10/25/50/75 Years Ago

The Houston Symphony’s first performance was in 1913. It’s hard to fathom the number of concerts, rehearsals, broadcasts, parties, board meetings, and hours of work by musicians, guest artists, employees, and volunteers over such a long, eventful century. Instead, we offer you a series of snapshots showing what your Symphony was doing 10, 25, 50, and 75 years ago:

The 2011-12 Season (10 years ago)

Ten years may seem a short time, but so much has changed since that remarkable season. Frank Huang, now with the New York Philharmonic, had just been appointed the orchestra’s concertmaster, and then-Music Director Hans Graf gave Huang a spotlight performance in Berg’s Violin Concerto.

Graf was already in the tenth season of his tenure, and the rest of the orchestra’s leadership was also different from today: Bobby Tudor was Board President and Mark Hanson was Executive Director/CEO. Mike Krajewski, who returns for this month’s Very Merry Pops, was in the middle of his long term as Principal Pops Conductor, and Dr. Charles Hausmann led the Houston Symphony Chorus.

Highlights of that season included the premiere of Earth—An HD Odyssey, the second multimedia program of what eventually became the HD Odyssey trilogy, featuring works such as John Adams’s Short Ride in a Fast Machine and Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra. In May 2012, the orchestra performed at Carnegie Hall. And the 2012 Symphony Ball, Rock Me Amadeus, was chaired by Mariglyn and Stephen Glenn, treasured members of the Symphony family to this day.

The 1996-97 Season (25 years ago)

The Houston Symphony opened this season with the largest orchestra in its history: 99 musicians under the leadership of Music Director Christoph Eschenbach. Eschenbach was instrumental in many of that year’s highlights, including: the orchestra’s first appearance in Chicago’s Ravinia Festival in June 1996; the Shell 1997 European Tour, which visited England, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria in February and March; and even the 1997 Ball, Ode to Joy, chaired by Mrs. Wesley West, which featured a concert led by Eschenbach himself.

The artistic leadership also included Stephen Stein, who conducted the POPS Series, concertmaster Uri Pianka, and, again, Chorus Director Dr. Charles Hausmann. The organization’s board and staff were led by Board President Barry Burkholder and Executive Director David Wax, respectively.

The 1971-72 Season (50 years ago)

This was a season of important beginnings and endings for the orchestra. The Houston Symphony became a full-time, year-round orchestra, signing its first 52-week contract with musicians. It was also Raphael Fliegel’s final season as concertmaster—although he would remain with the orchestra as Principal Second Violin until he retired in 1995, ending an amazing 60-year career with the organization. Today, the Symphony honors Fliegel’s legacy with the Raphael Fliegel Award for Visionary Artistic Leadership, which will be presented to Executive Director/CEO John Mangum at next month’s Symphony Ball.

1971-72 was also the first season for Music Director Lawrence Foster, after a two-year interregnum following the departure of Sir André Previn. A native of Los Angeles, the 30-year-old Foster opened his tenure with an all-Beethoven program on October 14, 1971, and later in the year began a four-year cycle of Haydn’s London symphonies.

Symphony leadership included Board President Charles Jones, Executive Director Tom Johnson, and Chorus Director Donald Strong. The Symphony Ball was not yet an annual tradition, but this was the year when four of the orchestra’s most generous supporters—Miss Ima Hogg, Maurice Hirsch, Gus Wortham, and Charles Bybee—were the first recipients of the Gold Baton Award.

The 1946-47 Season (75 years ago)

Turn the clock back another quarter century, and we see a Houston Symphony not far from its beginnings. Music Director Ernst Hoffmann, in the final season of his 11-year tenure, was the “first great builder” of the orchestra, and Symphony co-founder Miss Ima Hogg was serving as Board President for the second time. Some important traditions were already in place: the orchestra had been playing student concerts for nearly ten years, and were already performing outdoor concerts at the original Miller Outdoor Theatre. Most performances took place at the City Auditorium, although this season also saw a special performance of Gluck’s Orpheus, alongside the Houston Civic Ballet, at Bayou Bend.

At the same time, the Symphony was establishing the foundations of future success. On October 29, 1946, Principal Cello Alfred Urbach held the first rehearsal of the Houston Chorale, which would later be known as the Houston Symphony Chorus; Urbach served as its first director. Also, coincidentally, this was the first season of Raphael Fliegel’s 26-year tenure as concertmaster. Called a “Bayou City prodigy,” Houston native Fliegel had been performing with the orchestra since he was a student at San Jacinto High School.

Some of the year’s highlights reflect the times. The orchestra was back to full strength following World War II, during which more than 15 of its musicians were in the service (although the Symphony kept performing for the duration of the war). In those pre-television days, the orchestra was often heard on the radio: every week on the Texas Quality Network, sponsored by Texas Gulf Sulphur Company, as well as a national radio broadcast on February 22, 1947—including Brahms’ Symphony No. 4 in honor of the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death.

In all these different eras, it’s heartening to know that the Houston Symphony was an important feature of our community and a source of outstanding live music—as we hope to be 10, 25, 50, and 75 years into the future. And beyond.

Student Concerts Are Back

The Robbins Foundation Student Concert Series has an energy unlike any other Houston Symphony performance. Yellow school buses circling the block along Louisiana, Texas, Travis, and Capitol Streets. Dedicated teachers, staff, and Symphony League volunteers directing intricate flows of the happy audience. More than 25,000 children from dozens of schools across Greater Houston, awestruck by first views of the Jones Hall lobby and auditorium, and first times hearing one of the world’s premier orchestras.

In January 2022, for the first time in two years, we are thrilled to welcome students and teachers back to Jones Hall for an incomparable live music experience. Generations of Houstonians still remember their first time hearing the orchestra through student concerts, which began in 1937.

As a world-class orchestra serving a major world city, the Houston Symphony has a responsibility to use its resources in service of arts education across Greater Houston. Music education helps to develop creativity, self-expression, teamwork, and problem-solving skills that correlate with academic achievements and success in life. In recent years prior to the pandemic, the Series saw total concert attendance of more than 40,000 each school year.

Last year, field trips downtown were out of the question—so the Houston Symphony created unique classroom tools for music educators. Rather than just providing recordings of previous seasons’ student concerts, we edited and made available curated videos of livestreamed Symphony performances, accompanied by orchestra musicians introducing their instruments and discussing musical concepts related to the performances. These virtual resources were targeted to more than 270,000 students across 26 area school districts, and teachers unanimously praised their classroom effectiveness.

The 2021-22 Robbins Foundation Student Concert Series
The 2021-22 Robbins Foundation Student Concert Series returns to incomparable educational opportunities for more than 28,000 students that come with live concerts. Between January 12 and February 2, nine Upper Elementary School Concerts and four Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Middle School concerts will welcome students and teachers from every part of Greater Houston to Jones Hall. Students in Spring Independent School District have already experienced the first concert of the year, on October 12 at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion.

Upper Elementary Student Concerts are 50-minute full orchestra concerts, presented in Jones Hall or at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion during the school day for students in grades 4 and 5. Students hear the Houston Symphony perform and learn about the orchestra. The goal of Upper Elementary concerts is to inspire students to play an instrument and to facilitate students’ acquisition of active listening skills.

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Middle School Concerts are 55-minute full orchestra concerts, presented at Jones Hall for band and orchestra students in grades 6-8. The Symphony provides pre-concert resources to connect the repertoire in the concert program with concepts students are learning in their band and orchestra classrooms. Middle School music students benefit from discussion and demonstration of more advanced musical concepts and techniques, and these concerts are designed to inspire them to persevere in their studies and further their enjoyment of music.

Student Concert Series conducted by Assistant Conductor Yue Bao
The 2021-22 Robbins Foundation Student Concert Series is conducted by Yue Bao, the Houston Symphony’s Tin Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Assistant Conductor. At all concerts, a guest host will serve as the interface between the orchestra and audience, narrating the performance, soliciting responses, and taking questions. The Symphony first used a host for Elementary School concerts during the 2019-20 school year, with notable success and approving feedback from participating teachers; 2021-22 will be the first year with a host for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Middle School Concerts. Joining Bao and the host are the 81 world-class musicians of the Houston Symphony orchestra.

Another new development this year is an increasing role in shaping the concerts’ instructional component by the Houston Symphony’s Community-Embedded Musicians: Rainel Joubert, violin, and David Connor, double bass. Rainel and David both have more than five years’ experience with the Houston Symphony in their role as highly skilled orchestra musicians who spend the majority of their time working on community projects, including student concerts; they are highly trained in Social and Emotional Learning education and have worked with Houston-area students for many years in classroom settings. They will have an enhanced role this year: identifying the instructional needs of Houston-area teachers, recording pre-concert videos with classroom extensions for both Upper Elementary and Middle School concerts, and co-writing the script to be used by the host during student concerts to emphasize specific curricular aspects of the program relevant to music education.
The Houston Symphony thanks the generous organizations whose leadership support makes this series possible:

The Robbins Foundation, title sponsor of the student concert series, has been supporting the program for eight years. The Foundation, established by William K. and Mary Jo Robbins, supports organizations and activities involving missions and various religious programs, healthcare, education, universities, art and culture nonprofits as well as various youth programs.

One of our city’s signature institutions, The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is title sponsor of Middle School Concerts. Their support of this program reflects the Show’s longstanding commitment to the importance of education, which also includes scholarships to more than 2,300 students this year, and more than 20,000 total in the past 64 years.

This year, the Houston Symphony is thrilled to welcome a new leadership underwriter, the Kinder Morgan Foundation. A company foundation that supports students in grades K-12, they have supported the Symphony’s student concerts since the 2008-09 Season; their increased support this year reflects a strong commitment to the importance of arts education in Houston.

A Conversation With Robin Kesselman

Earlier this month, Houston Symphony Principal Double Bass Robin Kesselman performed Bottesini’s Grand Duo Concertante with renowned violinist Gil Shaham. We asked Robin about the performance, his career with the Symphony, and thoughts about our current and designated music directors.

What’s it like to perform alongside Gil Shaham?

There are certain dreams you don’t even think to have—because they’re so far beyond what you’d expect to ever happen. Getting the initial phone call in June, I shocked and thrilled.

Any time I’m featured with my symphony colleagues in a solo role, it’s a tremendous opportunity; it comes along only a few times in a career, and it’s magnified to the category of once-in-a-lifetime when Gil Shaham is involved.

Anybody of Gil’s generation or younger grew up listening to him and being inspired. We’re sofortunate that he comes to Houston on a regular basis. When I look back on any season, his concerto week is always a highlight. With his artistry, you’re happy to hear him play anything. Somehow, he always manages to serve the composer and give an electric performance, while also always sounding like himself. That’s the highest gift.

What do you think of the Grand Duo itself?

The Grand Duo is such a fun piece. Bottesini had an important conducting career—he premiered several Verdi operas in addition to touring as the “double bass Paganini.” By that I mean he wrote and performed music, created a repertoire that didn’t yet exist for the instrument, and changed how people thought about what the bass is able to do. His music is wonderfully operatic – lyrical with pyrotechnic flash.

This piece is one of the pillars of his work, but it isn’t performed that often—partly because the violin part is beastly hard! I had always known I wanted to learn the Duo; it looked like such a fun thing to do. So, I got the call in June, learned the piece in July, and got married in August!

Tell us about the special bass you used for this piece.

Due to a strange quirk of double bass soloing, the piece requires the instrument to be tuned differently, strung a step higher. It gives the instrument a timbral bump, so it can be heard in a large hall over a large orchestra. This summer, I was playing a festival with one of my teachers from Los Angeles, and he offered to put me in touch with Robertson & Sons, an instrument shop in Albuquerque. They loaned me this amazing instrument, a beautiful 19th century French bass. I’ve learned so much through playing it.

After the last year and half, what’s it like to be playing with the full orchestra again?

First and foremost, it feels great to have audiences back. The nature of live performance is different when people are present for it. The energy and timing of a performance, the way it changes over the course of a weekend, is palpable. It’s fantastic to have that experience again.

The feel of playing with the orchestra is also different. The first rehearsal with reduced social distancing, when we were able to share stands, was the moment when it felt like “we’re back!” Nothing can simulate the experience of being in the same place, picking up on each other’s visual, sonic, and tactile cues. At its best, it’s like we read each other’s minds.

Andrés Orozco-Estrada has been Music Director throughout your time in Houston. What will you remember from his time here?

Far too many things to say. For me personally, I credit him with giving me my musical life in its current landscape. You have a special relationship with the music director who appoints you, even after that person leaves.

The way our personalities connect took that relationship and multiplied it. His support for the orchestra has been incredible. When I arrived here, I had a lot of growing to do, and he provided the perfect ecosystem to do that. He gave me the opportunity to grow into my position and develop my skills, offering counsel, encouragement, and advice, both musically and personally.

What are your initial thoughts on Juraj Valčuha, our music director designate?

Juraj is completely and wholly dedicated to his craft and bringing the most out of the musicians he works with. The audience will see his level of dedication and intensity in every piece he does. At the same time, his music making feels very selfless. He has an incredible presence, but he’s also a conduit for the 80-100 musicians on stage with him, directing us all into a column of intentional sound. He can’t help but raise the level of the orchestra.

The last time he was here, in March, was a hard program, combining Beethoven with pieces influenced by jazz, and I remember he was so prepared—he was in his room studying scores before and after every rehearsal and performance. His drive is contagious, and you can’t help but feel that.

Create Your Legacy

A Meaningful Way to End the Year – Plan for the Future

The end of the year is a busy time. Between preparing for time-honored traditions like the Symphony’s Very Merry Pops or Messiah performances, family events, traveling, and finishing up your yearly tasks, there is plenty to keep you moving in these final months of 2021. But there is something you need to be sure you add to your end of the year to-do list, no matter how busy you are: estate planning.

Now is also the perfect time to review your plans and share them with loved ones. Here’s why:

You are surrounded by loved ones.

The holidays often invite family gatherings, making them an ideal time to sit down and share your plans with the people who need to know. Provide them a roadmap of your documents so they know what to do should something happen to you. You can also share why you made the decisions you did. You will all have peace of mind after your talk, and you get the chance to share your story with those who matter most.

You may have experienced key life events.

A lot can happen over the course of a year. A change in marital status, a new child or grandchild, or a move to a new home can impact your future plans. Right now, these events are fresh in your mind, making it easier to know how your plans may need to change.

It is your last chance to maximize your giving in 2021.

Tax time is around the corner and the extended CARES Act benefits are scheduled to expire soon. As you make or review your plans, meet with your advisor to ensure you have made the most of your giving options this year and plan for next year. The CARES Act includes:

• An expansion of the universal charitable deduction for cash gifts. The new deduction is $300 for single filers and $600 for married couples filing jointly. This is available to taxpayers who take the standard deduction. This tax incentive is available for cash gifts to qualified charities (but not to supporting organizations or donor advised funds).
• An extension of the cap on deductions for cash contributions. The CARES Act lifted the cap on annual contributions for those who itemize, increasing it from 60% to 100% of adjusted gross income. Any excess contributions available can be carried over to the next five years. (For corporations, the law raised the annual limit from 10% to 25% of taxable income.)

We Can Help

You can use your estate plan to extend your support of the Houston Symphony into the future, creating a legacy that protects both your family and the places you are passionate about. To learn more about this smart and heartfelt giving option, visit our website, or contact Alex de Aguiar Reuter at 713.337.8532 or alex.reuter@houstonsymphony.org.