HOUSTON (Feb. 22, 2019) – Texas native Susan Graham returns to the Houston Symphony to perform a song cycle that has become a signature work for the operatic superstar as part of the all-French program Debussy’s La mer + Susan Graham at 8 p.m. March 8 & 9, and 2:30 p.m. March 10. Each concert will be followed by a free, after-hours performance of French chamber music masterpieces.
Graham is renowned for her interpretation of Hector Berlioz’ song cycle Les nuits d’été, which she performs with the Houston Symphony under the baton of the Seattle Symphony’s Grammy Award®-winning Music Director and acclaimed French music interpreter Ludovic Morlot. Berlioz’ smooth, flowing vocal lines are the perfect fit for Graham’s seemingly effortless, velvety lyricism, and her affinity for the composer’s music was a significant factor in the French government’s decision to honor the Texas mezzo-soprano by naming her a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2001.
Having added two more Grammy Awards® to his trophy case at this year’s award ceremony, Morlot opens the program with Berlioz’ sparkling Overture to the opera Béatrice et Bénédict, inspired by Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, one of composer’s favorite authors.
Morlot opens the second half of the program with Albert Roussel’s Suite from The Spider’s Feast, which features delicate orchestrations that depict an evening among the tiny denizens of a French garden. Having devoted his 2018-19 Seattle Symphony season to works by Debussy and related composers, Morlot closes these Houston Symphony concerts with Debussy’s La mer. Debussy drew inspiration for his masterpiece from the sea, immersing listeners in an impressionistic and colorful orchestral seascape.
Following the performances, audiences are invited to post-concert chamber music performances of Dutilleux’s Les Citations and Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro for Harp, Flute, Clarinet and String Quartet.
Debussy’s La mer + Susan Graham program sponsored by Shell takes place at Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, 615 Louisiana Street, in Houston’s Theater District. For tickets and information, please call (713) 224-7575 or visit houstonsymphony.org. Tickets may also be purchased at the Houston Symphony Patron Services Center in Jones Hall (Monday–Saturday from 12–6 p.m.). All programs and artists are subject to change.
DEBUSSY’S LA MER + SUSAN GRAHAM
Friday, March 8, 2019, 8 p.m.
Saturday, March 9, 2019, 8 p.m.
Sunday, March 10, 2019, 2:30 p.m.
Ludovic Morlot, conductor
Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano
Berlioz: Overture to Béatrice et Bénédict
Berlioz: Les nuits d’été
Roussel: Suite from The Spider’s Feast
Debussy: La mer
About Ludovic Morlot
Ludovic Morlot has been music director of the Seattle Symphony since 2011. During the 2018–19 season, he and the orchestra are focusing on the music of Debussy; newly commissioned works include Caroline Shaw’s Piano Concerto and the U.S. premiere of Pascal Dusapin’s At Swim-Two-Birds. The orchestra’s many successful recordings have won two Grammy Awards®.
This season, Ludovic’s guest engagements include this orchestra, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Bamberg Symphony; and the Netherlands Radio, BBC and Bergen Philharmonic Orchestras. His 2018 summer festival appearances included the BBC Proms and Edinburgh Festival (City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra), the Caramoor Summer Music Festival (Orchestra of St Luke’s), the Hollywood Bowl (Los Angeles Philharmonic) and the Aspen Music Festival, where he is a regular guest. He has a particularly strong connection with the Boston Symphony Orchestra having been the Seiji Ozawa Fellowship Conductor in 2001 at Tanglewood and subsequently appointed assistant conductor (2004-07). He has since conducted the orchestra in subscription concerts in Boston, at Tanglewood and on a tour to the west coast.
Recent and future debuts include the Berliner Philharmoniker, Vienna Symphony (Wien Modern Festival) and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. Ludovic has conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra in London and on tour in Germany. In 2017, he conducted the inaugural concerts of the National Youth Orchestra of China in New York and China. Other recent notable performances have included the New York Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, Czech Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Dresden, Budapest Festival, Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France and Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. Ludovic served as conductor-in-residence with the Orchestre National de Lyon under David Robertson (2002-04) and chief conductor of La Monnaie (2012-14).
Trained as a violinist, Ludovic studied conducting at the Pierre Monteux School and continued his education in London at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in 2014 in recognition of his significant contribution to music. He is chair of orchestral conducting studies at Seattle’s University of Washington School of Music.
About Susan Graham
Susan Graham—hailed as “an artist to treasure” by The New York Times— rose to the highest echelon of international performers within just a few years of her professional debut, mastering an astonishing range of repertoire and genres along the way. Her operatic roles span four centuries, from Monteverdi’s Poppea to Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, which was written especially for her. Among her numerous honors are a Grammy Award® for her collection of Ives songs, Musical America’s Vocalist of the Year and an Opera News Award. As one of the foremost exponents of French vocal music, she has been recognized with the French government’s Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.
This season, Susan reunited with Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra for performances of Mahler’s Third Symphony throughout Europe. Back in the States, she made her role debut as Humperdinck’s Witch in Doug Fitch’s treatment of Hansel and Gretel at LA Opera and returned to Carnegie Hall for Mozart’s Requiem and Haydn’s Nelson Mass with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Further concert engagements see the mezzo reprise her signature interpretations of four great French song cycles in these performances as well as Canteloube’s Chants d’Auvergne with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and David Robertson; Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer with Florida’s Naples Philharmonic and Andrey Boreyko; and Berlioz’ La mort de Cléopâtre with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra under Edo de Waart. In recital, she sings Mahler and Berlioz at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, while her Schumann-inspired Frauenliebe und -leben Variations program is the vehicle for further dates.
Susan’s earliest operatic successes were in such trouser roles as Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro. Her technical expertise soon brought mastery of more virtuosic parts, and she triumphed as Octavian in Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier and the Composer in his Ariadne auf Naxos. She sang the leading ladies in the Metropolitan Opera’s world premieres of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby and Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy, and made her musical theater debut in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King and I at Paris’ Théâtre du Châtelet. In concert, she makes regular appearances with the world’s foremost orchestras, often in French repertoire, while her distinguished discography comprises a wealth of opera, orchestral, and solo recordings. Gramophone magazine has dubbed her “America’s favorite mezzo.”
Visit susangraham.com, facebook.com/MezzoGraham and twitter.com/MezzoGraham.
About the Houston Symphony
During the 2018–19 season, the Houston Symphony celebrates its fifth season with Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada and continues its second century as one of America’s leading orchestras with a full complement of concert, community, education, touring and recording activities. The Houston Symphony, one of the oldest performing arts organizations in Texas, held its inaugural performance at The Majestic Theater in downtown Houston June 21, 1913. Today, with an annual operating budget of $33.9 million, the full-time ensemble of 88 professional musicians presents nearly 170 concerts annually, making it the largest performing arts organization in Houston. Additionally, musicians of the orchestra and the Symphony’s four Community-Embedded Musicians offer over 900 community-based performances each year, reaching thousands of people in Greater Houston.
The Grammy Award-winning Houston Symphony has recorded under various prestigious labels, including Naxos, Koch International Classics, Telarc, RCA Red Seal, Virgin Classics and, most recently, Dutch recording label PENTATONE. In 2017, the Houston Symphony was awarded an ECHO Klassik award for the live recording of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck under the direction of former Music Director Hans Graf. The orchestra earned its first Grammy nomination and Grammy Award at the 60th annual ceremony for the same recording in the Best Opera Recording category.
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Eric Skelly: (713) 337-8560, eric.skelly@houstonsymphony.org
Mireya Reyna: (713) 337-8557, mireya.reyna@houstonsymphony.org
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