Photos here
HOUSTON (July 18, 2024) – Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) Music Director, Grammy-winning artist, and pioneer among women conductors JoAnn Falletta is stepping in to lead the Houston Symphony in its July 19th performance at its summer home at Miller Outdoor Theatre. The previously announced Anna Rakitina is unable to travel to Houston due to visa complications.
JoAnn Falletta’s July 19th program with the Houston Symphony comprises Elgar’s famed Enigma Variations, and Glazunov’s virtuosic Violin Concerto featuring American violinist Annelle Gregory.
When she assumed the title of Buffalo Philharmonic Music Director in May 1998, JoAnn Falletta became the first female to lead a major American orchestra. She’s received two individual Grammy awards including the 2021 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance as Conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic in the world premiere Naxos recording, Richard Danielpour’s The Passion of Yeshua and the 2019 Grammy Award as Conductor of the London Symphony for Spiritualist by Kenneth Fuchs. Her Naxos recording of John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan with the BPO received two Grammys in 2008, and her 2023 Naxos recording of music of Scriabin with the BPO was nominated for Best Orchestral Performance.
Admission is free to all the Summer Symphony Nights concerts at Miller Outdoor Theatre, which all begin at 8:30 p.m., but tickets are required for the covered seating area. Tickets for covered seating are available online at www.milleroutdoortheatre.com/get-tickets beginning at 10 a.m., one day prior to the performance date until noon on the day of the performance. There will be a limited number of tickets at the box office one hour before the performance. No tickets are required for the hill.
Summer Symphony Nights at Miller Outdoor Theatre
Miller Outdoor Theatre, 6000 Hermann Park Drive, Houston, TX 77030
ENIGMA VARIATIONS
Friday, July 19, 2024, 8:30 p.m.
JoAnn Falletta, conductor
Annelle Gregory, violin
GLAZUNOV: Violin Concerto in A minor
ELGAR: Enigma Variations
About JoAnn Falletta
Multiple Grammy Award-winning conductor JoAnn Falletta serves as Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO), Music Director Laureate of the Virginia Symphony, Principal Guest Conductor of the Brevard Music Center, and Conductor Laureate of the Hawaii Symphony. Recently named as one of the 50 great conductors of all time by Gramophone Magazine and among the top 10 conductors today by David Hurwitz of ClassicsToday.com, she is hailed for her work as a conductor, recording artist, audience builder and champion of American composers.
As Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Falletta became the first woman to lead a major American orchestra and has been credited with bringing the Philharmonic to an unprecedented level of national and international prominence. The Buffalo Philharmonic has become one of the leading recording orchestras for Naxos, with two Grammy Award-winning recordings. In honor of Falletta’s 25th Anniversary with the BPO, which is being celebrated this season, NAXOS released 20 full albums of music, previously available only on CD, across all major streaming platforms. In November, Falletta will receive the Dallas Symphony’s Award of Excellence.
Internationally, Falletta has conducted many of the most prominent orchestras in Europe, Asia, and South America, including recent and upcoming concerts in Liverpool, France, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Brazil and Croatia. Her recent and upcoming North American guest conducting includes the National Symphony, the orchestras of Boston, Dallas, Baltimore, Detroit, Nashville, Indianapolis, Houston, Toronto, Milwaukee, Vancouver, Quebec, and a concert at Alice Tully Hall with her alma mater, The Juilliard School Orchestra. In 2022, she led the National Symphony in two PBS televised specials for New Year’s Eve and the 50th Anniversary of the Kennedy Center and made her Boston Symphony Orchestra debut at the Tanglewood Music Festival.
With a discography of over 125 titles, JoAnn is a leading recording artist for Naxos. She has won two individual Grammy Awards, including the 2021 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance as Conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic in the world premiere Naxos recording, Richard Danielpour’s The Passion of Yeshua and the 2019 Grammy Award as Conductor of the London Symphony for Spiritualist by Kenneth Fuchs. Her Naxos recording of John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan with the BPO received two Grammys in 2008, and her 2020 Naxos recording with the BPO of orchestral music of Florent Schmitt received the prestigious Diapason d’Or Award. In 2023, her Scriabin album with the BPO was nominated for Best Orchestral Performance.
Falletta is a member of the esteemed American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has served by Presidential appointment as a Member of the National Council on the Arts during the Bush and Obama administrations and is the recipient of many of the most prestigious conducting awards. She has conducted over 1,600 orchestral works by more than 600 composers, 135 works by more than 70 women composers and well over 150 US and world premieres. ASCAP has honored her as “a leading force for music of our time.” In 2019, JoAnn was named Performance Today’s first Classical Woman of The Year.
After earning her bachelor’s degree at Mannes, Falletta received master’s and doctoral degrees from The Juilliard School.
For more information, visit www.joannfalletta.com.
About the Houston Symphony
Under Music Director Juraj Valčuha, the Houston Symphony continues its second century inspiring and engaging a large and diverse audience in Houston and beyond through exceptional musical performances, and creating enduring impact in the Houston community. One of the oldest performing arts organizations in Texas, the Symphony held its inaugural performance at The Majestic Theater in downtown Houston on June 21, 1913. Today, with an operating budget of $40.6 million, the full-time ensemble of professional musicians presents more than 130 concerts annually, making it the largest performing arts organization in Houston. Traditionally, musicians of the orchestra and the Symphony’s Community-Embedded Musicians also offer over 1,000 community-based performances each year at various schools, community centers, hospitals, and churches, annually reaching more than 200,000 people in Greater Houston.
After suspending concert activities in March 2020, the Symphony successfully completed a full 2020–21 season with in-person audiences and weekly livestreams of each performance, making it one of the only orchestras in the world to do so. The Houston Symphony remains committed to livestreaming its 2023–24 Season to a broad audience in over forty-five countries and all 50 states, one of few American orchestras dedicated to transmitting live performances to a sizeable audience outside its home city through this technology. The Grammy Award-winning Houston Symphony has recorded under various prestigious labels, including Koch International Classics, Naxos, RCA Red Seal, Telarc, 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. The Symphony’s most recent recordings include a Pentatone release in January 2022 of its world premiere performances of Jimmy López Bellido’s Aurora and Ad Astra, and a Naxos release in July 2023 of its world premiere performance of Jennifer Higdon’s Duo Duel.
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Eric Skelly: 713.337.8560, eric.skelly@houstonsymphony.org
Madison Mann: 832.930.4065 x120, madison@theckpgroup.com