The third and final week of “RachFest” is filling me with excitement for the upcoming performances of Rachmaninoff’s second concerto. I’m also feeling a hint of nostalgia as this project comes to a close. It has been wonderful and challenging to be immersed uninterruptedly in Rachmaninoff’s concertos. Performing all of them with the musicians of … Continued
Our “RachFest” continues this week with a pairing of Rachmaninoff’s 1st and 4th piano concertos. These two wonderful pieces are sometimes undeservedly overshadowed by their more famous cousins. I am glad to have the chance to present them to the Houston audience, and playing them together in one program makes a lot of sense. Even … Continued
Today’s post was written by artist-in-residence Kirill Gerstein ahead of this month’s RachFest. During RachFest, Gerstein will perform all four of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s knuckle-busting piano concertos. Stay tuned for more posts from Kirill in the coming weeks! I am excited to start our joint Rachmaninoff adventure with the Houston Symphony … Continued
If you were able to make it to last month’s ACCESS concert, you were introduced to the series’s host, Miles Hoffman of NPR’s Morning Edition. Ahead of this weekend’s performances of Handel’s Messiah, Miles took the time to write up a little “tidbit” about the great German composer. … Continued
I am from south-central Pennsylvania and how I got interested in symphonies is perhaps typical of many in my age group and from the area in which I was raised. I am from a small town close to Gettysburg. I began singing at a very young age much to the chagrin of my sister. Our … Continued
I have enjoyed enriching music ever since youth. My wife and I both grew up playing instruments in our schools’ band programs, and I into college. I cut my teeth on Maurice Abravanel and later Joseph Silverstein with the Utah Symphony, and after moving to The Woodlands in the mid-1990s, was introduced to the Houston … Continued