HOUSTON (March 10, 2017) – Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada will lead the Houston Symphony in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 and Symphony No. 7 at 8 p.m. March 24-25 and 2:30 p.m. March 26 at Jones Hall. The program marks the completion of the orchestra’s three-season Beethoven symphony cycle.
Inspired by his love of nature, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, also known as Pastoral, takes listeners on an audible exploration of nature and a journey to one of music history’s most satisfying finales.Artwork from select students at the Glassell School of Art, the teaching institute of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will be projected on large screens to illustrate the nature scenes the music suggests.
After intermission, Beethoven’s lively Seventh Symphony abounds with high spirits that surround a haunting second movement, which is often performed separate from the complete symphony and has been featured in films such as The King’s Speech. At its premiere, Beethoven was noted as remarking that the symphony was one of his best works.
The concert will take place at Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, 615 Louisiana Street, in Houston’s Theater District. The concert will also be performed at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 23, at Sugar Land Baptist Church as part of the Symphony’s Sugar Land Series.
For tickets and information, please call (713) 224-7575 or visit houstonsymphony.org. Tickets may also be purchased at the Houston Symphony Patron Services Center in Jones Hall (Monday–Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.). All programs and artists are subject to change.
Beethoven 6 & 7
- Thursday, March 23, 2017, 7:30 p.m. (Sugar Land Baptist Church)
- Friday, March 24, 2017, 8 p.m.
- Saturday, March 25, 2017, 8 p.m.
- Sunday, March 26, 2017, 2:30 p.m.
Andrés Orozco-Estrada Conductor
Beethoven: Symphony No. 6, Pastoral
Beethoven: Symphony No. 7
Tickets from $25
About Andrés Orozco-Estrada
Houston Symphony Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada began his tenure in the 2014–15 season. He immediately established a dynamic presence on the podium and a deep bond with the musicians of the orchestra. Andrés carefully curates his programs to feature engaging combinations of classical masterworks paired with the music of today, significant artistic collaborations with composers and guest artists, and innovative use of multimedia and visual effects, all in order to make meaningful connections with the audience.
In the 2016–17 season, Andrés will continue to engage with audiences both with casual commentary from the stage and discussions with guests in “Behind the Scenes with Andrés” videos. On the recording front, Andrés and the Symphony will release the third disc in their critically acclaimed Dvorák Symphony series. Additional projects with Dutch recording label Pentatone are recordings of the Music of the Americas, which will include Gershwin’s An American in Paris and Revueltas’ Sensemayá;Rachmaninoff’s complete orchestral piano works with Denis Kozhukhin; and Haydn’s The Creation.
Born in Medellín, Colombia, Andrés began his musical studies on the violin and started conducting at age 15. At 19, he entered the Vienna Music Academy, where he studied with Uroš Lajovic (pupil of the legendary Hans Swarowsky), and completed his degree with distinction conducting the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Musikverein. Andrés burst on the international scene with two substitutions with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra: the first, his debut in 2010, standing in for Esa-Pekka Salonen, and then in 2012, substituting for Riccardo Muti at the Musikverein. Orozco-Estrada now regularly appears with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, and Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestras, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome and the Orchestre National de France.
Recent debuts have included the Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic. In the summer of 2014, he also made his debut at Glyndebourne Festival Opera conducting Don Giovanni, which immediately led to an invitation to conduct La Traviata in 2017. The 2016–17 season includes debuts with the San Francisco Symphony, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition to his post in Houston, Andrés is chief conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.