Takemitsu + Brahms’s Requiem

Conductor Juraj Valčuha is recognized for his effortless expressiveness and depth of musicianship. With sharp baton technique and natural stage presence, the impressive ease of his interpretations translate even the most complex scores into immersive experiences. His profound understanding of composer and score, taste, and naturally elegant style make him one of the most sought-after conductors of his generation.

Since 2016 Valčuha has been Music Director of the Teatro di San Carlo, Naples and First Guest Conductor of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. He was Chief Conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI from 2009 to 2016.

The 2005–06 season marked the start of his international career with exciting concerts on the podium of the Orchestre National de France followed by remarkable debuts in the U.K. with the Philharmonia London, in Germany with the Munich Philharmonic, and in the United States with the Pittsburgh Symphony. His Italian debut took place at Teatro Comunale in Bologna with a sensational production of La Bohème.

He has since led the Berlin Philharmonic, Dresden Staatskapelle, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, hr Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Vienna Symphony, Czech Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, BBC Symphony, Philharmonia London, Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Maggio Musicale in Florence, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Milan’s Filarmonica della Scala, Montréal Symphony, and NHK and Yomiuri orchestras in Tokyo. His active career in the U.S. has taken him to the orchestras of Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, St. Louis, and Utah. He enjoys regular collaborations with orchestras in Houston, Minnesota, New York, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco.

International touring with the Orchestra Sinfonica della RAI took them to the Musikverein in Vienna and the Philharmonie in Berlin, as well as Cologne, Düsseldorf, Zurich, Basel, and Munich, and to the Enesco Festival in Bucharest, and to Abu Dhabi Classics. He has also toured with the Konzerthaus Orchester Berlin to Riga, Vilnius, and Tallinn to mark the 100th anniversary of the Baltic nations.

Valčuha champions the compositions of living composers and aims to program contemporary pieces in most of his concerts. He has conducted world premieres including Christopher Rouses´s Supplica with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Steven Mackey’s violin concerto with Leila Josefowicz and the BBC Symphony in Manchester, and Nico Muhly´s Bright Idea with the Houston Symphony. In 2005 he conducted, in the presence of the composer, Steve Reich´s Four Sections at the Melos-Ethos Festival in Bratislava. Other composers he has supported and continues to follow with interest are Bryce Dessner, Andrew Norman, Luca Francesconi, James MacMillan, and Steven Stucky, among others.

On the opera stage, he has conducted Madama Butterfly, Elisir d‘amore, and Marriage of Figaro at the Bavarian State Opera Munich; Elektra and Turandot at the Deutsche Oper Berlin; Faust and The Love for three oranges in Florence; Jenufa, Peter Grimes, Salome, Tristan und Isolde, and Ariadne auf Naxos in Bologna; Peter Grimes in Venice; and Elektra, Carmen, Bluebeard’s Castle, Die Walküre, The Girl of the Golden West, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Katja Kabanova, and Pique Dame in Napoli.

Juraj Valčuha was awarded the Premio Abbiati 2018 from Italian Music critics in the category Best Conductor.

His engagements in the 2022–23 season will  take him to the Houston, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco Orchestras, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra dell´Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, and the Orchestre National de France.  He will conduct Verdi´s Don Carlo at Teatro San Carlo in Naples, and La Boheme and Tristan & Isolde at the Bavarian State Opera Munich.

Born in Bratislava, Slovakia, he studied composition and conducting in his birth place, then at the Conservatory in St Petersburg (with Ilya Musin), and, finally, at the Conservatoire Supérieur de la Musique in Paris.

jurajvalcuha.com

Recognized for her unique artistic curiosity in world-class performances spanning the music of Claudio Monteverdi and Johann Adolph Hasse through to Missy Mazzoli and Sir George Benjamin, American Lauren Snouffer is celebrated as one of the most versatile and respected sopranos on the international stage.  

Lauren celebrates two high profile operatic debuts this season: with the Royal Swedish Opera she creates the role of Justine in the world premiere of Mikael Karlsson and Royce Vavrek’s opera Melancholia based upon the powerful film by Lars von Trier, and she makes a Glyndebourne debut as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte.   

A deeply admired guest of The Cleveland Orchestra, Lauren returns to the stage of Severance Music Hall to join Daniel Harding for Mahler’s Fourth Symphony paired with Ces belles années, a new work by Besty Jolas, commissioned specifically as a companion piece to the Mahler symphony. Highlights of the symphonic calendar also include a semi-staged concert performance of Sir George Benjamin’s Written on Skin with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the composer, Stravinsky’s cantata Les Noces with music director Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony, and Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem with the Houston Symphony led by Music Director Juraj Valčuha. She also appears with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Dame Jane Glover in Handel’s Messiah as well as with Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall in Bach’s Weihnachtsoratorium and in St. John Passion with the Seattle Symphony, both under the baton of Bernard Labadie.   

Her operatic performances on leading international stages have fortified the soprano’s place as one of the eminent interpreters of contemporary music; she created the title role in Stefan Wirth’s Girl with a Pearl Earring with Opernhaus Zürich and portrayed the lead role in Hans Abrahamsen’s The Snow Queen at Opera National du Rhin. She returned to Houston Grand Opera for the world premieres of The Phoenix by composer Tarik O’Regan and The House Without a Christmas Tree by Ricky Ian Gordon and Royce Vavrek.   

An alumna of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, Lauren graduated from Rice University and The Juilliard School. 

Andrew Foster-Williams possesses a vocal versatility that allows him to present 

repertoire ranging from the classics of Bach, Gluck, Handel, and Mozart through 

more recent masters as Britten, Debussy, Wagner, and Stravinsky on both 

opera and concert stages.   

Andrew’s career, initially built on his strong Baroque credentials, has in recent seasons moved toward more dramatic repertoire with successes as Pizarro (Fidelio) at Theater an der Wien and Philharmonie de Paris, and a unanimously praised debut as Telramund in Wagner’s Lohengrin under esteemed conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin at the Festival de Lanaudière. A subsequent portrayal of Captain Balstrode in Christoph Loy’s divisive production of Peter Grimes at Theater an der Wien, alongside acclaimed performances as Nick Shadow (The Rake’s Progress) and Gunther (Götterdämmerung) have further enhanced an already highly regarded operatic profile. Other recent role debuts as Kurnewal in Tristan und Isolde at La Monnaie under Alain Altinoglu highlight a dramatic capacity that has earned the respect of many stage directors as he “holds the attention of the audience with the energy of someone who has great experience, and with sensational vocal ability, which he uses with total freedom…” (Opéra). Opera performances in the current season include his role debut as Mr. Flint (Billy Budd) at the George Enescu Festival, and Donner (Das Rheingold) conducted by Alain Altinoglu in the first installment of Roman Castelluci’s new presentation of Der Ring des Nibelungen at La Monnaie.   

An impressive line-up of concert invitations has taken Andrew to some of the most celebrated orchestras and conductors of our day. These include The Cleveland Orchestra/Franz Welser-Möst, Salzburg Mozarteum/Ivor Bolton, San Francisco Symphony/Michael Tilson Thomas, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Richard Egarr, Gulbenkian Orchestra/Lorenzo Viotti, and the Sibelius Festival/Dalia Stasevska. Andrew offers a concert repertoire as diverse as it is broad, which includes Bach’s St. John Passion, Britten’s War Requiem, Schönberg’s Gurrelieder, Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, and Mahler’s Eighth Symphony. Concert highlights this season include Messiah with Orquesta Sinfonica de Castille y Leon (Egarr), Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem with the Houston Symphony (Valčuha), St Matthew Passion with Netherlands Chamber Orchestra (Bolton), and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Lahti Symphony Orchestra (Stasevska). 

The Houston Symphony Chorus is one of Houston’s oldest and most distinguished musical organizations.

Over the years, the Chorus has sung with dozens of the world’s most notable conductors, including Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Steven Reineke, Michael Krajewski, Robert Shaw, André Previn, Leopold Stokowski, Christoph Eschenbach, Sir John Barbirolli, Ferenc Fricsay, Lawrence Foster, and Hans Graf, to name only a very few.

In addition to performances in Jones Hall, the Symphony’s home venue, the Chorus has also delighted audiences in various concert halls throughout the United States, Europe, and Mexico.

Recent reactions to its performances include:

Classical/Chorus: “…beautifully balanced, modulated sound that seamlessly blended with the orchestra.”
—Review of A German Requiem, Houston Chronicle, May 8, 2018

Classical/Chorus: “… the chorus was magnificent.”
—Review of Stabat Mater, Houston Chronicle, September 27, 2018

The Chorus consists entirely of volunteer singers who have considerable musical skill, vocal talent, and choral experience. They audition for placement each year.  The Chorus performance schedule is possibly the busiest in the country, consisting of up to fourteen different sets of repertoire for a total of 45 concerts.