Students and teachers across Houston faced many challenges during the first weeks of the school year as they dealt with the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. Late starts, damaged facilities, and the stress of uncertainty permeated campuses throughout the region. Despite the late start to the school year, Crespo Elementary students are eager to embrace a new year of … Continued
Houston has weathered many storms, but Hurricane Harvey was unprecedented. Catastrophic flooding shut down our city for over a week, and many areas are still struggling to return to normal. Houston’s Theater District was not exempt; our home, Jones Hall, was fortunately spared the worst of the flooding, although it still suffered significant damage. While … Continued
Following the success of the recently opened St. Petersburg Conservatory, the first institution of its kind in Russia, a second conservatory opened in Moscow in 1866. Among the new professors was one of the first graduates of the St. Petersburg school: a young composer named Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. A large proportion of the Moscow Conservatory’s … Continued
Dmitri Shostakovich’s First Symphony may be the greatest graduation project of all time. Composed at the age of 18, Shostakovich’s First Symphony was written to fulfill the graduation requirements of the Leningrad Conservatory (earning him the equivalent of a college music degree), and would take the international music world by storm the following year. But … Continued
Dear Houston Symphony Family Member, On behalf of everyone at the Houston Symphony, thank you and congratulations to our outstanding orchestra, Chorus, music director and vocal soloists who together performed a magnificent and inspiring season opening concert last night at Rice University’s Stude Concert Hall. It was incredibly meaningful to have our talented Houston Symphony … Continued
For three years, Mahler had composed almost nothing. His first three gargantuan symphonies had only met with sporadic success, if they were performed at all, and he was consumed with the Herculean task of his new job: running Vienna’s Imperial Opera. Mahler was determined to transform the declining institution into a musical and theatrical experience … Continued