HOUSTON (Feb. 28, 2020) – Returning guest conductor David Robertson leads a stellar cast of vocal soloists, the Houston Symphony, and the Houston Symphony Chorus in two performances of John Adams’ celebrated and contemporary musical telling of the nativity story, El Niño, Saturday, Mar. 14, 8 p.m. and Sunday, Mar. 15, 2:30 p.m. at Jones Hall.
El Niño is a modern-day, bilingual oratorio that sets John Adams’ distinctive musical stamp on the story of Christ’s birth and early years. Adams and librettist Peter Sellars draw their texts from sources including the King James Bible, Martin Luther, the Apocrypha, and the poetry of Latin American poets, mainly women. Premiered in 2000 in Paris, El Niño is often referred to as Handel’s Messiah for the 21st century. But, unlike Handel’s Messiah, Adams’s El Niño solely focuses on the story of the nativity with the incorporation of texts by female poets, which adds a women’s voice to the biblical story. This is the first time the Houston Symphony performs Adams’s El Niño.
Returning mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor joins Metropolitan Opera soprano Susanne Phillips, bass Davóne Tines, and countertenors Daniel Bubeck, Brian Cummings, and Nathan Medley, are all making their Houston Symphony debuts. In 2019, Tines was named one of TIME Magazine’s Next Generation Leaders. Countertenors Bubeck and Cummings performed in the Paris world premiere of El Niño in 2000. The Houston Symphony Chorus and Children’s Chorus from the Houston Grand Opera also join this grand-scale performance.
Adams’ “El Niño” is part of the Margaret Alkek Williams Sound + Vision Series, which is also supported by The Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts Endowed Fund for Creative Initiatives and sponsored by Shell Favorite Masters. The performance 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 more than 200,000 people in Greater Houston annually.
The Grammy Award-winning Houston Symphony has recorded under various prestigious labels, including Koch International Classics, Naxos, RCA Red Seal, Telarc, 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.
