Matthew Dirst News

Ars Lyrica Houston, the Grammy-nominated early music ensemble, opens its 16th season with a Bastille Day program in partnership with Rienzi, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston house museum for European decorative arts. Rienzi is the host for Ars Lyrica's new chamber music series allowing audiences to fully experience an authentic historical performance. In a reimagined virtual celebration, both organizations are offering access to educational content, tours in English and French, and other activities that culminate in the broadcast of Vive la France!, a concert of music by French composers on historical instruments. 

Ars Lyrica Houston, the Grammy-nominated early  music ensemble, will broadcast its season finale on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and its website www.arslyricahouston.org on Saturday, May 16th, at 7:30 p.m. Johann Sebastian Bach's Phoebus and Pan was half of the original program, Bach Goes Greek, which was intended for the stage of Zilkha Hall. The broadcast will include soloists from a 2008 performance of the work as well as music and commentary from the artists who were slated to appear on the concert. 

Over 1,000 people from 21 different countries tuned in via multiple platforms on Saturday evening to honor a pair of Houston's most dedicated philantrophists and an iconic advocate for young stars.

Ars Lyrica Houston recommits to its mission of serving Houston's diverse community through music with new virtual content. Pairing stories of its musicians and artists with live and pre-recorded performances, two series, Concert & Conversations and Musical Moments, reinvent the connection between audiences and performers. Virtual a?oebackstage accessa?? is granted through interviews, music, discussion, lessons, and learning.

Ars Lryica Houston has just made the following statement in regards to future programming:

Ars Lyrica Houston has announced its 16th season, which introduces a new chamber series at Rienzi alongside its popular mainstage subscription series at the Hobby Center. Highlights of the 2020/21 season, entitled Turning Points, include two operas, one a contemporary work for solo voice and historic instruments and the other a full-dress Baroque opera with period dancing and poignant drama. Timeless stories and transcendent music animate Ars Lyrica's 2020/21 programming, as this Grammy-nominated ensemble continues to offer Houston audiences the finest in live period-instrument performance.

Ars Lyrica, the Grammy-nominated early music ensemble, adds depth and dimension to the artwork of Goya with an engaging concert experience on February 22nd at 7:30 pm at the Hobby Center. Richard Savino, Grammy-nominated guest director and expert in Spanish Baroque music, joins with members of the Ars Lyrica orchestra to create a biographical portrait with the vivid colors of guitars, singers, and percussion. Rather than performing complete works, this unique program features selected movements from the major composers living in Spain during Goya's lifetime, chosen according to their ability to communicate the affect of the periods of the artist's life.

Ars Lyrica Houston, the Grammy-nominated early music ensemble, continues its 15th season with an amorous tribute to the Baroque era's finest musical dramatist on November 23rd at The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts with Handel in Love. Rice graduate Joanna Latini (soprano) and Richard Trey Smagur (tenor), Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2017, lend their voices to Handel's rarely performed and highly virtuosic music.

Ars Lyrica Houston, the Grammy-nominated early music ensemble, opens its 2019/20 season of a?oeNational Treasuresa?? with Dancing at the Palais. This program features a full Baroque orchestra under the leadership of harpsichordist and ALH Artistic Director Matthew Dirst plus the New York Baroque Dance Company, with choreography by NYBDC artistic director Catherine Turocy.

Ars Lyrica's 2018/19 season finale travels from Brandenburg to Esterhazy, with Bach's two famous Brandenburg concertos and a concerto by Franz Joseph Haydn. The second "Brandenburg" concerto offers the set's oddest combination of soloists-recorder, oboe, violin, and trumpet-while the fourth is a stealth concerto, ostensibly for violin and two recorders, though the violinist leaves everyone in the dust. Baroque violinist Ingrid Matthews joins harpsichordist and artistic director Matthew Dirst at center stage, along with Paul Leenhouts (recorder), Kathryn Montoya (Baroque oboe), and Nathaniel Mayfield (natural trumpet).

Ars Lyrica Houston, the Grammy nominated early music ensemble, celebrates its 15th-year anniversary with the announcement of the 2019/20 season entitled "National Treasures." This season explores iconic moments in diverse European cultures, from Venice in the late 17thcentury through Madrid in the early 19thcentury. With a range of musical styles and genres accompanied by dance, visual art, and dramatization, this season illuminates defining moments in French, Italian, English, German, and Spanish cultural history. 

On Saturday, February 23, Ars Lyrica Houston surpassed its previous fundraising record at its magical loved-themed A Mid-Winter Night's Dream Gala which also included a surprise wedding! This gala, honoring Dr. Sippi Khurana and chaired by Stephanie von Stein and Dr. Mark A. Schusterman, took place at the modern luxury Hotel Alessandra in downtown Houston. Gala proceeds support Ars Lyrica's biennial Baroque opera productions, which began in Fall 2018 with Handel's Agrippina at the Hobby Center, a production that played to rave reviews.

The Grammy nominated Ars Lyrica Houston ensemble performs the Houston premiere of Alessandra Stradella's oratorio, San Giovanni Battista on Saturday, March 30, 2019 at 7:30 pm in Zilkha Hall at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. Artistic Director Matthew Dirst leads the Ars Lyrica core ensemble and vocal soloists Sherezade Panthaki (soprano), Jay Carter, (countertenor), Joseph Gaines (tenor), and Sam Handley (bass) in the oratorio based on the death of John the Baptist.

Leading from the harpsichord, Artistic Director Matthew Dirst joins returning soloists Dominique McCormick (soprano), Cecilia Duarte (mezzo-soprano), and Brian Shircliffe (baritone) and the Ars Lyrica ensemble for Scherzi musicali on Friday, Februrary 15, 2019 at 7:30 pm in Zilkha Hall at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. The jovial Valentine program explores the delicious colors of love in Claudio Monteverdi's comical vocal work, Scherzi musicali ( musical jokes ).

Ars Lyrica Houston's A Mid-Winter Night's Dream Gala, honoring Dr. Sippi Khurana and chaired by Stephanie von Stein and Dr. Mark A. Schusterman will take place on Saturday, February 23, 2019 at the modern luxury Hotel Alessandra in downtown Houston. This event supports Ars Lyrica's biennial Baroque opera productions, which begin this fall with Handel's Agrippina at the Hobby Center on November 16 and 18. The February gala begins at 6:30 pm with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres and continues with a spirited musical performance by mezzo-soprano Cecilia Duarte, lutenist Aresh Noori, and percussionist Jesus Pacheco, with remarks by Artistic Director Matthew Dirst. The Hotel Alessandra's continental European cuisine restaurant Lucienne will serve dinner on a wintry whimsical theme. This glamourous evening concludes with an upbeat 'after-party' with dancing and drinks. Expect surprises around every corner!

Ars Lyrica Houston presents its first full-length Baroque opera production on Friday, November 16 at 7:30 pm & Sunday, November 18 at 2:30 pm in Zilkha Hall at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. The cast for Ars Lyrica's production of this early Handel masterpiece includes: Sofia Selowsky as Agrippina, John Holiday as Nero, Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen as Ottone, Camille Ortiz as Poppea, and Timothy Jones as Claudio. Conductor and artistic director Matthew Dirst describes the opera as "Handel's first operatic masterpiece, the work that forged his reputation as a theatrical genius." 

One of the nation's leading organizations for the advancement of early music, the San Francisco Early Music Society (SFEMS) has announced its 2018-19 season featuring some of the most exciting early music practitioners here and abroad in nine wide-ranging programs. The season runs from October 12 through May 19, with concerts presented in Palo Alto, Berkeley and San Francisco. 

Leading from the harpsichord, Artistic Director Matthew Dirst joins returning soloists Lauren Snouffer (soprano), Colin St-Martin (Baroque flute), and Elizabeth Blumenstock(Baroque violin) and the Ars Lyrica ensemble for 'Re-gifting with Royalty'

Ars Lyrica Houston, the Grammy-nominated early music ensemble, announces its 2018/19 season: Out of the Box: Celebrating Ambition & Innovation. Ars Lyrica Houston takes on its first full-length Baroque opera with Handel's Agrippina plus the complete "Brandenburg" Concertos by J. S. Bach. Artistic Director Matthew Dirst has created a program "that highlights composers and works that are exceptional, definitive, unusual, even infamous." With Bach's six concertos appearing in pairs throughout the season, individual programs explore distinct ways of thinking about the general theme, from unexpected musical gifts to singular collections and composers.

Ars Lyrica Houston's A Roman Feast Gala, Honoring Rhonda and Donald Sweeney chaired by Drs. Rachel and Warren Ellsworth IV, and Sarah and Gabriel Loperena took place March 3, 2018 in the historic Esperson building in downtown Houston, an event to raise funds for the organization's first fully-staged Baroque opera, Handel's Agrippina to be produced November 2018. The evening began with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres in the contemporary Rusk Lobby, filled with fragrant lavender, ferns and Romanesque decor with live harp music. An intimate concert of Handel arias followed, performed by acclaimed countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, Artistic Director Matthew Dirst on harpsichord, and violinist Alan Austin in the Esperson Neils Lobby. Guests then enjoyed a grand feast on theme and ended with an Italian disco after party in the transformed Neils Lobby complete with dancing, drinks, light bites, and craft beer sponsored by Buffalo Bayou Brewing Co.