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Press Releases
Houston Symphony Launches Andrés Orozco-Estrada’s Inaugural Season as Music Director
Houston (September 3, 2014) Beginning
September 12, the Houston Symphony welcomes its
15th music director, Andrés Orozco-Estrada,
launching his inaugural season with a gala opening
night and two free concerts designed to embrace
the entire Houston community. The concerts will
feature a wide range of repertoire, from Mozart,
Gershwin, and Mussorgsky, to Hispanic music of
Mexico and of Orozco-Estrada’s native Colombia,
demonstrating Andrés’s affinity for and mastery of
the classic repertoire as well as his desire to
bring a new twist to the Houston Symphony with
contemporary music of Latin American-influence and
beyond. The Houston Symphony appointed the
Colombian-born, Vienna-trained Orozco-Estrada in
January 2013 after a comprehensive, three-year
search, and immediately awarded the young
conductor a five-year contract. As the Symphony’s
Music Director Designate in 2013-14, the
Symphony’s Centennial season, Orozco-Estrada
conducted 13 concerts during four weekends of
concerts.
“Every time I walk onto the Jones Hall stage to rehearse and perform with these musicians, I feel something extraordinary, and I look forward to sharing this excitement, connecting more closely to the music, with all of our patrons,” says Andrés. “It’s important for me to start my inaugural season with a celebration for the entire community,” Andrés says of the weekend that includes two free concerts. “I invite the whole city of Houston to attend!”
The official start of Orozco-Estrada’s inaugural season begins Friday, September 12 with "¡Bienvenido, Andrés!," a free concert and event at Miller Outdoor Theatre. Pre-concert activities, including live music, salsa dancing lessons, and family-friendly games provided by the hometown soccer team, the Houston Dynamo, will begin at 6:30 p.m. The concert begins at 8:30pm, with Andrés leading the orchestra through music of Colombia and America. Highlights of the program include a performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero, who will also perform a solo improvisation; Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso; excerpts from Tierra Colombiana Suite by J.R. Contreras; Moncayo’s Huapango; and an appearance by the Colombian Folkloric Ballet, who will dance to Tolú, a work by Lucho Bermudez. The "¡Bienvenido, Andrés!" weekend continues with the Houston Symphony’s annual Opening Night Concert and Gala on Saturday, September 13 at 7:30 p.m. at Jones Hall. Andrés begins the concert with Mozart’s Overture to The Marriage of Figaro, followed by the Haydn Trumpet Concerto with British trumpeter Alison Balsom as soloist, and will conclude with Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Following the concert, Gala guests will continue the evening with an elegant, Colombian-themed black-tie dinner and dance at The Corinthian.
The weekend culminates on Sunday, September 14 at 6 p.m. with "Fiesta Sinfónica con Andrés,” another free concert at Jones Hall. Andrés and the Orchestra commemorate Hispanic Heritage Month in a reprise of the September 12 program. Highlights of Orozco-Estrada’s inaugural season range from Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben and a world premiere by Gabriela Lena Frank to open the subscription season, to a focus on women composers with a two-week residency by Frank as well as performances of Jennifer Higdon’s Blue Cathedral and her Concerto for Orchestra. Other notable programming initiatives are a concert staging of Mozart’s Abduction From the Seraglio; the requiems of Mozart and Verdi; the beginning of a three- season Beethoven cycle during which all nine symphonies will be performed; pairings of classic repertoire with Latin and Latin-themed music, for example Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony on a concert with Lalo’s Symphonie espagnol and Gabriela Lena Frank’s Three Latin American Dances; and a four- year look at Charles Ives, with each of his symphonies programmed over the course of the next four seasons. Building a strong community connection is of vital importance to Orozco-Estrada, and he and the Symphony plan several initiatives to engage more deeply current audiences as well as to reach out to new audiences. The first is Musically Speaking with Andrés, an intimate concert experience focused on single works with commentary from Orozco-Estrada, to be presented at Rice University’s Stude Concert Hall. This season features works by Shostakovich, Dvorák and Bartók on January 15, March 12 and May 7. Additionally, as the Houston Symphony’s first Hispanic Music Director, Andrés is exploring numerous opportunities for the Hispanic community, who represent a large and growing segment of the region, to connect with the orchestra. Andrés plans to present several bilingual programs, the first of which will be a Spanish-language presentation of Musically Speaking featuring Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Andrés plans to weave other bilingual presentations throughout the season in various ways, potentially including additional pre- and/or post-concert talks in Spanish. Andrés will also connect more directly with audiences by leading several post-concert Q&A sessions throughout the season, inviting patrons to chat with him in an informal environment about his thoughts on the music, composers, and his experiences as a conductor. “As we enter our 101st season—and our second century of making great music for the people of Houston, we are delighted to welcome Andres to the podium and to our community,” said Houston Symphony President and CEO Mark Hanson. “We are proud that Andres is joining us—and that we are able to play a role in his wider introduction in the United States. The connection between Andres and our musicians was apparent from their very first encounter, and has only become more electrifying over the course of time. We look forward to what the next five years will bring.”
About Andrés Orozco-Estrada Andrés Orozco-Estrada begins his tenure as both music director of the Houston Symphony as well as chief conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra during the 2014-15 season, and will become principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra beginning in the 2015-16 season. Since 2009, he has held the post of music director of the Tonkünstler Orchestra Niederösterreich, which will conclude in summer 2015. As a guest conductor, he regularly works with the world’s most prominent European orchestras, including the Vienna, Munich, London, Rotterdam, Royal Stockholm and La Scala Philharmonic Orchestras; Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; Mahler Chamber Orchestra; London, City of Birmingham and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestras; the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome; Radio Symphony Orchestra of Hamburg; the Orchestre National de France; and the Verbier Festival Orchestra. In the United States, Andrés has conducted the St. Louis and Oregon Symphonies and is slated to conduct the Pittsburgh Symphony.
Following his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in 2010, Andrés was hailed “a brilliant stand-in” for Esa-Pekka Salonen and celebrated as an “eminent talent” by Austria’s Wiener Zeitung and Die Presse. In November 2012, Andrés stepped in once again with just one rehearsal’s notice to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic in the Musikverein for Riccardo Muti and was praised as a “stand-in worth his weight in gold” and “an inspired master of communication” by the Viennese daily newspapers Kurier and Der Standard. He will make his official debut with the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra during its 2015-16 subscription season. Born in 1977 in Medellín (Colombia), Andrés began his musical studies on the violin and had his first conducting lessons at age 15. In 1997, he moved to Vienna where he joined the conducting class of Uroš Lajovic, a pupil of the legendary Hans Swarowsky, at the renowned Vienna Music Academy and completed his degree with distinction by conducting the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Musikverein.
About the Houston Symphony During the 2014-15 season, the Houston Symphony enters its second century as one of America’s leading orchestras with a full complement of concert, community, education, touring and recording activities. This season also marks the inaugural year for music director Andrés Orozco- Estrada, whose distinguished predecessors include Ernst Hoffmann (1936-47), Efrem Kurtz (1948-54), Ferenc Fricsay (1954), Leopold Stokowski (1955- 61), Sir John Barbirolli (1961-67), André Previn (1967-69), Lawrence Foster (1971-78), Sergiu Comissiona (1979-88), Christoph Eschenbach (1988- 99), and Hans Graf (2001-13, and now Music Director Laureate). The Houston Symphony is one of the oldest performing arts organizations in Texas, and the ensemble’s inaugural performance was held at The Majestic Theater in downtown Houston on June 21, 1913. The Symphony’s current home is Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, which the Symphony dedicated on October 2, 1966, with a special performance conducted by then music director Sir John Barbirolli.
The Houston Symphony has toured extensively, from road tours to military bases in Texas and Louisiana during wartime in the 1940s, to international appearances at the Singapore Festival of Arts; in Moscow at the Annual Festival of the World’s Orchestras; a residency at the Pacific Music Festival in Japan; European tours with stops in England, France, Holland, Germany and Austria; and a seven-city, eight-concert tour through the United Kingdom in 2010 performing The Planets – An HD Odyssey, to sold-out audiences. The Houston Symphony made its Carnegie Hall debut on March 11, 1965, and has since performed there 16 times, most recently in 2012 at the Spring for Music Festival, to rave reviews.
Today, with an annual operating budget of $30.7 million, the full-time ensemble of 87 professional musicians is the largest performing arts organization in Houston, presenting more than 286 performances for 300,000 people, including 82,000 children, annually. For tickets and more information, please visit www.houstonsymphony.org or call 713-224-7575.
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“Every time I walk onto the Jones Hall stage to rehearse and perform with these musicians, I feel something extraordinary, and I look forward to sharing this excitement, connecting more closely to the music, with all of our patrons,” says Andrés. “It’s important for me to start my inaugural season with a celebration for the entire community,” Andrés says of the weekend that includes two free concerts. “I invite the whole city of Houston to attend!”
The official start of Orozco-Estrada’s inaugural season begins Friday, September 12 with "¡Bienvenido, Andrés!," a free concert and event at Miller Outdoor Theatre. Pre-concert activities, including live music, salsa dancing lessons, and family-friendly games provided by the hometown soccer team, the Houston Dynamo, will begin at 6:30 p.m. The concert begins at 8:30pm, with Andrés leading the orchestra through music of Colombia and America. Highlights of the program include a performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero, who will also perform a solo improvisation; Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso; excerpts from Tierra Colombiana Suite by J.R. Contreras; Moncayo’s Huapango; and an appearance by the Colombian Folkloric Ballet, who will dance to Tolú, a work by Lucho Bermudez. The "¡Bienvenido, Andrés!" weekend continues with the Houston Symphony’s annual Opening Night Concert and Gala on Saturday, September 13 at 7:30 p.m. at Jones Hall. Andrés begins the concert with Mozart’s Overture to The Marriage of Figaro, followed by the Haydn Trumpet Concerto with British trumpeter Alison Balsom as soloist, and will conclude with Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Following the concert, Gala guests will continue the evening with an elegant, Colombian-themed black-tie dinner and dance at The Corinthian.
The weekend culminates on Sunday, September 14 at 6 p.m. with "Fiesta Sinfónica con Andrés,” another free concert at Jones Hall. Andrés and the Orchestra commemorate Hispanic Heritage Month in a reprise of the September 12 program. Highlights of Orozco-Estrada’s inaugural season range from Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben and a world premiere by Gabriela Lena Frank to open the subscription season, to a focus on women composers with a two-week residency by Frank as well as performances of Jennifer Higdon’s Blue Cathedral and her Concerto for Orchestra. Other notable programming initiatives are a concert staging of Mozart’s Abduction From the Seraglio; the requiems of Mozart and Verdi; the beginning of a three- season Beethoven cycle during which all nine symphonies will be performed; pairings of classic repertoire with Latin and Latin-themed music, for example Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony on a concert with Lalo’s Symphonie espagnol and Gabriela Lena Frank’s Three Latin American Dances; and a four- year look at Charles Ives, with each of his symphonies programmed over the course of the next four seasons. Building a strong community connection is of vital importance to Orozco-Estrada, and he and the Symphony plan several initiatives to engage more deeply current audiences as well as to reach out to new audiences. The first is Musically Speaking with Andrés, an intimate concert experience focused on single works with commentary from Orozco-Estrada, to be presented at Rice University’s Stude Concert Hall. This season features works by Shostakovich, Dvorák and Bartók on January 15, March 12 and May 7. Additionally, as the Houston Symphony’s first Hispanic Music Director, Andrés is exploring numerous opportunities for the Hispanic community, who represent a large and growing segment of the region, to connect with the orchestra. Andrés plans to present several bilingual programs, the first of which will be a Spanish-language presentation of Musically Speaking featuring Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Andrés plans to weave other bilingual presentations throughout the season in various ways, potentially including additional pre- and/or post-concert talks in Spanish. Andrés will also connect more directly with audiences by leading several post-concert Q&A sessions throughout the season, inviting patrons to chat with him in an informal environment about his thoughts on the music, composers, and his experiences as a conductor. “As we enter our 101st season—and our second century of making great music for the people of Houston, we are delighted to welcome Andres to the podium and to our community,” said Houston Symphony President and CEO Mark Hanson. “We are proud that Andres is joining us—and that we are able to play a role in his wider introduction in the United States. The connection between Andres and our musicians was apparent from their very first encounter, and has only become more electrifying over the course of time. We look forward to what the next five years will bring.”
About Andrés Orozco-Estrada Andrés Orozco-Estrada begins his tenure as both music director of the Houston Symphony as well as chief conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra during the 2014-15 season, and will become principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra beginning in the 2015-16 season. Since 2009, he has held the post of music director of the Tonkünstler Orchestra Niederösterreich, which will conclude in summer 2015. As a guest conductor, he regularly works with the world’s most prominent European orchestras, including the Vienna, Munich, London, Rotterdam, Royal Stockholm and La Scala Philharmonic Orchestras; Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; Mahler Chamber Orchestra; London, City of Birmingham and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestras; the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome; Radio Symphony Orchestra of Hamburg; the Orchestre National de France; and the Verbier Festival Orchestra. In the United States, Andrés has conducted the St. Louis and Oregon Symphonies and is slated to conduct the Pittsburgh Symphony.
Following his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in 2010, Andrés was hailed “a brilliant stand-in” for Esa-Pekka Salonen and celebrated as an “eminent talent” by Austria’s Wiener Zeitung and Die Presse. In November 2012, Andrés stepped in once again with just one rehearsal’s notice to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic in the Musikverein for Riccardo Muti and was praised as a “stand-in worth his weight in gold” and “an inspired master of communication” by the Viennese daily newspapers Kurier and Der Standard. He will make his official debut with the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra during its 2015-16 subscription season. Born in 1977 in Medellín (Colombia), Andrés began his musical studies on the violin and had his first conducting lessons at age 15. In 1997, he moved to Vienna where he joined the conducting class of Uroš Lajovic, a pupil of the legendary Hans Swarowsky, at the renowned Vienna Music Academy and completed his degree with distinction by conducting the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Musikverein.
About the Houston Symphony During the 2014-15 season, the Houston Symphony enters its second century as one of America’s leading orchestras with a full complement of concert, community, education, touring and recording activities. This season also marks the inaugural year for music director Andrés Orozco- Estrada, whose distinguished predecessors include Ernst Hoffmann (1936-47), Efrem Kurtz (1948-54), Ferenc Fricsay (1954), Leopold Stokowski (1955- 61), Sir John Barbirolli (1961-67), André Previn (1967-69), Lawrence Foster (1971-78), Sergiu Comissiona (1979-88), Christoph Eschenbach (1988- 99), and Hans Graf (2001-13, and now Music Director Laureate). The Houston Symphony is one of the oldest performing arts organizations in Texas, and the ensemble’s inaugural performance was held at The Majestic Theater in downtown Houston on June 21, 1913. The Symphony’s current home is Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, which the Symphony dedicated on October 2, 1966, with a special performance conducted by then music director Sir John Barbirolli.
The Houston Symphony has toured extensively, from road tours to military bases in Texas and Louisiana during wartime in the 1940s, to international appearances at the Singapore Festival of Arts; in Moscow at the Annual Festival of the World’s Orchestras; a residency at the Pacific Music Festival in Japan; European tours with stops in England, France, Holland, Germany and Austria; and a seven-city, eight-concert tour through the United Kingdom in 2010 performing The Planets – An HD Odyssey, to sold-out audiences. The Houston Symphony made its Carnegie Hall debut on March 11, 1965, and has since performed there 16 times, most recently in 2012 at the Spring for Music Festival, to rave reviews.
Today, with an annual operating budget of $30.7 million, the full-time ensemble of 87 professional musicians is the largest performing arts organization in Houston, presenting more than 286 performances for 300,000 people, including 82,000 children, annually. For tickets and more information, please visit www.houstonsymphony.org or call 713-224-7575.
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