PHOTOS AND B-ROLL

HOUSTON (June 3, 2026) –

Opening night of the Houston Symphony’s 2026–27 Season just got even starrier. Today, the Symphony is announcing that Academy Award-winning native Texan Matthew McConaughey joins the program to narrate American composer Aaron Copland’s iconic Lincoln Portrait, September 19, 2026 at Jones Hall.

Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait includes narration featuring actual words of Abraham Lincoln, taken from Lincoln’s letters and speeches including his historic Gettysburg Address.

Born in Uvalde, TX, Matthew McConaughey earned a film degree in 1993 from UT Austin. He is an Academy Award-winning actor with experience in more than 50 films, including “Dazed and Confused,” “A Time to Kill,” “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Dallas Buyers Club,” for which he won an Oscar and Golden Globe for his lead acting role. He also has experience as a producer, most notably for his work on HBO’s award-winning and critically acclaimed “True Detective.” 

The program also includes opera star Isabel Leonard singing classics from the Great American Songbook, along with additional works all celebrating America’s 250^th birthday. Tickets to Opening Night: Celebrating America at 250 September 19, 2026 at Jones Hall, as well as the rest of the Houston Symphony’s 2026–27 Season, will be available to donors and new subscribers on June 24, 2026 and to the general public on June 29, 2026  at houstonsymphony.org, by phone or text at 713-224-7575, or in person at the Houston Symphony’s Courtyard Level box office at Jones Hall.

Tickets to the Opening Night Gala, which includes the concert and a post-performance black-tie dinner at The Corinthian, are available online at  2026 Opening Night Concert & Gala - Houston Symphony or by contacting:

Jennifer Renner 

Chief Development Officer

713.337.8525 

jennifer.renner@houstonsymphony.org. 

Opening Night: Celebrating America at 250

September 19, 2026, 7 p.m.

Jones Hall for the Performing Arts

Steven Reineke, conductor

Isabel Leonard, mezzo-soprano

Matthew McConaughey, narrator

The Houston Symphony is pleased to have Steven and Joella Mach as Chairs for the Houston Symphony’s Opening Night with long-time corporate partner ConocoPhillips as the Concert Sponsor and Lead Corporate Gala Underwriter.

About Isabel Leonard

A native New Yorker and graduate of The Juilliard School, three-time Grammy Award-winning artist Isabel Leonard has built a career of rare breadth, praised by the New York Classical Review as "so compelling that she is effortlessly seductive" — a reputation earned not only on the opera stage but in the concert hall, on film, and on screens worldwide.

The 2026–2027 season finds Ms. Leonard at the center of an exceptionally wide-ranging series of operatic and orchestral engagements spanning Europe and North America. She makes her house debut at Teatro Real in Madrid as Rosina in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia, conducted by Giacomo Sagripanti in Damiano Michieletto's production. She sings her role debut as Julie in Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's Show Boat with Houston Grand Opera, in Francesca Zambello's production conducted by Music Director Emeritus Patrick Summers. She is also featured as one of the star soloists in the Metropolitan Opera's Diamond Jubilee Gala — 60 Years at Lincoln Center — conducted by Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin and directed by Julian Crouch, featuring fully staged performances from more than thirty operas. 

Orchestral highlights include opening the Houston Symphony's season in a gala evening of Great American Songbook repertoire with Principal Pops Conductor Steven Reineke, a gala appearance with the San Diego Symphony conducted by Music Director Rafael Payare, Ravel's Shéhérazade and Debussy's Le jet d'eau with the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Fabien Gabel, and L'enfant et les sortilèges with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Music Director Stéphane Denève and in a staged production with digital projections with the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, also conducted by Denève. She also appears in a private gala concert in Monte Carlo with soprano Nadine Sierra, and is featured in an all-star Christmas gala at Carnegie Hall curated by Eugene Wintour.

The 2025–2026 season was one of Ms. Leonard's richest and most varied. She returned to the Metropolitan Opera in two prominent productions: the title role in Bizet's Carmen, conducted by Fabien Gabel, and the leading role of Frida in the company premiere of Gabriela Lena Frank's El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego, directed by Deborah Colker and conducted by Nézet-Séguin, broadcast as part of the Met's Live in HD series. She also appeared in the title role of Carmen at the Wiener Opernsommer, in the open-air Opera Arena at the Heumarkt in Vienna, conducted by Joji Hattori. She returned to the Bayerische Staatsoper as Angelina in La Cenerentola and sang the title role in Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges with the San Diego Symphony under Music Director Rafael Payare in a semi-staged production directed by Gerard McBurney. She joined Le Cercle de l'Harmonie and conductor Jérémie Rhorer for a tour of France celebrating the music of Rossini.

The season also saw Ms. Leonard designated a Perspectives Artist at Carnegie Hall, where she presented a series of concerts throughout the season, including a recital with pianist John Arida in Stern Auditorium, Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with The Met Orchestra conducted by Nézet-Séguin, and participation in the prestigious 50th Anniversary of the Concert of the Century Gala, also conducted by Nézet-Séguin. The season's Perspectives series closed with a Spanish Song and Dance Recital with vocalist Ismael Fernández and dancer Sonia Olla. Additional engagements included a residency with the Asheville Symphony Orchestra comprising a recital with John Arida, an orchestral performance of Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915, and a concert of Gershwin and American music with the Youth Orchestra; and further residencies and recitals at Washington University in St. Louis, Ithaca College, and Montclair State University.

About Steven Reineke

Houston Symphony Principal POPS Conductor 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. He is the Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the National Symphony Orchestra at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Principal Pops Conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

Reineke is a frequent guest conductor and can be seen on the podium with the Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit Symphony Orchestras.

On stage, Mr. Reineke creates and collaborates with a range of leading artists from the worlds hip-hop, R & B, Broadway, television and rock including: Killer Mike, 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 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." Reineke is the conductor on "Ben Folds Live with The National Symphony Orchestra and William Shatner's "So Fragile, So Blue" with The National Symphony Orchestra. In November 2025, Reineke was joined on the podium by NFL legend Marshawn Lynch, who visited the Houston Symphony ahead of Thursday Night Football, for a conducting tutorial featured in his Amazon Prime show, “N Yo City.” ​

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 two 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.