Fine Tuning
From the Panhandle to the Bayou City, homegrown classical music ensembles are our best-kept secret.
From the Panhandle to the Bayou City, homegrown classical music ensembles are our best-kept secret.
Take two Aspern: one a world premiere by the Dallas Opera, the other the Henry James novella on which the opera is based. Which is better for you?
The Houston Grand Opera was out to impress, with its new house and three ambitious productions in one week, but what it proved best was just how enjoyable this brand of theater can be.
Mary Jane Johnson and Timothy Jenkins live in Amarillo, but they’re at home in the world’s great opera houses.
A series of world premieres commissioned by the Houston Symphony Orchestra has brought a dash of fanfare to Jones Hall.
The Dallas Bach Society combines crackerjack musicians, a well-trained choir, and top-ranked vocal soloists—the result is a baroque-music lover’s dream.
Some new recordings of old symphonies reveal how the composers really wanted things to sound.
The only excitement of the Dallas Opera season came from a couple of fortunate gambles, while the Houston Grand Opera triumphed by bringing Faust alive for contemporary audiences.
The Ups and Downs of Theophilus Maitland had more ups than downs in Dallas, but Memorial Candles didn’t have much memorable melody.
Compact discs: coasters? Frisbees? or the best sound you’ll ever hear?
Forget all that debate about early instruments versus modern ones for eighteenth-century music.
Sometimes the opera is over before the fat lady sings. Consider the successful debut of sixteen brief and eclectic works commissioned by the Texas Opera Theater.
A little gimmickry goes a long way toward making the Fort Worth Opera's current season a success.
The octogenarian whom many believe to be the greatest living composer pays a long-awaited visit to Texas.
Using antique and original instruments like the viola da gamba, the Texas Baroque Ensemble is making Garland the place to hear early music in Texas.
The Houston premiere of Phillip Glass’ Akhnaten was a grand opera.
A flood of new Brahms recordings that honor the composer’s 150th birthday reveals an oeuvre of surprising richness.
The Public Opera of Dallas aimed its first season at opera greenhorns and scored two bull’s-eyes.
At this year’s dismal San Antonio Festival, the English National Opera and the Texas productions were the only shows worth seeing.
Jamboree, a new Joffrey ballet commissioned by the City of San Antonio, features prancing rhinestone cowboys and just plain silly choreography.
The fare offered by the Houston Pops Orchestra may not be highbrow, but conductor Ned Battista thinks it’s American music at its best.
New blood and a commitment to high standards at the Theater Center and the Plaza have helped to make this theatrical season Dallas’ best.
Houston’s well-heeled Alley Theatre is trying to pass itself off as a national theater. Across town, the Chocolate Bayou is just trying to hang on.
Backstage at the Houston Ballet is a world of pastel shadows, brilliant spangles, and anxious waiting.
In conductor’s opera, each of the vocalists becomes just one more instrument in the musical ensemble.
These days the Houston Symphony Orchestra isn’t playing the same old thing. Conductor Sergiu Comissiona battles boredom by playing brand-new works and little-heard older ones.
With The Palace of Amateurs, the Plaza Theatre brought a sparkling Mariel Hemingway to Dallas and a lofty new theatrical standard to Texas.
Houston likes to think it discovered Erie Mills, but it’s willing to share the winning young star with the rest of the opera world.
Is Claudio Arrau the last great Romantic pianist?
Jim Cartwright has a classic case of obsession-he owns thousands of records. Under Sung Kwak the Austin Symphony has gone from mediocre to memorable.
The ambitious San Antonio Festival went all out, with 73 acts-everything from Dallas ballet to Berlin opera, from Robert Merrill to Sarah Vaughan. Houston Grand Opera and Leonard Bernstein both made mistakes in A Quiet Place.
This spring both of Texas’ top symphonies staged the late William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Fest. Dallas held back, but Houston made merry with the splashy biblical spectacle.
From out of the West Texas plains comes the rich, beautiful sound of the Thouvenel String Quartet.
Both Haydn and Stravinsky marked special anniversaries last year, but music lovers got the presents: a shower of fresh new versions of their works.
Once touted, now routed, San Antonio’s opera takes its last bow.
Texas opera lovers would have ended the season happily just having seen a lively Rosenkavalier, a magical Rheingold, and a fiery Wozzeck. But then the Houston Grand Opera’s Pagliacci came along and took their breath away.
The board of the Dallas Theater Center is fighting with its stuck-in-a-rut staff to pull the company out of its decade of doldrums.
On Christmas Day, people all across the country can tune in to PBS to hear the Concert Chorale of Houston sing the Messiah. That’s reason to rejoice.
Four Saints isn’t a solemn Gregorian chant but a lovable American opera. New LPs of Brahms, Shostakovich, and Bach are worth a second listen.
The bright-eyed, pink-cheeked cream of Texas youth aren’t scrambling on the football field. They’re playing in the high school band.
In the past two years Kjehl Rasmussen has opened two acclaimed Dallas theaters and directed a hit musical. And that’s just for starters.
Houston Grand Opera dedicated a lot of its budget and all of its heart to producing not an opera but an American musical—Show Boat.
Houston’s Stages theater gave new writers a push and established writers a pat when it put on a Texans-only playwrights’ festival.
British playwright Alan Ayckbourn dropped in on his American cousins at Houston’s Alley Theatre and directed the U.S. premiere of his latest and most innovative work.
The Pachelbel Canon has gone Hollywood and become the best-selling classical piece in the country. Works by Bach, Mozart, and Wagner are managing to hold their own, too.
From their antipastos to their cannoli, three restaurants are leading Texans to the pure, simple pleasures of classical Italian cooking.
Two young conductors are rousing audiences in Houston and making motions toward becoming the country’s finest maestros.
Dallas’ Stage #1 proves it’s worthy of its name with a gut-wrenching production about a family torn apart.
Four performers in Dallas are making a new kind of music that combines precision, grace, and crazy humor.
At San Antonio’s Mi Tierra, you’ll see the rabble, the rich, and everyone in between, all feasting on Tex-Mex and homemade pan dulce.