InTUNE
Miller Outdoor Theatre:
The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires + Prokofiev 5
The Houston Symphony Magazine
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PERFORMANCE CALENDAR
2025-26 se a son
O p e n i n g We e ken d : Val č u h a
C on du c t s St r av in s k y ’s Fi r eb i r d
S e pt e m b e r 1 9, 2 0* & 2 1
Eschenbach Conducts
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Fr o m St a g e t o S c r e e n :
B r o a d way Me e t s H o l l y woo d
O c t o b e r 3 1 , N ove m b e r 1* & 2
Fri g h t f u l l y Fu n ! A H a l l owe e n
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Shall We Dance?
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S N o s f e r a t u: S i le n t Fil m
w i t h L i ve O r g a n
N ov e m b e r 1 6
J o u r n ey t o L i g h t : Va l č u h a
C on du c t s S h o s t a kov i c h 1 0
N ove m b e r 2 1 , 2 2 * & 2 3
Th a nk s g i v i n g We e ken d :
Tcha i kovs k y ’s P i an o
C o n c e r t o N o . 1
N ove m b e r 28 , 2 9* & 3 0
H and e l s M es si a h
S
S
D ec e m b e r 5 , 6* & 7
J oy f u l Fa n fa r e s ! H o l i d ay
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Vo c t ave: It Feels Like C h r i s t m a s
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O h , W h at Fu n ! A H o l i d ay
C o n c e r t f o r K i d s
D ec e m b e r 1 3
Mariachi Sol De Mexico de José Hernández presents: José Hernández’ Merry-Achi Christmas
Dec e m b e r 15
S S Elf i n C on c e r t
D ec e m b e r 1 9, 2 0 & 2 1 B a n k o f A m e r i c a P
A N at K i n g C o l e N ew Ye a r
See our full year calendar for even more concerts! J a n u a r y 2 , 3* & 4
*Pe r f o r m a n c e li ve s t r ea m e d
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Featured Program MILLER OUTDOOR THEATRE:
The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires + Prokofiev 5
*François López-Ferrer, conductor
*Gabriela Lara, violin
0:07 G. ORTIZ – Kauyumari
0:25 PIAZZOLLA/DESYATNIKOV – Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas
I. Otoño porteño: quarter = 112--Lento--Allegro
II. Invierno porteño: Andante moderato
III. Primavera porteña: Allegro--Lento--Allegro
IV. Verano porteño: Allegro--Lento--Allegro
INTERMISSION
0:46 PROKOFIEV – Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, Opus 100
I. Andante
II. Allegro marcato
III. Adagio
IV. Allegro giocoso
*Houston Symphony debut
Saturday, July 12
About the Music Program Insight
THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS
City of Houston through the Miller Theatre Advisory Board Guarantor
The Houston Symphony’s Miller Outdoor Theatre concerts are endowed by The Brown Foundation, Inc. in memory of Stewart and Hanni Orton
The Houston Symphony’s sound shell ceiling is made possible through the generosity of the Beauchamp Foundation and the Fondren Foundation
Miller Outdoor Theatre
8:30 p.m.
This evening the Houston Symphony welcomes Spanish-American conductor François López-Ferrer to Miller Outdoor Theatre for his debut performance with the orchestra. Recipient of the prestigious 2024 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award, López-Ferrer opens the concert with Kauyumari, a 2021 work by Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz inspired by the spiritual (and psychedelic) traditions of the Huichol people of Western Mexico.
Venezuelan violinist and Chicago Symphony Orchestra member Gabriela Lara then makes her Houston Symphony debut with Piazzolla’s Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas, or The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, a playful, tango-infused update of Vivaldi’s famous The Four Seasons. The program concludes with Prokofiev’s monumental Symphony No. 5, an epic work written during the final days of World War II. Although Prokofiev described it as “glorifying the grandeur of the human spirit, praising the free and happy man—his strength, his generosity, and the purity of his soul,” the Symphony also contains an underlying tension reflecting the realities of life in the Soviet Union, where Prokofiev was rarely a “free and happy man.” With its enigmatic ending, the work both celebrates collective victory and questions, “But what will come next?”
—Calvin Dotsey
Program Notes
G. ORTIZ Kauyumari (2021)
Among the Huichol people of Mexico, Kauyumari means “blue deer.” The blue deer represents a spiritual guide, one that is transformed through an extended pilgrimage into a hallucinogenic cactus called peyote. It allows the Huichol to communicate with their ancestors, do their bidding, and take on their role as guardians of the planet. Each year, these Native Mexicans embark on a symbolic journey to “hunt” the blue deer, making offerings in gratitude for having been granted access to the invisible world, through which they also are able to heal the wounds of the soul.
When I received the commission from the Los Angeles Philharmonic to compose a piece that would reflect on our return to the stage following the pandemic, I immediately thought of the blue deer and its power to enter the world of the intangible as akin to a celebration of the reopening of live music. Specifically, I thought of a Huichol melody sung by the De La Cruz family—dedicated to recording ancestral folklore—that I used for the final movement of my piece, Altar de Muertos (Altar of the Dead), commissioned by the Kronos String Quartet in 1997.
I used this material within the orchestral context and elaborated on the construction and progressive development of the melody and its accompaniment in such a way that it would symbolize the blue deer. This in turn was transformed into an orchestral texture that gradually evolves into a complex rhythm pattern, to such a degree that the melody itself becomes unrecognizable (the imaginary effect of peyote and our awareness of the invisible realm), giving rise to a choral wind section while maintaining an incisive rhythmic accompaniment as a form of reassurance that the world will naturally follow its course.
While composing this piece, I noted once again how music has the power to grant us access to the intangible, healing our wounds and binding us to what can only be expressed through sound. Although life is filled with interruptions, Kauyumari is a comprehension and celebration of the fact that each of these rifts is also a new beginning. —Gabriela Ortiz
PIAZZOLLA/DESYATNIKOV
Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (1970)
Argentinian composer Ástor Piazzolla carved out a special, possibly unique, niche in musical history as the man who modernized the tango, blending elements of classical music and jazz into the Argentine tango. Piazzolla’s ancestry was purely Italian, his grandparents on both sides having immigrated to Argentina in the late 19th century.
When he was three years old, his parents moved to New York, where he was exposed to both classical music and jazz. After numerous travels between New York and Argentina, and some trips to France, he settled permanently in Buenos Aires in 1937, joining the cabaret orchestra of leading bandleader Aníbal Troilo while studying concert music with noted Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera. In 1953, Piazzolla won a French government grant to study with the renowned composition teacher Nadia
Program Notes
PIAZZOLLA/DESYATNIKOV
Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (1970)
PROKOFIEV
Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, Opus 100 (1944)
Boulanger, who quickly advised him that the tango was his true path to self-expression in music.
Traditionalists initially opposed Piazzolla’s hard-edged, realistic modernization of the tango, but students and young liberals supported it as an artistic symbol of their yearnings for political democracy. Piazzolla’s four tangos, titled Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (Four Seasons of Buenos Aires), are modern-day counterparts to Antonio Vivaldi’s famed set of four baroque violin concertos, known simply as The Four Seasons. Piazzolla’s set began almost randomly in 1965, with a tango, “Verano porteño,” which he composed as incidental music for a play by Alberto Rodriguez Muñoz. While the play was not a success, the music won praise and Piazzolla gradually completed the set of four tangos over the next five years. Its premiere, including a live recording, was given by Piazzolla and his quintet at Buenos Aires’s Teatro Regina on May 19, 1970.
Today, Piazzolla’s tangos are heard in countless versions. This solo violin/string orchestra version was made by Russian composer Leonid Desyatnikov, who has been a close associate of violinist Gidon Kremer. The set begins with “Otoño” (“Autumn”), since the sequence of climatic changes in Buenos Aires is the reverse of those in the northern hemisphere, where Vivaldi composed his Four Seasons. Each tango is divided into several sections, sharply contrasting the spiky, hard-edged jazz style of Piazzolla's tango-nuevo with the slower, more seductive manner of the traditional tango. Cadenzas for the violin soloist are sprinkled throughout the set and “Otoño” contains an additional cadenza and extended solo passage for a solo cello.
The music also contains numerous showy effects, such as sliding glissando playing, trills, and other ornaments. At various points, Desyatnikov calls upon the players to tap the strings with the wooden tip of their bows, imitating the hollow scraping sound of a Latin American folk instrument called a güiro. And in a salute to his famed predecessor, Piazzolla has included direct quotations of excerpts from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. —Carl R. Cunningham
Sergei Prokofiev composed his Fifth Symphony during the fateful summer of 1944. World War II raged across Europe: the Soviets were repelling the Nazis from their borders, and the Allies landed on the beaches of Normandy in June.
Despite the war, terrifying confrontations with the Soviet government, and turmoil in his personal life, Prokofiev remained fundamentally idealistic and wrote that he conceived his symphony “as glorifying the grandeur of the human spirit, praising the free and happy man—his strength, his generosity, and the purity of his soul.”
Across the world, many would hear it as a symbol of the resilience of life in the face of so much war and death. The symphony begins simply, with a lyrical melody shared by the flute and bassoon. Perhaps the greatest
Program Notes
PROKOFIEV
Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, Opus 100 (1944)
melodist of his time, Prokofiev filled this symphony with many uniquely beautiful ideas. An upward surging figure in the basses and cellos leads to a soft, contrasting theme in the flute and oboe. One last theme appears in the violins and brass, followed by a skittering figure in the strings.
The opening melody then returns in the low strings as these ideas recombine and interact. After this lyrical yet intense development, the opening melody returns in the trumpets. The other melodies return as well, leading to a grand ending based on the opening. The second movement is a fast, almost maniacal scherzo, full of Prokofiev’s characteristically sardonic sense of humor. After a more lyrical middle section, the scherzo returns with a frighteningly gradual crescendo. The slow and deeply felt third movement begins with a long, twisting melody that is passed among the woodwinds before soaring in the strings. Later, a Morse code-like pulsing in the piano introduces an urgent idea in the lower strings, which leads to an ominous melody in the trumpet and woodwinds characterized by drumroll-like trills. After a violent outburst, a high, delicate version of the lyrical opening melody returns. The last movement begins with a dialogue between the sections of the orchestra that recalls the opening of the symphony. The solo clarinet then launches into a quick, vivacious theme. This melody alternates with contrasting sections, and many ideas from the previous movements reappear. The symphony climaxes in a wild and brilliant finale, in which strangely mechanistic figures repeatedly cut off the main theme. Prokofiev seems to end by asking, “But what comes after the victory?”
—Calvin Dotsey
Program Bios
François López-Ferrer, conductor
Spanish-American conductor
François López-Ferrer has carved
an impressive path in the world of classical music, distinguished by his dynamic artistry and compelling performances. Recipient of the prestigious 2024 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award, he has had an international career marked by recent debuts with esteemed orchestras worldwide, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic (LA Phil) at the Hollywood Bowl, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Opéra national de Paris, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Nacional de España, Orquesta Sinfónica de
Galicia, Orquesta Sinfónica Radio Televisión Española, Verbier Festival Orchestra, Ensemble intercontemporain, Opéra de Lausanne, and George Enescu Philharmonic.
Upcoming engagements include debuts with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid at the Teatro Real de Madrid in a production of Verdi’s Il Trovatore, Houston and Utah Symphonies, Orchestra Sinfonica G. Rossini at the Rossini Opera Festival, Basque National Orchestra, Biel Solothurn Symphony Orchestra, and the
Program Bio
Spoleto Festival USA leading Britten’s Turn of the Screw, as well as returns to the Omaha Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Orquesta Sinfónica de Puerto Rico, and the Symphony San Jose.
His journey began as Associate Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony (CSO) and May Festival, where he made a significant impact on audiences and critics alike. In January 2022, he seamlessly stepped in for Louis Langrée with the CSO for the U.S. premiere of Mark Simpson’s Violin Concerto, featuring Nicola Benedetti. López-Ferrer’s artistry was further refined during his tenure as a 2021–22 Dudamel Fellow with the LA Phil, as well as Resident Conductor of the Opéra de Paris’s Académie. He was a featured conductor in the 2022 Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview alongside the Louisiana Philharmonic.
Early career achievements include serving as Associate Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Chile and Principal Conductor of the Ballet Nacional Chileno. As a 2018 Verbier Festival Conducting Fellow, he made a memorable debut stepping in for Iván Fischer in a shared program alongside Sir Simon Rattle and Gábor TakácsNagy. Furthermore, he is a twotime recipient of the Solti Foundation U.S.’s Career Assistance Award, winner of the inaugural 2015 Neeme Järvi Prize
at the Menuhin-Gstaad Festival, and former member of the Deutsche Dirigentenforum.
López-Ferrer holds a master’s degree in Orchestral Conducting
from the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne and a bachelor’s in Composition from the University of Cincinnati CollegeConservatory of Music. Born in Switzerland and raised in the United States, he embodies a rich multicultural lineage, with a Cuban mother and Spanish father, and speaks six languages fluently.
Gabriela Lara, violin
Originally from Barquisimeto, Venezuela, Gabriela Lara began her violin studies at age eight and later became a member of the Latin American Violin Academy, where she was a student of Jose Francisco del Castillo and Francisco Diaz. She was also a member of El Sistema in Venezuela and, as part of that ensemble, had the opportunity to make a 2014 Europe Tour with the Teresa Carreño Symphony Orchestra. She performed with Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra as part of a 2016 European tour that included a concert at the Berliner Philharmonie and performed with
Sir Simon Rattle as part of a tour that included concerts at the Salzburg Festival.
Since moving to the United States in 2017, Lara was recognized as the winner of the 28th Sphinx Annual Competition as well as
placing second place in the 25th edition, and was the winner of the 2021 Frank Preuss International Violin Competition. She was also the recipient of a 2022 Project Inclusion Fellowship from the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra. In 2022, Lara received a Bachelor of Music degree in Violin Performance from the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, where she was a student of Almita Vamos, and went on to receive a Master’s degree in Suzuki Pedagogy from Roosevelt University in 2024.
In the 2022–23 Season, Lara was a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago serving as Civic’s Concertmaster in 2023 to later become the first Chicago Symphony Orchestra Fellow. As a CSO Fellow, Lara performed on tour in North America and Europe with Riccardo Muti performing in prestigious halls like the Grand Hall of the Musikverein, the Paris Philharmonie, and the Teatro alla Scala. Lara held that position with the CSO first in the 2022–23 Season and continued in the program during the 2023–24 Season before her appointment to the second violin section of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. In 2025, Lara became the first CSO musician appointed by Klaus Mäkelä as a member of the first violin section.
VALČUHA CONDUCTS WEST SIDE STORY
Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with a FREE performance at Miller Outdoor Theatre. Led by Music Director Juraj Valčuha in his first ever appearance at Miller Outdoor Theatre, the orchestra performs dance-inspired pieces by Revueltas and Ginastera. Bernstein’s beloved West Side Story is brought to life in all its rhythmic flair, and Ravel’s sultry Bólero caps off this celebration of music and community.
Sept. 12
Miller Outdoor Theatre
Presenting Sponsor
Juraj Valčuha, Music Director