HOUSTON (March 27, 2019) – Grammy Award-winning duo Indigo Girls joins the Houston Symphony for a one-night-only performance of their greatest hits at 7:30 p.m. April 10, 2019.
Known for their folk-rock music, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, the two halves of the dynamic duo, bring their energetic and captivating music to Jones Hall. Houston audiences are about to experience the Indigo Girls like never before as they perform their music backed by the full complement of the Houston Symphony.
Celebrating their successful four-decade-long career, the program features Indigo Girls’ popular hits like “Galileo,” “Kid Fears,” “Closer to Fine,” and “Making Promises” accompanied by the Houston Symphony. Conductor Sean O’Loughlin, who contributed to the orchestral arrangements of the duo’s famous songs, leads the orchestra in an evening that blurs the lines between folk, rock, pop, and classical genres.
The Indigo Girls program takes place April 10 at 7:30 p.m. 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, 12–6 p.m.). All programs and artists are subject to change.
INDIGO GIRLS
Wednesday, April 10, 2019, 7:30 p.m.
Sean O’Loughlin, conductor
Indigo Girls
About Sean O’Loughlin
Sean O’Loughlin, a fresh voice and a rising name in the music world, is principal pops conductor of Symphoria, the exciting new orchestra in Syracuse, New York, and the newly appointed principal pops conductor of the Victoria Symphony in British Columbia. He has conducted performances with this orchestra, the Boston Pops Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Seattle Symphony, among others.
His compositions are characterized by vibrant rhythms, passionate melodies and colorful scoring. Commissions from the Boston Pops Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra highlight and showcase his diverse musical abilities. The Los Angeles Times calls his orchestrations “…magnificent and colorful” while adding “…even more dimension…” to the compositions. Variety heralds Sean’s writing as “most impressive …” with a “wide range of coloring in the orchestra…” that “…adds heft and rolling energy.
Sean was the assistant conductor and arranger for a production of Sgt. Pepper Live in Las Vegas featuring the band Cheap Trick. He has served as conductor for national and world tours with Josh Groban, Sarah McLachlan and the Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration. He has also appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America with Groban and NBC’s A Very Pentatonix Christmas.
Other recent collaborations include such artists as Adele, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, Kelly Clarkson, Diana Ross, Journey, Melissa Etheridge, Blue Man Group, Janelle Monáe, Audra McDonald, Hall & Oates, Gloria Estefan, Indigo Girls, Diana Krall, Itzhak Perlman, Natalie Merchant, Chris Isaak, Pink Martini, Brandi Carlile, The Decemberists, Martina McBride, Josh Ritter, Gloria Gaynor and others.
Through his growing number of commissioned and published works, Sean is excited to continue contributing to the rich history of orchestral and wind band literature. His music is published by Carl Fischer and Hal Leonard. He is a frequent guest conductor with professional orchestras and honor bands around the country. An ASCAP award winner, Sean was a composition fellow at the Henry Mancini Institute in Los Angeles, and holds composition degrees from New England Conservatory of Music and Syracuse University.
About Indigo Girls
“When I hear the symphony come in, it’s a convergence of a lot of feelings,” says Emily Saliers, one-half of the iconic Indigo Girls. “First, you can’t believe your good fortune that it’s really happening, and then you’re hit with the power of this enormous, full orchestra coming from behind you. Even when we play by ourselves now, I can’t perform these songs without hearing the orchestra in my head.”
In 2012, Emily and her Indigo Girls partner, Amy Ray, embarked on a bold new chapter, collaborating with a pair of orchestrators to prepare larger-than-life arrangements of their songs to perform with symphonies around the country. It was a challenging endeavor, to say the least, but the Grammy®-winning duo managed to find that elusive sonic sweet spot with the project, creating a seamless blend of folk, rock, pop and classical that elevated their songs to new emotional heights without sacrificing any of the emotional intimacy and honesty that have defined their music for decades. Now, after more than 50 performances with symphonies across America, the experience has finally been captured in all its grandeur on the band’s stunning new album, Indigo Girls Live with The University of Colorado Symphony Orchestra.
Recorded in front of a sold-out audience in Boulder, CO, and deftly mixed by Grammy®-winner Trina Shoemaker (Sheryl Crow, Emmylou Harris), the record showcases Indigo Girls at their finest: raw, real and revelatory. Amy and Emily’s voices are both powerful and delicate here, their intertwined harmonies riding on the crest of an emotional tidal wave created by Sean O’Loughlin and Stephen Barber’s dazzling arrangements. The orchestrations are as richly cinematic as a film score (think John Williams rather than J.S. Bach), and the 64-piece symphony wrings every ounce of passion from them, helping to bring the band’s evocative storytelling to more vivid life than ever before.
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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