Andres Orozco Estrada Photo Credit Werner-Kmetitsch
HOUSTON (Sept. 11, 2019) – Houston Symphony Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada launches the 2019–20 Classical Season with an all-Stravinsky program, Stravinsky’s Firebird at 8 p.m., Sept. 19 and 21, and 2:30 p.m., Sept. 22 in Jones Hall. The Houston Symphony is livestreaming the Sunday matinee performance of the classical subscription concert—marking its first-ever online video broadcast of a concert.
Celebrating his sixth season as Music Director, Orozco-Estrada opens the program with Stravinsky’s Scherzo fantastique, an inventive work inspired by the buzzing lifecycle of bees. Renowned for his superb musicianship and the integrity of his playing, violin virtuoso Leonidas Kavakos then takes center stage in Stravinsky’s playful and invigorating Violin Concerto.
The concert’s zenith comes as Orozco-Estrada leads the orchestra in Stravinsky’s full ballet score of the vibrant and fiery orchestral masterpiece, The Firebird. “I wanted to perform the whole thing so that we can enjoy the whole story, even without a ballet, through the colors,” Orozco-Estrada told the Houston Chronicle. “It’s like painting with music.”
Stravinsky’s Firebird, part of the Frost Bank Gold Classics series with additional support from the General and Mrs. Maurice Hirsh Memorial Concert Fund, takes 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 houstonsymphony.org. Tickets may also be purchased at the Houston Symphony Patron Services Center in Jones Hall (Monday–Saturday, 12–6 p.m.). All programs and artists are subject to change.
About the Houston Symphony
During the 2019–20 season, the Houston Symphony celebrates its sixth 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 $35.2 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 1,000 community-based performances each year at various schools, community centers, hospitals, and churches reaching nearly 200,000 people in Greater Houston annually.
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.