Death & Transfiguration Festival

Our final three programs share a common thread: transformation. Strauss and Mahler created monumental works exploring life, death, and the ultimate mystery of what lies beyond earthly existence, while in The Elements and The Planets, music alters our everyday surroundings, transporting us to otherworldly realms of elemental force and celestial splendor. Come together, escape the ordinary, and be transformed.

Buy All Three and Save View Date and Times

Joshua Bell Returns: The Elements in Concert

Grammy Award-winning violin icon Joshua Bell unleashes cosmic grandeur and world-shaking virtuosity in The Elements, a stunning sound-plus-video experience which summons the elemental power of Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Space through spellbinding music and immersive video projections. Eternal questions of love, death, and the hereafter are explored through soaring, transcendent music of Wagner and Strauss.

Thursday, May 7

7:30 P.M. at Jones Hall

Buy Tickets

Saturday, May 9

7:30 P.M. at Jones Hall

Buy Tickets

Sunday, May 10

2:00 P.M. at Jones Hall

Buy Tickets

The Planets + Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto

Houston favorite Augustin Hadelich returns for one of the most treasured works in all of music, Tchaikovsky's lushly romantic (and dizzyingly difficult) Violin Concerto. Be transported to a world of soaring beauty and limitless possibility in Jennifer Higdon's blue cathedral, which, in Higdon's words, represents an imaginary journey "through a glass cathedral in the sky." Then, fasten your seatbelts and blast off to menacing Mars, jolly Jupiter, and beyond as the Symphony performs Holst's sonic, celestial showpiece, The Planets.

Friday, May 15

7:30 P.M. at Jones Hall

Buy Tickets

Saturday, May 16

7:30 P.M. at Jones Hall

Buy Tickets

Sunday, May 17

2:00 P.M. at Jones Hall

Buy Tickets

Valčuha Conducts Mahler 9

For the grand finale to our classical season, Music Director Juraj Valäuha leads Mahler's final completed work, the extraordinary Symphony No. 9. To hear one of Mahler's symphonies live is to feel why it's an experience unlike anything else in music, and the Ninth is one of his most remarkable-a monumental journey of epic proportions, ending with music of rare transportive power and time-altering beauty.

Friday, May 22

7:30 P.M. at Jones Hall

Buy Tickets

Saturday, May 23

7:30 P.M. at Jones Hall

Buy Tickets

Sunday, May 24

2:00 P.M. at Jones Hall

Buy Tickets

Margaret Alker Series

Made possible through generous support from Margaret Alkek Williams, Spotlight Series performances feature outstanding conductors and artists, including Music Director Juraj Valäuha, other prestigious guest conductors, and renowned guest artists. These concerts include curated musical selections by some of the greatest composers of all time such as Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, and Stravinsky alongside contemporary works, offering audiences unique and inspiring musical experiences that will stay with them after they leave the concert hall. Thanks in part to the support of Margaret Alkek Williams, the Houston Symphony can serve audiences with extraordinary musical experiences reflective of our world-class orchestra.