America’s medical musicians unite like never before, vastly expanding their patient rosters to mend spirits around the world with healing harmonies in John Masko’s latest venture.

Last May, the music director of the Providence Medical Orchestra — which shuttered its operations in March due to the pandemic — founded the National Virtual Medical Orchestra, bringing together 50 doctors, nurses, first responders and medical students from 15 medical orchestras across the country.

Four participating musicians — violinist Grace Lee, M.D.; violist and medical student Laura Michie; oboist Anne Anderson, M.D.; and trumpet player Andrew Roseborrough, DMA — are members of Houston’s Texas Medical Center Orchestra, which was established by Russian-born conductor Libi Lebel in 2000.

On July 30, the ensemble will release its second program on social media that will showcase Johannes Brahms’ “Academic Festival Overture,” a boisterous medley of student drinking songs that the composer wrote as a sarcastic gesture of appreciation for an honorary doctorate that the University of Breslau awarded him. The video, produced by Christopher Bill, follows the orchestra’s successful debut last month, featuring a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 4.”

Read the full article on the Houston Chronicle website.