Step into the wonderful country of Colombia as the Houston Symphony performs Disney’s Encanto™ Live to Film in Concert! With music from composer Germaine Franco and Lin-Manuel Miranda, you’ll dance and groove to the music of cumbia and bambuco! As you experience the blockbuster hit live at Jones Hall, we encourage you to keep an … Continued
This Halloween, gather around the cauldron for some “double, double, ‘boil and bubble’” with this creative menu of family-friendly treats that is equal parts spooky and sweet. From munching on a hotdog mummy with bandages of dough, to serving up spine-tingling spaghetti and “eyeballs,” or wrapping up the evening with spider sandwich cookies, Halloween is … Continued
Halloween is around the corner! Get in the spooky spirit with these Houston Symphony concerts filled with frights and musical delights. Mendelssohn & Mahler October 4–6 Betrayal. Murder. Pagan rituals. Ghost stories. The choral masterpieces on this program, Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht and Mahler’s Das klagende Lied (perhaps inspired by the Grimms’ story The Singing … Continued
It’s easy to take having a place to call home for granted. “I never envisioned college graduation from the University of Houston with honors, marriage, children, and living in a homeless shelter,” wrote Nakia Sims, the mother of two beginning Suzuki Violin students, Azania and Hadas’sah. When the Sims family lost their home in a … Continued
Big Brothers Big Sisters brought some very special guests for the Houston Symphony’s “A Frosty & Frozen Christmas” Family Concert on Saturday, December 12 at Jones Hall. A mentoring network, Big Brothers Big Sisters makes meaningful, monitored matches between adult volunteers (“Bigs”) and children (“Littles”) in the Houston area. Before the concert, unmatched “Littles” … Continued
There are times in your life when you come upon something that defies any sort of logical explanation, a person with such a gift for music that it doesn’t even seem real. I met such a person this week in Houston. Seven year old Jonathan Okseniuk is his name. Jonathan, of YouTube Beethoven 5 fame, won … Continued
This summer, we have planned a very special event in honor of our 100th year: Day of Music on July 13, 2013! This FREE 12-hour festival will showcase Houston’s diverse musical landscape. Attendees will spend the day at Jones Hall listening to dozens of free performances, beginning with a family concert in the morning and … Continued
This summer, we have planned a very special event in honor of our 100th year: Day of Music on July 13, 2013! This FREE 12-hour festival will showcase Houston’s diverse musical landscape. Attendees will spend the day at Jones Hall listening to dozens of free performances, beginning with a family concert in the morning and … Continued
This summer, we have planned a very special event in honor of our 100th year: Day of Music on July 13, 2013! This FREE 12-hour festival will showcase Houston’s diverse musical landscape. Attendees will spend the day at Jones Hall listening to dozens of free performances, beginning with a family concert in the morning and … Continued
This summer, we have planned a very special event in honor of our 100th year: Day of Music on July 13, 2013! This FREE 12-hour festival will showcase Houston’s diverse musical landscape. Attendees will spend the day at Jones Hall listening to dozens of free performances, beginning with a family concert in the morning and … Continued
This summer, we have planned a very special event in honor of our 100th year: Day of Music on July 13, 2013! This FREE 12-hour festival will showcase Houston’s diverse musical landscape. Attendees will spend the day at Jones Hall listening to dozens of free performances, beginning with a family concert in the morning and … Continued
Have you ever noticed how defensive we can become about our widget? We are so focused on our view of the world (our widget) that it becomes easy to assume that the piece of pie we see is the whole picture. This concept is never clearer to me than in my work in non-profit organizations. … Continued
As I have done many times in the past, I recently visited a high school in southern Texas. Their school’s choir had been chosen to sing for 3,000-4,000 audience members at our most recent Houston Symphony Family concert, Aladdin & the Arabian Nights. The air was filled with energy and anticipation. As I was being … Continued
One of my favorite things about conducting education concerts is the time just before the concert starts. I have made it my practice to stand in the lobby and greet our young concert attendees (usually with a bottle of hand sanitizer in my pocket) as they enter the lobby. I do this for a few … Continued
2013 — a great year to begin playing an instrument! The sounds of an instrument being played for the first time may not exactly be beautiful, but in just a few years of studying music, the benefits truly last a lifetime. Here are a few articles we found that describe research showing the effects of … Continued
Conducting the “Sounds Like Fun!” concerts is really fun for me. As a person who is relatively new to Houston, the concerts have given me the opportunity to get to know the city, and more important, lots of great people throughout the metro area. One of the things that makes these concerts special to me … Continued
Earlier this month, Associate Conductor Robert Franz spoke with Radio Disney about the 2010-2011 Weatherford Family Concert Series, which kicks off tomorrow with our Masquerade Ball. While Robert isn’t on hand this weekend (the orchestra will be led by Andreas Franco), grab the kiddies and bring them to the computer room to have Robert read … Continued
For today’s blog post, our education department wanted to share something that has become near and dear to our hearts — dressing Associate Conductor Robert Franz in off-the-wall costumes for each of our Weatherford Family Concerts. If you ever wondered how those costumes came to pass, now’s your chance! After a recent Weatherford Family Concert, … Continued