Beethoven & Bruckner

Saturday, May 11, 2024 at 7pm
The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts | Zilkha Hall

PROGRAM

Beethoven: Violin concerto feat. Yoonshin Song

Bruckner: Symphony no. 4

Featured Soloist: Yoonshin Song, Violin

Acclaimed as “a wonderfully talented violinist…whose sound and technique go well beyond her years”,  violinist Yoonshin Song was born in South Korea, where she began her musical studies at age 5. Making her solo debut with the Seoul Philharmonic at age 11, she has since built a successful performing career internationally.

Yoonshin was appointed as Concertmaster of the Houston Symphony in August 2019. Prior to that she has held the same position with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for seven seasons. Yoonshin has also served as guest concertmaster of the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Iván Fischer.

Beyond her first chair duties, Yoonshin has performed as a soloist with many orchestras around the world, including the Houston Symphony, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, the New Mexico Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, the Paul Constantinescu Philharmonic Orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, the KBS Philharmonic Orchestra, among many others. The highlights of her 2020-2021 season as a soloist include concertos with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Houston Symphony and the New Mexico Philharmonic Orchestra.

She has also participated as a soloist and chamber musician in numerous leading music festivals, including the Marlboro, Deer Valley, Great Lakes, and Aspen Music Festivals in the United States; the Miyazaki Chamber Music Festival in Japan; and the Verbier, Lucerne, and Bayreuth Festivals in Europe.

Yoonshin has earned many prestigious prizes throughout her career, including top prize awards in the Lipizer International Violin Competition in Italy; the Lipinski & Wieniawski International Violin Competition in Poland; the Henry Marteau International Violin Competition in Germany; and first prize at the Stradivarius International Competition in the United States. She studied under the tutelage of Donald Weilerstein at the New England Conservatory and continued her studies with Robert Mann and Glenn Dicterow at the Manhattan School of Music.

Hollywood Rhapsody

Saturday, June 29, 2024 at 8:30pm
Miller Outdoor Theatre

PROGRAM

Gershwin: Overture to Girl Crazy

Gershwin: An American in Paris

Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue

Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 (New World Symphony)

And more to come that you will definitely want to hum along with!

Romantic Masterpieces

Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 8pm
Miller Outdoor Theatre

PROGRAM

Maurice Ravel: Bolero

Gioachino Rossini: Barber of Seville

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Symphony #2

Artistic Partners: Movements in Time Dance Artistry

From the New World

Sunday, November 5, 2023 at 5pm
The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts | Zilkha Hall

PROGRAM

Gershwin: Overture to Girl Crazy

Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue featuring Mei Rui, Pianist

Dvorak: New World Symphony

Featured Soloist: Mei Rui, Pianist

Dr. Mei Rui is a Yale-trained molecular biochemist and an internationally award-winning concert pianist.  Bronze Medalist of the World Piano Competition in 2015, Dr. Rui was praised by the Boston Globe as a “riveting” virtuoso, and by Boston Musical Intelligencer as a concert artist with “deeply felt and intense musicality.” New York Classical Review writes of her Grammy-nominated recording of “Three by Three” by Eric Nathan (Albany Records): “Rui was amazing at what seemed to be impossible; an excellent pianist with extreme virtuosity.”  Her recent performances include all the Rachmaninoff Concerti with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Yale Philharmonic, World Doctors Orchestra, and TMC Orchestra.  She has performed at some of the most prestigious concert venues around the globe, including a season-opening concert at the Louvre Auditorium in Paris, Jordan Hall in Boston; Van Cliburn Concert Hall in Dallas, Bennet Gordon Hall in Chicago, Jordan Hall in Boston; Carnegie Hall (Weill) and Steinway Hall in New York; San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio, Stude Concert Hall and Hobby Center in Houston; Woolsey Hall in New Haven; National Concert Hall in Taipei; Lehman Hall in Santa Barbara; Beijing Concert Hall and Shanghai Grand Concert Hall. Equally active as a chamber musician, Dr. Rui has appeared at the Ravinia Festival, Perlman Chamber Music, Yellowbarn, Taos, Music Academy of the West, Norfolk, and Van Cliburn Piano Institute. She was featured as Artist-in-Residence at Yellowbarn Festival for its 2013-2015 season, and invited to serve on the piano faculty at Yellowbarn’s YAP program.  She has collaborated with some of the most eminent musicians in the world, including Robert Trevino, Itzhak Perlman, Emanual Ax, George Manahan, Shinik Hahm, Paul Katz, Roger Tapping, and Peter Frankl.  A native of Shanghai, Mei began her piano studies at the age of 3, and was accepted into the Shanghai Conservatory of Music 3 years later.  She gave her first solo recital at the age of 10 in front of an illustrious audience that included the President of Austria and other international dignitaries at the Hofburg Imperial Palace in Vienna.  At age 11, she made her orchestral debut soloing with the Beijing Radio Symphony. She won numerous regional and national competitions in China, and her performances were featured multiple times on Chinese national television and radio stations. 

Holiday Fireworks!

Thursday, December 14, 2023 at 7:30pm
MATCH - Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston

PROGRAM

Traditional: Holiday Selections

Pigovat: Botticelli’s “Magnificat” feat. Lawrence Wheeler

Featured Soloist: Lawrence Wheeler

Lawrence Wheeler was a professor at the University of Houston Moores School of Music for 44 years. Former principal viola of the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra, he has served as co-principal of the Minnesota Orchestra and guest principal with the Dallas Symphony, the Houston Symphony, Mercury Chamber Orchestra, and the Santa Monica Symphony. He has appeared as soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Icelandic National Symphony, Texas Chamber Orchestra, Hilton Head Chamber Orchestra, and the UNAM Philharmonic in Mexico City. In 2005, he gave the 2nd  US performance of the Theofanidis Viola Concerto, with the composer conducting. In 2015, he and pianist Tali Morgulis gave the 2nd US performance of the Viola Sonata by Boris Pigovat. In 2020, he performed the world premiere of his arrangement for solo viola of Suite Mestiza by Gabriela Lena Frank. 

Wheeler has given viola recitals in New York at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, in London at Wigmore Hall, at International Viola Congresses in Stuttgart, Houston, Iceland and Los Angeles, as well as recitals in Mexico City and throughout Texas. His chamber music performances have included concerts with the Tokyo, St. Lawrence, Pro Arte and Tallis String Quartets, the Mirecourt Trio, and with Da Camera of Houston. For several years he was violist of the Lyric Art String Quartet, whose compact-disc Classical Hollywood was nominated for a Grammy Award. His articles have appeared in The Strad Magazine, Strings Magazine, and the Journal of the American Viola Society. His concert reviews have been published online on The Classical Review and Slipped Disc. 

Wheeler’s former students include international violin soloists Hilary Hahn and Leila Josefowicz; Concertmaster and Associate Concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, Concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony, First Associate Concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, members of the Cleveland Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, and the Houston Ballet and Houston Grand Opera Orchestras; at Da Camera, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center; and are faculty at the Berklee College of Music, Sam Houston State University, Ohio State University, Vanderbilt University, and Harvard University. 

Wheeler plays a Carlo Antonio Testore viola made in Milan, Italy in 1741. 

Featured Soloist: Audrey Welsh

Audrey Welsh, mezzo soprano, is a native of Houston, Texas, and a second year graduate student working towards her Master of Music in Vocal Performance at Rice University, under the tutelage Nova Thomas. She is an alumna of the University of Houston with a Bachelor of Music in Voice and a Bachelor of Arts in Italian Studies. This spring at Rice University, Welsh will perform a portion of the role of Dorabella (Così fan tutte) in the opera department’s Mozart Workshop as well as the role of Dido in the mainstage double bill of Dido and Aeneas and The Rape of Lucretia. This summer, Welsh will join Des Moines Metropolitan Opera and perform the role of the Page of Herodias in Strauss’ Salome. Welsh was a Houston District Winner and 3rd Place Gulf Coast Region Winner in the 2023 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition. Previous credits include: Nerone (L’incoronazione di Poppea), Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro), Dinah (Trouble in Tahiti), Tolomeo (Giulio Cesare), Sibella Hallward (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder), Mae Jones (Street Scene), Tisbe (La Cenerentola), Petra (A Little Night Music), Mrs. Herring (Albert Herring), and Audrey (Little Shop of Horrors).