Houston Symphony Opens 105th Season With Opening Night Concert Featuring Pianist Yuja Wang

The Houston Symphony opens its 105th season at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 8, 2018, with an unforgettable Opening Night performance featuring the dazzling piano virtuoso Yuja Wang for one-night-only at Jones Hall.

Led by conductor Gustavo Gimeno, who serves as Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, the glamourous evening begins with Ravel's whimsical love song Alborada del gracioso ("The Jester's Aubade"). Then, Yuja Wang's celebrated virtuosity is on full display in Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand. This unusual work was commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein, a pianist who lost his right arm in World War I. Wang will also play with both hands in a number of Romantic solo piano works by Rachmaninoff.

The evening also includes American composer Samuel Barber's popular Overture to The School for Scandal. Gimeno closes out the program with evocative excerpts from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, one of ballet's greatest scores. The concert takes place at Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, 615 Louisiana Street, in Houston's Theater District. For tickets and information, please call (713) 224-7575 or visit www.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.

About the Houston Symphony

During the 2018-19 season, the Houston Symphony celebrates its fifth season with Music Director Andrés Orozco- Estrada and continues its second century as one of America's leading orchestras with a full complement of concert, community, education, touring and recording activities. The Houston Symphony, one of the oldest performing arts organizations in Texas, held its inaugural performance at The Majestic Theater in downtown Houston June 21, 1913. Today, with an annual operating budget of $33.9 million, the full-time ensemble of 88 professional musicians presents nearly 170 concerts annually, making it the largest performing arts organization in Houston. Additionally, musicians of the orchestra and the Symphony's four Community-Embedded Musicians offer over 900 community-based performances each year, reaching thousands of people in Greater Houston.

The Grammy Award-winning Houston Symphony has recorded under various prestigious labels, including Naxos, Koch International Classics, Telarc, RCA Red Seal, Virgin Classics and, most recently, Dutch recording label PENTATONE. In 2017, the Houston Symphony was awarded an ECHO Klassik award for the live recording of Alban Berg's Wozzeck under the direction of former Music Director Hans Graf. The orchestra earned its first Grammy nomination and Grammy Award at the 60th annual ceremony for the same recording in the Best Opera Recording category.

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