Apollo Chamber Players to Present VENTURE at Houston's MATCH in May 2026
The May 22 concert will feature the world premiere of HIDDEN FIGURES: SHARED ORBIT, composed by John Cornelius and Mark Buller.
Houston-based Apollo Chamber Players will present VENTURE, the final program in their season-long American Story series, on Friday, May 22, 2026 at 7:30pm at Houston's MATCH in Midtown. With this program, Apollo returns to its foundational source of inspiration - the American space program and The Apollo Project - for a musical reimagining of the troubled Apollo 13 spaceflight and the ingenious mission to save its three-man crew.
Co-produced by Houston-based composers John Cornelius and Mark Buller, the program brings the world premiere of the duo's staged concert work Hidden Figures: Shared Orbit, composed with input from space historian Jennifer Ross-Nazzal to highlight some of the unsung heroes from The Apollo 13 mission and its era at NASA. Among the figures spotlighted in the work are Miguel Hernandez, a Cuban immigrant who fled his homeland and later served in NASA's Mission Control - where he was on hand to receive the famous transmission, "Houston, we've had a problem" - and Shirley K. Price, a pioneering Black and disabled leader who expanded access and opportunity within the space agency. Composed for string quartet and vocals, the performance will feature Houston-based vocalists Jolie Rocke, soprano, and Ivan Moreno, tenor. The program also includes works by Beethoven, Reena Esmail, and Arthur Gottschalk.
Celebrated for their "passion for new music and impressive virtuosity" (The Whole Note), Apollo has dedicated its 2025/26 season to narratives of American heritage and spirit as the nation prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary. In VENTURE, they capture the enduring human drive for exploration - and the often untold stories that make such journeys possible - within the American ideals of innovation, collaboration, and the free exchange of ideas.
"This program focuses not on the mission alone, but on the individuals whose voices, labor, and resilience have shaped the course of discovery - from the challenges of The Apollo 13 mission to the renewed ambitions of today's lunar exploration," said Apollo violinist and Executive Director Matthew J. Detrick. "In doing so, it illuminates the enduring truth that progress is not the product of a single voice, but of many - working together, often behind the scenes, to nurture democracy and propel humanity toward a more interconnected future."
Presented in two halves with an intermission, VENTURE opens with the finale to Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 59 No. 3, with its anticipatory energy evoking the moment of "liftoff." It will be followed by two works that speak to the broader American themes of the program: Reena Esmail's Zehar ("Poison"), on the cleansing power of truth and free expression, and the first movement of Arthur Gottschalk's Imágenes de Cuba, a 2016 Apollo commission capturing the immigrant experience as an introduction to Miguel Hernandez's role in The Apollo program.
The entire second half will be devoted to Cornelius and Buller's Hidden Figures: Shared Orbit, an expansive three-movement work incorporating Apollo 13 transmissions and historical accounts interwoven with the stories of its two NASA trailblazers, Hernandez and Price. Drawing on Houston's identity as a bold city shaped by diversity, innovation, and collaboration, the work reveals how the unique qualities of those outside the conventional NASA mold - and their determined endeavors to be part of its story - become essential to progress and discovery.
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