Voices of Resilience

Sunday, November 10, 2024 at 5pm
The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts | Zilkha Hall

PROGRAM

Max Vinetz - Lost Child, World Premiere

Laura McCall Torno - I’m not home

Peter Boyer - Fanfare for tomorrow 

Peter Boyer - Seven for action

Richard Rogers - You’ll Never Walk Alone 

Peter Boyer - Coming Home 

Peter Boyer - Darkness Approaching 

Peter Boyer - the Journey within

Michael Gott - Love can move the world

Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 4

Featured Artist: Max Vinetz, Composer

Max Vinetz’s music draws inspiration and meaning from intersections between improvisatory, popular, and traditional forms/aesthetics, and how these various intersections can be mapped onto identity transformation over time. His work centers the perception of rhythmic and timbral events and is concerned with the relationships between narrative, storytelling, musical objects, and sonic artifacts as they relate to music and other forms of media.

Max is a recipient of a Fromm Foundation Commission, ASCAP’s Morton Gould Award (2018/2020), the Paul and Christiane Cooper Prize, and the Gardner Prize from the American Viola Society. He has received additional recognition and awards from Voices of Ascension, the Doug Davis Composition and Performance Endowment, Musiqa, Copland House, Mizzou International Composers Festival, loadbang, the Hausmann Quartet, Young Concert Artists, New York Youth Symphony, BMI, Danbury Music Center, Symphony No. 1, Donald Sinta Quartet, Tesla Quartet, and Yale University, and the Shepherd School of Music.

As a Yale undergraduate, Max won the Beekman Cannon Friends Prize, awarded for a “musical composition exhibiting unusual originality and promise,” the Abraham Beekman Cox Prize awarded to the “most promising and gifted composer” in the junior class, and was also awarded the Lewis P. Curtis Fellowship, the Tristan Perlroth Prize, and the R.J.R. Cohen Fellowship for Musical Performance (2017, 2018).

Max's works and have been performed and recorded by Alarm Will Sound, TAK ensemble, Bergamot Quartet, arx Duo, Stare at the Sun, Bearthoven, Vicky Chow, Contemporaneous, DITHER, Hub New Music, Variant 6, Sō Percussion, Bakken Ensemble, The Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra, Arditti Quartet, Bakken Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, Miranda Cuckson, NUNC, Ensemble for New Music Tallinn, Hear&Now, Music from Copland House, DeCoda, Mivos Quartet, unassisted fold, Yale Symphony Orchestra, New York Youth Symphony, Icarus Duo, members of Yale Voxtet, and Yale Schola Cantorum, among others. Upcoming projects include an evening length staged electroacoustic song cycle, The New Manila Envelope, for panSonus, new orchestral works for New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Texas Medical Center Orchestra, and San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, a collection of chamber works for soprano/double bass for Confluss, and an electric guitar concerto for Joseph Ehrenpreis.

A graduate of both Yale and Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, Max is a PhD candidate in Composition at Princeton University, holding a Naumburg Doctoral Fellowship.

Tales of Adventure and Passion

Sunday, March 2, 2025 at 5pm
The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts | Zilkha Hall

PROGRAM

Strauss: Don Juan

André Waignein: Rhapsody for Alto Saxophone featuring Rachel Jimenez, Young Texas Artist competition winner

Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade

Featured Soloist: Rachel Jimenez, Alto Saxophone

Rachel Jimenez is in her second year at Sam Houston State University pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education while studying with Dr. Scott Plugge. Early in her development as a saxophone player, Rachel excelled at every opportunity, ranging from district and region band competitions, solo opportunities, and auditioned scholarships. She was a member of the Texas Music Educators Association Region 9 Band three times, Area F Band twice, and the 2023 TMEA 6A All-State Symphonic Band. Additional individual accolades include a second place finish at the Grand Oaks High School Concerto Competition, a second place finish at the prestigious 15th Annual Houston Underground Saxophone Competition - Solo Division, and a number of auditioned scholarships such as the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion and Fisher Tull Endowed Scholarship. Most recently, she was awarded the Gold Medal and Audience Choice Award at the Young Texas Artists Music Competition.

As the Soprano Chair of the Tango Quartet, of which she was a founding member, Rachel also led the group through many prestigious competitions. The quartet were semi-finalists at the 49th and 50th annual Fischoff National Chamber Music Competitions, selected to perform at the 2023 Music For All National Chamber Music Festival, selected to compete at the 10th Annual Coltman Chamber Music Competition, and were finalists in the 2023 UIL Texas Chamber Music Competition. Tango ended their 2023 competition circuit by placing 2nd at the 15th Annual Houston Underground Competition.

Rachel has already begun her professional playing career as a multi-woodwind (clarinet, flute and saxophone) artist by performing alongside some of Houston’s top freelance musicians in Bridgeland High School’s production of Follies, with more performances in that capacity upcoming. Additionally she’s been invited to perform with several local orchestras, such as the Woodlands Symphony Orchestra and the Texas Medical Center Orchestra.

From Darkness to Light

Saturday, May 10, 2025 at 7pm
The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts | Zilkha Hall

PROGRAM

Beethoven: Piano concerto no. 5

Mahler: Symphony no. 5

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

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).

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 featuring Mei Rui, Pianist

Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 (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.