Andrés Conducts Strauss + Brahms’s Violin Concerto

Former Houston Symphony Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada is distinguished as a musician by his energy, elegance, and spirit. After a wonderful collaboration with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai in May 2022, Andrés was appointed the new principal conductor of the Rai Orchestra beginning in the 2023-24 Season.

In the 2025-26 Season, he will take up the position of GMD of the city of Cologne and Gürzenich Kapellmeister. Andrés attaches great importance to inspiring all the people of Cologne with music and for music, and to internationally representing and presenting Cologne as a city of music. Already in the coming season, he will be a guest at the Kölner Philharmonie with a special concert.

Debuts and return invitations this season take him to the Vienna Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Swedish Radio, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, and the Radio Sinfonieorchester Berlin, among others. He will also return to the hr-Sinfonieorchester (principal conductor 2014-21) and to Houston where he served as Music Director from 2014 to 2022.

He will accompany the SWR Symphony Orchestra on a tour of Spain and will also tour with the Filarmonica della Scala. Other highlights include a European tour with his Filarmónica Joven de Colombia and violinist Hilary Hahn, which will take him to Paris, Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Dortmund, and Switzerland, among other places.

He will make his debuts at La Scala in Milan (Mozart’s Figaro) and at the Amsterdam Opera (Beethoven’s Fidelio) where he will conduct the Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest.
Andrés also returns to the Staatsoper Berlin after numerous successful productions with a repeat performance of Tosca.

Born in Medellín (Colombia), Andrés Orozco-Estrada began his musical education by playing the violin, receiving his first conducting lessons at age 15. In 1997, he moved to Vienna, where he was accepted into the conducting class of Uroš Lajovic, a student of the legendary Hans Swarowsky, at the renowned Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst. Since October 2022, he has been professor of orchestral conducting at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts.

Celebrated as both a recitalist and concerto performer of notable distinction, Francesca Dego is one of the most sought-after violinists on the international scene.  

Her 2024-25 season includes debuts with the London Symphony Orchestra with Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Maestro Luisi with Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. She also performs with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Sinfonica di Milano, La Toscanini, Vancouver Symphony, Detroit and San Diego symphony orchestras, Orchestre de Cannes, and makes her debut with the Luxembourg Philharmonic at Flaneries Musicales de Reims. In recital, she appears at the Wigmore Hall with Alessandro Taverna, and Belfast International Chamber Festival and Dubai Opera with Francesca Leonardi.

Recent engagement highlights include appearances across Japan with NHK Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fabio Luisi, with Washington National and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestras, Orquesta de Castilla y León, and Orchestre de Champs Elysées with Maestro Herreweghe, as well as debuts with Swedish Radio Symphony, Bergen Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, West Australian Symphony, and Queensland Symphony Orchestras. Re-invitations include the Hallé, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra Haydn, and Brucknerhaus Linz. She has also appeared with the Tokyo Metropolitan, and Tokyo Symphony orchestras, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, at St Petersburg’s renowned Stars of the White Nights Festival, and in spring 2023 jumped in at short notice to make her Canadian debut with the orchestra of the National Arts Centre Ottawa. Recent European highlights include Bernstein’s Serenade at La Fenice, appearances with Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice; Oviedo Philharmonic; Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo; Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne; Orquestra de Sevilla and Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana; L’Orchestra dell’Opera Carlo Felice Genova; Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia; and at the Teatro Regio di Torino. UK highlights include the BBC Symphony, Ulster, Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic, and Royal Scottish National orchestras, as well as the National Youth Orchestra.

In 2023 she made her recording debut with the London Symphony Orchestra as the first artist to be featured on the new Apple Classical platform in ‘A New Dawn’ featuring Bologne’s Chevalier de St Georges Concerto No. 2 alongside conductor Jonathon Heyward. She regularly collaborates with esteemed conductors, amongst them Fabio Luisi, Philippe Herreweghe, Daniele Rustioni, Lionel Bringuier, Dalia Stasevska, Markus Stenz, Donato Renzetti, Gemma New, Jader Bignamini, Alpesh Chauhan, Asher Fisch, Markus Poschner, Krzysztof Urbański, and Xian Zhang.

A keen chamber musician, Francesca enjoys performing with artists including Francesco Piemontesi, Daniel Müller-Schott, Timothy Ridout, Jan Lisiecki, Salvatore Accardo, Alessandro Carbonare, Mahan Esfahani, Bruno Giuranna, Shlomo Mintz, Narek Hakhnazaryan, Federico Colli, Mischa Maisky, Antonio Meneses, Martin Owen, Alessandro Taverna, Enrico Dindo, Alessio Bax, Roman Simovic, and Francesca Leonardi.

Francesca is signed exclusively to Chandos Records. With a growing discography, her most recent recording of the violin concertos of Busoni and Brahms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Dalia Stasevska was released in March 2024, for which she was awarded the prestigious Franco Abbiati Prize. Her recordings of the complete Mozart violin concertos with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Sir Roger Norrington were received to unanimous critical acclaim, including BBC Music Magazine five star ‘Record of the month’. In June 2024 Chandos released an album of the horn trios of Brahms, Ligeti, Mozart, and Schumann, for which Francesca teamed up with Martin Owen, horn, and Alessandro Taverna, piano. Other releases on Chandos include the recital disc Il Cannone with previous releases on Deutsche Grammophon including concertos by Paganini and Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari alongside the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Daniele Rustioni and a complete survey of the violin sonatas by Beethoven and Paganini’s Caprices.

Francesca also has a passion for contemporary music and counts herself a dedicatee of the works of Michael Nyman, Carlo Boccadoro, Cristian Carrara, Nicola Campogrande, and Marco Taralli, amongst others. She is a frequent contributor to specialist music magazines including penning a monthly column for Suonare News and has written articles and opinion pieces for The Strad, BBC and Classical Music Magazines, Musical Opinion, and Strings Magazine. Francesca has also recently published her first book with Mondadori — Tra le Note. Classica: 24 chiavi di lettura — in which she explores the relevance, application, and deeper understanding of classical music in the modern day.

The Houston Symphony Chorus is the official choral unit of the Houston Symphony and consists of highly skilled and talented volunteer singers. Over the years, members of this historic ensemble have learned and performed the world’s great choral orchestral masterworks under the batons of Juraj Valčuha, Andrés Orozco Estrada, Hans Graf, Christoph Eschenbach, Robert Shaw, and Helmuth Rilling, among many others.

In addition, the Chorus enjoys participating in the Houston Symphony’s popular programming under the batons of conductors such as Steven Reineke and Michael Krajewski. Recently, the ensemble sang the closing subscription concerts with the Prague Symphony Orchestra in the Czech Republic. Singers are selected for specific programs for which they have indicated interest. A singer might choose to perform in all 45 concerts, as was the case in a recent season, or might elect to participate in a single series. The Houston Symphony Chorus holds auditions by appointment and welcomes inquiries from interested singers.