June 22 & 23, 2018
HOUSTON (June 21, 2018) – The recently-appointed Chief Conductor of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and the first-ever female winner of the prestigious Donatella Flick conducting competition, Elim Chan makes her Houston Symphony debut Friday, June 22, at Miller Outdoor Theatre. Chan joins the orchestra at 8:30 p.m. to open this year’s ExxonMobil Summer Symphony Nights.
Joining Chan is Rubén Rengel, the Venezuelan winner of the 2018 Sphinx Award, who makes his Houston Symphony debut with Bruch’s lively Violin Concerto No. 1—one of the most popular concertos in the violin repertoire. A Houston resident, Rengel is currently a graduate student at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. Chan concludes the program with the wistful melodies of Mendelssohn’s “Scottish” Symphony.
The Houston Symphony returns to Miller the next evening under the direction of Nicholas Hersh, the up-and-coming Associate Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, who leads a program that begins with Theofanidis’ Rainbow Body, which has become one of the most often-performed pieces of contemporary classical music since the Houston Symphony commissioned it in 2000. Houston Symphony Associate Principal Trumpet John Parker also joins the program for his solo debut with the orchestra in Böhme’s romantic Trumpet Concerto. Hersh concludes the program with the impassioned and triumphal Symphony No. 5 by Tchaikovsky.
The remaining concerts in the ExxonMobil Summer Symphony Nights series will take place Friday, June 29, Saturday, June 30, and Wednesday, July 4. Admission is free, but tickets are required for the covered seated area. Tickets are available at the Miller Theatre Box Office the day of the performance between 10:30 a.m and 1 p.m. Any remaining tickets are released one hour before the performance time. Visit www.milleroutdoortheatre.com for more information.
About the Houston Symphony
During the 2018-19 season, the Houston Symphony celebrates its fifth 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.