The Barrier 1910

Experiential Orchestra announces plans to create the world-premiere commercial recording of British composer Dame Ethel Smyth's final composition The Prison. The orchestra hopes that creating a top-quality recording of this recently rediscovered composition dating from the very end of her career will increase Smyth's standing as a composer world-wide.

This fall, the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) presents MAD Transformations, a series of six exhibitions showcasing artists who have transformed and continue to reshape the public perception of traditional craft mediums. Building upon the exhibition Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years, which celebrates the work of an artist known for drastically changing the way clay is categorized as an art material and discipline, the series considers fiber, clay, and jewelry and metals-disciplines that have composed the bedrock of MAD's founding mission and collection, and that continue to morph in the hands of contemporary artists today.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) presents the much-anticipated mariachi production El Pasado Nunca Se Termina/The Past Is Never Finished, featuring internationally renowned ensemble Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán.

Houston, April 1, 2015—Houston Grand Opera (HGO) announced today the cast members set to appear in the much-anticipated mariachi production El Pasado Nunca Se Termina/The Past Is Never Finished, featuring internationally renowned ensemble Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán. El Pasado is the second mariachi opera from the creative team of José “Pepe” Martínez and Leonard Foglia, who collaborated to create the international hit Cruzar la Cara de la Luna/To Cross the Face of the Moon, with Mariachi Vargas, which HGO premiered in 2010 and reprised in 2013. HGO will close its 60th anniversary season with three performances of El Pasado on May 13, 16, and 17, 2015, in the Wortham Theater Center. The opera will be sung in Spanish and English with projected translations. The Chicago Tribune calls El Pasado “an audience-grabber with heart…with all the sweetness and tang of a freshly-made margarita.”

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) will present El Pasado Nunca Se Termina/The Past Is Never Finished, an opera featuring the internationally renowned ensemble Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitla?n, on May 13, 16, and 17, 2015 in the Wortham Theater Center, it was announced by HGO Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers and Managing Director Perryn Leech. HGO's 2010 mounting of the world's first mariachi opera, Cruzar la Cara de la Luna/To Cross the Face of the Moon, with Mariachi Vargas, not only captivated audiences in Houston, but went on to hit runs in Paris, San Diego, Chicago, and Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona. HGO brought Cruzar back to Houston in 2013 for three sold-out performances. Now the company will present a second mariachi opera from the same creative team of Jose? “Pepe” Marti?nez and Leonard Foglia, fresh from its March 2015 world premiere at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Set on a Mexican hacienda in 1910, just prior to the Mexican Revolution, the story traces how the country's cultural conflicts and nationalistic struggles shape one family across generations. El Pasado Nunca Se Termina/The Past Is Never Finished will be sung in Spanish and English with projected translations.