Feb. 21-22
High-resolution photo HERE.
HOUSTON (Feb. 19, 2025) – The Houston Symphony brings the most critically lauded of the Star Wars films to Jones Hall in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back in Concert. Houston audiences can experience this blockbuster film like never before: on the big screen above the orchestra as the Houston Symphony performs John Williams’s award-winning score live, February 21–22, 2025.
Led by Houston Symphony Principal POPS Conductor Steven Reineke, the Symphony is screening the iconic sci-fi film giving Houston audiences the unforgettable cinematic experience of hearing John Williams’s score performed live by the full complement of a major symphony orchestra. Renowned for his film work, Williams wrote and conducted the recorded soundtrack for the original Star Wars film, which many consider one of the greatest in film history. In addition to reprising iconic themes from Star Wars, like those associated with Luke and Leia, the score to Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back introduced to the world the menacing, militant “Imperial March”.
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back in Concert 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. Presentation licensed by Disney Concerts in association with 20th Century Fox, Lucasfilm Ltd., and Warner/Chappell Music. ©2019 & TM LUCASFILM LTD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK IN CONCERT
Friday, February 21, 2025 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, February 22, 2025 at 2 p.m.
Saturday, February 22, 2025 at 7:30 p.m.
Steven Reineke, conductor
About Steven Reineke
Steven Reineke is one of North America’s leading conductors of popular music and is in his second decade as Music Director of The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall. Additionally, he is Principal Pops Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Principal Pops Conductor of the Houston and Toronto Symphony Orchestras.
Reineke is a frequent guest conductor and can be seen on the podium with the Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas and Detroit Symphony Orchestras.
On stage, Mr. Reineke creates and collaborates with a range of leading artists from the worlds of hip-hop, R&B, Broadway, television, and rock including: Maxwell, Common, Kendrick Lamar, Nas, Ne-Yo, Bob Weir, Trey Anastasio, Barry Manilow, Cynthia Erivo, Ben Rector, Cody Fry, Sutton Foster, Amos Lee, Dispatch, Jason Mraz, and Ben Folds, amongst others. In 2024 he led the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) on PBS’s Next at the Kennedy Center featuring Ben Folds, DECLASSIFIED®: Ben Folds Presents with Jacob Collier, Laufey and dodie. He was previously seen with the NSO on PBS on Great Performances with hip-hop legend Nas performing his seminal album Illmatic.
In 2017 he was featured on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered leading the National Symphony Orchestra—in a first for the show’s 45-year history—performing live music excerpts in between news segments.
As the creator of hundreds of orchestral arrangements, Reineke’s work is performed worldwide and can be heard on numerous Cincinnati Pops Orchestra recordings. His symphonic works Celebration Fanfare, Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Casey at the Bat are performed frequently in North America, including performances by the New York Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic. His Sun Valley Festival Fanfare was used to commemorate the Sun Valley Summer Symphony’s pavilion, and his Festival Te Deum and Swan’s Island Sojourn were debuted by the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops Orchestras. His numerous wind ensemble compositions are published by the C.L. Barnhouse Company and are performed by concert bands perennially.
A native of Ohio, Mr. Reineke is a graduate of Miami University of Ohio (2020 Alumnus Distinguished Achievement Medal), where he earned Bachelor of Music degrees with honors in both trumpet performance and music composition. He currently resides in New York City with his husband Eric Gabbard.
About Disney Concerts
Disney Concerts is the concert production and licensing division of Disney Music Group, the music arm of The Walt Disney Company. Disney Concerts produces concerts and tours, and licenses Disney music and visual content to symphony orchestras, choruses and presenters on a worldwide basis. Disney Concerts’ concert packages include a variety of formats, such as “live-to-picture” film concerts, and themed instrumental and vocal compilation concerts that range from instrumental-only symphonic performances to multimedia productions featuring live vocalists and choirs. Featuring concerts from the largest movie franchises in the world – from Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, Pixar and 20th Century Studios – current titles include the Star Wars Film Concert Series, Toy Story, Disney Princess: The Concert, Coco, The Lion King, Up, Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Muppet Christmas Carol and Infinity Saga Concert Experience.
About the Houston Symphony
Under Music Director Juraj Valčuha, the Houston Symphony continues its second century inspiring and engaging large and diverse audiences in Houston and beyond through exceptional musical performances and creating an enduring impact in the Houston community. One of the oldest performing arts organizations in Texas, the Symphony held its inaugural performance at The Majestic Theater in downtown Houston on June 21, 1913. Today, with an operating budget of $40.7 million, the full-time ensemble of professional musicians presents more than 130 concerts annually, making it the largest performing arts organization in Houston. Traditionally, musicians of the orchestra and the Symphony’s Community-Embedded Musicians also offer nearly 600 community-based performances each year at various schools, community centers, hospitals, senior centers, and churches, annually reaching nearly 200,000 people in Greater Houston in addition to Jones Hall.
After suspending concert activities in March 2020, the Symphony successfully completed a full 2020–21 Season with in-person audiences and weekly livestreams of each performance, making it one of the only orchestras in the world to do so. The Houston Symphony remains committed to livestreaming its 2024–25 Season to a broad audience in over forty-five countries and all 50 states, one of few American orchestras dedicated to transmitting live performances to a sizeable audience outside its home city through this technology. 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. The Symphony’s most recent recordings include a Pentatone release in January 2022 of its world premiere performances of Jimmy López Bellido’s Aurora and Ad Astra, and a Naxos release in July 2023 of its world premiere performance of Jennifer Higdon’s Duo Duel.
