’ longest composition.
The concert will take place at Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, 615 Louisiana Street, in Houston’s Theater District. Tickets may also be purchased in person at the Houston Symphony Patron Services Center at Jones Hall (Monday–Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.). All programs and artists are subject to change.
MOZART PLUS A GERMAN REQUIEM
Friday, May 4, 2018, at 8 p.m.
Saturday, May 5, 2018, at 8 p.m.
Sunday, May 6, 2018, at 2:30 p.m.
Andrés Orozco-Estrada, conductor
Mark Nuccio, clarinet
Nicole Heaston, soprano
Russell Braun, baritone
Houston Symphony Chorus
Betsy Cook Weber, director
Mozart: Clarinet Concerto
Brahms: A German Requiem
About Andrés Orozco-Estrada
Houston Symphony Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada began his tenure in the 2014–15 season. He immediately established a dynamic presence on the podium and a deep bond with the musicians of the orchestra. He carefully curates his programs to feature engaging combinations of classical masterworks paired with the music of today, significant artistic collaborations with composers and guest artists, and innovative use of multimedia and visual effects, all in order to make meaningful connections with the audience.
In the 2017–18 season, Orozco-Estrada continues to engage with audiences both with casual commentary from the stage and discussions with guests in “Behind the Scenes with Andrés” videos. Upon the commercial release of the critically acclaimed Dvořák series featuring the composer’s last four symphonies, he and the orchestra recently released a Haydn—The Creation recording in collaboration with the Houston Symphony Chorus and a Music of the Americas disc featuring Gershwin’s An American in Paris, Revueltas’ Sensemayá, Piazzolla’s Tangazo and Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.
Born in Medellín, Colombia, Andrés began his musical studies on the violin and started conducting at age 15. At 19, he entered the renowned Vienna Music Academy, where he studied with Uroš Lajovic (pupil of the legendary Hans Swarowsky), and completed his degree with distinction conducting the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Musikverein. Andrés burst onto the international scene with two substitutions with the Vienna Philharmonic: the first, his debut in 2010, standing in for Esa-Pekka Salonen, and then in 2012, substituting for Riccardo Muti at the Musikverein. Andrés now regularly appears with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome, the Orchestre National de France, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
His engagements for the 2017-18 season featured debuts at the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and the Staatskapelle Dresden at the Salzburg Easter Festival with two concerts. As a guest, he performed once again at the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and at the Vienna Philharmonic, which he led on a tour to Paris and Budapest. In June 2018, he will be touring Asia for two weeks with his Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra.
In addition to his post in Houston, Andrés is chief conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Andrés was recently named Music Director of the Vienna Symphony as of the 2021-2022 season.
About Mark Nuccio
Critics have praised clarinetist Mark Nuccio for his solo, orchestral, and chamber appearances, describing him as “the evening’s highlight”, full of “mystery and insight” and “shaping his phrases beautifully with a rich, expressive tone.” (NY Times)
Mr. Nuccio officially begins his position as Principal Clarinet with the Houston Symphony Orchestra in the 2016-17 season after seventeen years with the New York Philharmonic. He will also serve as clarinet faculty at the University of Houston’s Moore School of Music. Mr. Nuccio joined the New York Philharmonic in 1999 as Associate Principal and Solo E-flat Clarinetist and recently served as Acting Principal Clarinet with the New York Philharmonic for four years from 2009-2013.Prior to his service with the Philharmonic, he has held positions with orchestras in Pittsburgh, Denver, Savannah, and Florida working with distinguished conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Mariss Jansons, Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta, Erich Leinsdorf, Bernard Haitink, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Andre Previn, Christoph von Dohnanyi, and Gustavo Dudamel. Additionally, Mr. Nuccio has toured extensively with the New York Philharmonic and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in numerous countries, recorded with both orchestras, and performed regularly with the Philharmonic on the award-winning series, Live from Lincoln Center, broadcast on PBS. Recent highlights include the Philharmonic’s historic and newsworthy visits to North Korea and Vietnam.
Nuccio is an active solo and chamber musician and has been featured with various orchestras in the United States and made multiple appearances as a featured performer at the International Clarinet Association conventions. He made his subscription solo debut with the New York Philharmonic on Feb. 10, 2010 and returned to perform the Copland Concerto with the NY Philharmonic under the baton of Alan Gilbert on May 31 and June 1 of 2013. Other highlights include a New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall in 2001 and his Japanese recital debut in 2002. He is an avid chamber musician and continues to regularly perform recitals in Asia and Europe as well as across the United States. In New York, he can often be heard at Merkin Concert Hall, 92nd Street Y, Carnegie Hall, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mr. Nuccio also participates in the chamber music series at the Strings in the Mountain Music Festival in Steamboat Springs, Colorado and teaches at the Hidden Valley Music Festival in Carmel, CA.
As a studio musician, Mr. Nuccio is featured on numerous movie soundtracks, including Failure To Launch, The Last Holiday, The Rookie, The Score, Intolerable Cruelty, Alamo, Pooh’s Heffalump, Hitch, The Manchurian Candidate, and various television commercials. Additionally, he has performed on the Late Show with David Letterman and on the 2003 Grammy Awards. His own debut album featuring the clarinet quintets of Mozart and Brahms, Opening Night, was released in November 2006.
A Colorado native, Mr. Nuccio was recently awarded the “Distinguished Alumni Award” from his alma mater the University of Northern Colorado, a very selective honor bestowed on an elite group of 200 alumnus representing various fields throughout the long history of the university. He also holds a master’s degree from Northwestern University where he studied with renowned pedagogue Robert Marcellus. Beyond his active performing schedule, Mr. Nuccio is a dedicated teacher committed to training the next generation of musicians and teaches master classes in the U.S. and abroad. Nuccio is a D’Addario Advising Artist & Clinician and a Performing Artist/Clinician for Buffet Music Group.
About Nicole Heaston
Praised by The New York Times for her “radiant” and “handsomely resonant voice,” soprano Nicole Heaston has appeared with opera companies throughout the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera, The Dallas Opera, Washington National Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Semperoper Dresden, Deutsche Oper am Rhein and the Glyndebourne Festival. In the 2017-18 season, her engagements include Brahms’ Requiem here, the title role in Alcina at Theater Basel, Alice Ford in Falstaff at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville and a gala concert at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
Since her debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Nicole has appeared regularly with the theater, singing Ilia in Mozart’s Idomeneo, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte and Echo in Ariadne auf Naxos. Since her time in the Houston Grand Opera Studio, she has established a long-standing relationship with the company, including performances of the title role of Roméo et Juliette, Gilda in Rigoletto, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte. Nicole also created the title role in HGO’s world premiere of Jackie O, which was recorded for the Argo label.
Her other diverse roles have included Mozart’s La contessa Almaviva, Donna Elvira, Arminda and Despina; Gluck’s Armide; Pergolesi’s Sabina (Adriano in Siria); Monteverdi’s Drusilla and Poppea; Donizetti’s Adina; Verdi’s Oscar and Nanetta; Puccini’s Musetta; Respighi’s Princess; and Stravinsky’s Anne Trulove. Equally active as a concert and recital soloist, Nicole has performed with the Baltimore, Fort Worth, Honolulu, National, Detroit, Indianapolis and Kalamazoo orchestras; and the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor Michigan. Her recordings include a Grammy Award®-nominated issue of Bach’s Mass in B minor with Boston Baroque (Teldarc), Gluck’s Armide with Les Musiciens du Louvre and Marc Minkowski (Archiv Production) and Haydn’s The Creation with the Houston Symphony and Andrés Orozco-Estrada (Pentatone).
Nicole completed her master’s degree in Voice at the University of Cincinnati—College-Conservatory of Music and received her undergraduate degree in music at the University of Akron. Her various awards and prizes include the Shoshana Foundation Grant, Robert Weede Corbett Award, Oper Guild of Dayton Competition, Opera/Columbus Competition, San Antonio Opera Guild Competition, Metropolitan Opera Regional Audition-Encouragement Award and Houston Grand Opera’s Eleanor McCollum Competition.
About Russell Braun
Renowned for his luminous voice “capable of the most powerful explosions as well as the gentlest covered notes” (Toronto Star) baritone Russell Braun rightfully claims his place on the concert, opera and recital stages of the world. His intelligent and thoughtful portrayals of Chou En-lai, Billy Budd, Prince Andrei, Figaro, Papageno, Count Almaviva, Don Giovanni, Pelléas, Eugene Onegin, and The Traveller have captivated audiences at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, l’Oéra de Paris, the State Opera in Vienna, the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, the Los Angeles Opera, La Scala in Milan, and at the Salzburg and Glyndebourne festivals.
This season will include a return to the Salzburg Festival as Pentheus in Henze’s The Bassarids, to the Theater an der Wien for Alfred Ill in Der Besuch der alten Dame and to the Calgary Opera as Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia. In concert, Russell will perform Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and the Montreal Symphony, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem with the Houston Symphony, Messiah with the Grand Philharmonic Choir as well as in recital at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music. Future projects include a return to the Canadian Opera Company, a debut with the Michigan Opera Theatre and concerts in Toronto and Atlanta.
The highlight of Russell’s 2016-2017 season was the title role of the Canadian Opera Company’s new production of Louis Riel in Toronto at the Four Seasons Centre and in Ottawa with the National Arts Centre Orchestra presented as part of the celebrations surrounding Canada’s 150th Anniversary. In an intense concert season, Russell reprised Peter Eötvös’s Senza Sangue in Rome and London, Brett Dean’s Knocking at the Hell Gate with the BBC Symphony in London, and Kaija Saariaho’s Cinque reflets aus l’amour de loin with the Radio-Sinfonieorchester in both Stuttgart and Freiburg. He also performed Carmina Burana with the Montreal Symphony, Fauré’s Requiem and Brahms’s Four Serious Songs with the Toronto Symphony at Roy Thomson Hall, Elijah with Chorus Niagara, and Handel’s Messiah with the Nashville Symphony.
Recent seasons have included performances of Brahms’s Vier Ernste Gesänge arranged by Detlev Glanert and Fauré’s Requiem with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Vaughn Williams’s A Sea Symphony with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, reprisals of Peter Eötvös’s Senza Sangue in Bergen (Norway) and Göteberg (Sweden), a work he premiered in May 2015with the New York Philharmonic in Cologne and New York, his role debut as Pentheus in Hans Werner Henze’s The Bassarids with the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma and appearances as Count Almaviva in the COC production of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. Other highlights include debuts as Ford in Falstaff, as the Duke of Nottingham inRoberto Devereux and as Conte di Luna in Il Trovatore, all with the Canadian Opera Company, as Chou En-lai in John Adams’s Nixon in China and as Olivier alongside Renée Fleming in Capriccio, both at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He has appeared in the title role of Don Giovanni, in Iphigénie en Tauride and l’Amour de Loin,also with the COC, as Lescaut in Manon at La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where he also appeared in a new production of Faust. His discography features the GRAMMY-nominated Das Lied von der Erde (Dorian), JUNO winners Mozart Arie e duetti (CBC) and Apollo e Daphne, and JUNO nomineeWinterreise (CBC). His most recent release is Dietch’s Le Vaisseau Fantôme with Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble on the Naïve label. Â DVDs include the Salzburg Festival’s Romeo et Juliette and the Mark Morris dance adaptation of Dido and Aeneas, his much-lauded portrayal of Chou En-lai in Adams’s Nixon in China (Nonesuch) and his performance as Olivier in Capriccio (Decca) at the Metropolitan Opera (released on DVD as part of the company’s Live-in-HD series) and Alexina Louie’s comic opera Burnt Toast.
About the Houston Symphony Chorus
The Houston Symphony Chorus, under the direction of Betsy Cook Weber since 2014, is the official choral unit of the Houston Symphony and consists of highly skilled and talented volunteer singers. Over the years, members of this historic ensemble have learned and performed the world’s great choral-orchestral masterworks under the batons of Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Hans Graf, Christoph Eschenbach, Robert Shaw and Helmut Rilling, among many others.
In addition, the Chorus enjoys participating in the Houston Symphony’s popular programming under the batons of conductors such as Steven Reineke and Michael Krajewski. Recently, the ensemble sang the closing subscription concerts with the Prague Symphony Orchestra in the Czech Republic.
Singers are selected for specific programs for which they have indicated interest. A singer might choose to perform in all 45 concerts, as was the case in a recent season, or might elect to participate in a single series. The Houston Symphony Chorus holds auditions by appointment and welcomes inquiries from interested singers.
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.
The Grammy Award-winning Houston Symphony has recorded under various prestigious labels, including Naxos, Koch International Classics, Telarc, RCA Red Seal, Virgin Classics and, most recently, Dutch recording label Pentatone. In 2017, the Houston Symphony was awarded an ECHO Klassik award for the live recording of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck under the direction of former Music Director Hans Graf. The orchestra earned its first Grammy nomination and Grammy Award at the 60th annual ceremony for the same recording in the Best Opera Recording category.
For tickets and more information, please visit www.houstonsymphony.org or call 713-224-7575.