Status of the Houston Symphony – Hurricane Harvey Update

Dear Houston Symphony family member,

Our hearts go out to everyone in our beloved Houston community affected by Hurricane Harvey. This is an incredibly challenging time for all of us.

Many members of the Houston Symphony family are safe and dry; however, some musicians, staff, Board, Chorus and League members have had water in their homes or lost power, and some have also needed to evacuate their homes. Like the rest of our city, we will not know the full extent of the storm’s impact for some time.

Our performance home, Jones Hall, had some water penetration, but we are fortunate that the stage and auditorium appear to have been untouched. Water did reach the basement level, where some equipment was stored, but we moved the most valuable and hard-to-replace items to higher floors prior to Harvey’s arrival. The Theater District garages are flooded and therefore are not accessible.

Unfortunately, we had to cancel this past weekend’s performances of Ella at 100 on September 1-3. If you had tickets, our Patron Services Center has already contacted you via e-mail. Additionally, we are sorry to share that, due to repairs at Jones Hall as a result of complications from the storm, the following concerts scheduled for next week have also been CANCELLED:

The Best of John Williams (Wednesday, September 6 at The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion). This program will be included in The Pavilion’s 2018 performing arts season. Refunds are available at the point of purchase.
Opening Night Concert and Gala with Susan Graham (Saturday, September 9 at Jones Hall)
Fiesta Sinfónica (Sunday, September 10 at Jones Hall; free concert – no action required)

If you purchased concert tickets for Opening Night with Susan Graham, no action is required on your part at this time. Our Patron Services Center will re-open on Tuesday, September 5 at 10am. At that time, our representatives will assist you by:

Donating the value of your ticket back to the Houston Symphony (you will
receive a tax receipt for the value of your ticket)
Exchanging your ticket for any other Houston Symphony 2017-18 season performance with no additional fees

Please direct any ticket inquiries while the Patron Service Center is closed to Jenny Zuniga, Director, Patron Services, at jenny.zuniga@houstonsymphony.org.

Houston Symphony administrative offices and the Patron Services Center will be closed through Monday, September 4. We hope to be back at work next week, but for our employees’ safety, we must ascertain the condition of offices and parking before announcing an official re-open date.

We deeply appreciate the tireless work of our colleagues at Houston First, Theater District Houston, and Jones Hall’s resident engineering and security companies. We are also grateful for the outpouring of support from members of the Houston Symphony family, the Houston community and orchestras across the country.

To support Houstonians who have suffered from flooding, we encourage you to support Mayor Sylvester Turner’s relief fund here: ghcf.org/hurricane-relief.

Among your many priorities at this time, please consider helping the Houston Symphony maintain its operations during this period of uncertainty. You may do so here: bit.ly/1oSL3eP

We thank you for all that you do for the Houston Symphony. We are eager to begin the cleanup and recovery process, and to provide an outstanding 2017-18 Season of concerts and community programs. As Houston’s orchestra, we look forward to helping our city to heal, bringing the people of our community together through the inspiring power of music.

If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to contact one of our Interim Co-Executive Directors – David Chambers at david.chambers@houstonsymphony.org or Amanda Dinitz at amanda.dinitz@houstonsymphony.org.

Take care, and be safe.