Houston Symphony Musician Spotlight
February 15, 2026
your symphony experience
JONES HALL
Since the opening of Jones Hall in 1966, millions of arts patrons have enjoyed countless musical and stage performances at the venue. Dominating an entire city block, Jones Hall features a stunning travertine marble facade, 66-foot ceilings, and a brilliantly lit grand entrance. Jones Hall is a monument to the memory of Jesse Holman Jones, a towering figure in Houston during the first half of the 20 th century.
CONCERT DISRUPTION
We strive to provide the best possible auditory experience of our world-class orchestra. Noise from phones, candy wrappers, and talking is distracting to the performers on stage and those around you. Please help us make everyone’s concert enjoyable by silencing electronic devices now and remaining quiet during the performance.
FOOD & DRINK POLICY
The Encore Café and in-hall bars are open for Symphony performances, and food and drink will be permitted in bar areas. Food is not permitted inside the auditorium. Patrons may bring drinks into the auditorium for Bank of America POPS Series concerts and Symphony Specials. Drinks are not permitted inside the auditorium for Classical concerts.
LOST & FOUND
For lost and found inquiries, please contact Patron Experience Coordinator Lien Le during the performance. She also can be reached at lien.le@houstonsymphony.org. You may contact Houston First after the performances at 832.487.7050
“WHEN SHOULD I CLAP?”
It’s a question we hear often! Traditionally, audiences wait to applaud until the very end of a piece, especially when it has several sections (called movements). This allows the music to flow without interruption and helps the performers stay focused. If you’re unsure, a simple cue is when the conductor lowers their arms and turns toward the audience—that’s your signal the piece has finished. That said, there’s no wrong way to show your appreciation. If the music inspires you in the moment, don’t hesitate to clap! Your enthusiasm and energy are always welcome at the Symphony.
CHILDREN
Children ages six and up are welcome to all Classical, Bank of America POPS, and Symphony Special concerts. Children of all ages are welcome at PNC Family Series performances. Children must have a ticket for all ticketed events.
LATE SEATING
Each performance typically allows for late seating, which is scheduled in intervals and determined by the conductor. Our ushers and Patron Experience Coordinator will instruct you on when late seating is allowed.
TICKETS
Subscribers of five or more concerts may exchange their tickets at no cost. Tickets to Symphony Specials or single ticket purchases are ineligible for exchange or refund. If you are unable to make a performance, your ticket may be donated prior to the concert for a tax-donation receipt. Donations and exchanges may be made in person, over the phone, or online.
ESCANEE AQUÍ PARA VER TRADUCCIÓN AL ESPAÑOL
ORCHESTRA ROSTER
Juraj Valčuha
Music Director
Roy and Lillie Cullen Chair
FIRST VIOLIN
Yoonshin Song, Concertmaster
Max Levine Chair
Vacant, Associate Concertmaster
Ellen E. Kelley Chair
Boson Mo, Assistant Concertmaster
Qi Ming, Assistant Concertmaster
Fondren Foundation Chair
Marina Brubaker*
Tong Yan
Rodica Gonzalez*
Ferenc Illenyi
Si-Yang Lao
Christopher Neal
Sergei Galperin
Timothy Peters+
Samuel Park+
James Gikas+
Tianxu Liu+
Arutyun Piloyan+
Teresa Wang+
SECOND VIOLIN
Vacant, Principal
Vacant, Associate Principal
Amy Semes
Annie Kuan-Yu Chen
Mihaela Frusina
Jing Zheng
Anastasia Iglesias
Tina Zhang*
Yankı Karataş
Hannah Duncan
Alexandros Sakarellos
Zubaida Azezi+
Hanna Hrybkova+
VIOLA
Joan DerHovsepian, Principal
Wei Jiang, Acting Associate Principal
Samuel Pedersen, Assistant Principal
Paul Aguilar
Sheldon Person
Fay Shapiro
Keoni Bolding
Jimmy Cunningham
Meredith Harris+
Suzanne LeFevre+
CELLO
Brinton Averil Smith, Principal
Janice H. and Thomas D. Barrow Chair
Christopher French, Associate Principal
Jane and Robert Cizik Chair
Anthony Kitai
Louis-Marie Fardet
Jeffrey Butler
Maki Kubota
Xiao Wong
Charles Seo
Jeremy Kreutz
COMMUNITY-EMBEDDED MUSICIAN
Lindsey Baggett, Violin
LIBRARIANS
Ali Verderber, Associate Librarian
Megan Fisher, Assistant Librarian
DOUBLE BASS
Robin Kesselman, Principal
Timothy Dilenschneider, Associate Principal
Steven Reineke, Principal POPS Conductor
Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Conductor Laureate
Anthony J. Maglione, Director, Houston Symphony Chorus
Gonzalo Farias, Associate Conductor
Andrew Pedersen, Assistant Principal
Eric Larson
Logan May
Burke Shaw
Donald Howey
Avery Weeks
FLUTE
Vacant, Principal
Matthew Roitstein,
Associate Principal
Judy Dines
Kathryn Ladner
Douglas DeVries+
PICCOLO
Kathryn Ladner
OBOE
Jonathan Fischer, Principal
Lucy Binyon Stude Chair
Anne Leek, Associate Principal
Vacant
Adam Dinitz
Pablo Moreno+
ENGLISH HORN
Adam Dinitz
Barbara and Pat McCelvey Chair
CLARINET
Mark Nuccio, Principal
Bobbie Nau Chair
Vacant, Associate Principal
Christian Schubert
Alexander Potiomkin
Ben Freimuth+
E-FLAT CLARINET
Vacant
Ben Freimuth+
BASS CLARINET
Alexander Potiomkin
BASSOON
Rian Craypo, Principal
Isaac Schultz, Associate Principal
Elise Wagner
Adam Trussell
CONTRABASSOON
Adam Trussell
STAGE PERSONNEL
Stefan Stout, Stage Manager
José Rios, Assistant Stage Manager
Nicholas DiFonzo, Head Video Engineer
Justin Herriford, Head Audio Engineer
Connor Morrow, Head Stage Technician
Giancarlo Minotti, Audio Production Manager
HORN
William VerMeulen, Principal
Mr. and Mrs. Alexander K. McLanahan
Endowed Chair
Robert Johnson, Associate Principal
Nathan Cloeter, Assistant Principal/Utility
Ian Mayton
Barbara J. Burger Chair
Brian Mangrum
Spencer Bay+
TRUMPET
Mark Hughes, Principal
George P. and Cynthia Woods
Mitchell Chair
John Parker, Associate Principal
Robert Walp, Assistant Principal
Richard Harris
TROMBONE
Nick Platoff, Principal
Bradley White, Associate Principal
Phillip Freeman
BASS TROMBONE
Phillip Freeman
TUBA
Dave Kirk, Principal
TIMPANI
Leonardo Soto, Principal
Matthew Strauss, Associate Principal
PERCUSSION
Brian Del Signore, Principal
Mark Griffith
Matthew Strauss
HARP
Allegra Lilly, Principal
KEYBOARD
Vacant, Principal
LIBRARIAN
Luke Bryson, Principal
*on leave + contracted substitute
Chamber Music: Houston Symphony
Musician Spotlight
0:08 K. BOLDING – Turandot Paraphrase
0:06 K. LADNER – Nocturne
0:10 B. DEL SIGNORE/ J. VINSON – First Movement of Prayer for the Free World
0:10 N. PLATOFF – Semuta Music
Sunday, February 15 Jones Hall 6:30 p.m.
Program Insight
Orchestral musicians, including our own Houston Symphony musicians, are experts at performing the works of other composers. Those composers could be living or dead, household names or up-and-coming stars. Today’s concert, however, gives us a chance to see a completely different side of our musicians. The program consists of works composed and performed by musicians of the Houston Symphony. It was inspiring and surprising to learn how many of our musicians had, in fact, composed musical works. We hope you enjoy this Musician Spotlight of chamber works composed by members of the Houston Symphony.
Program Notes
K. BOLDING
Turandot : Paraphrase
This paraphrase of Turandot is a tour of my favorite moments from the opera: the Act I Finale: Non Piangiare Liu and the iconic Nessun Dorma from Act III. This unique combo platter of instruments (violin, two violas, cello, and bass) was chosen for some of my favorite people in the Houston Symphony to play with. Reducing the 80-person orchestra that Turandot uses down to just five string homies demanded far more imagination and collaboration than I was expecting. Transliterating the magic from his score (as best I could) truly felt like playing a 4-D sudoku puzzle with sound and time. Even though this project may have shaved a month off my life, the result is a unique vignette of Turandot that you won’t find programmed anywhere else. I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed creating it.
Puccini and 20th-Century Cringe
“We didn’t listen to [Puccini] because we didn’t want to be confused with those who did.”
—Joel Sachs in Juilliard musicology lecture (2020)
The commercial success of Giacomo Puccini has often prompted the esoterics of the music world to look at his work with suspicion. His operas have been described as emotionally manipulative, ostentatious, and kitsch. The notable musicologist Joseph Kerman described the
Program Notes
K. BOLDING
Turandot : Paraphrase
K. LADNER
Nocturne
B. DEL SIGNORE/ J. VINSON
First Movement of Prayer for the Free World
score of Turandot as “depraved,” further stating, “his music does nothing to rationalize the legend or illuminate the characters.” Disparaging Puccini is a swift way to signal “my artistic sensibilities surpass those of the masses that buy tickets to La bohème every year.” Even Puccini contemporaries Mahler and Stravinsky wrote off Puccini as excessively decadent and debaucherous.
But the more I listen to his music, the more enchanted I am by the sheer brilliance of his scores. I believe that there is something timeless—almost bewitching—about these indulgent melodies, opulent harmonies, and imaginative textures. And I find the impact to be far more than the sum of its parts.
Some unexpected figures that (rightly) exalt Puccini are Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern. Schoenberg met Puccini in Florence in 1922 and expressed the utmost deference to the Italian composer. A few years earlier, Webern wrote to Schoenberg after seeing a Puccini opera in 1919 calling it “splendid” and “truly original.” He continued, “I must say I enjoyed it ... Am I wrong?”
–Keoni Bolding
I’ve always loved nocturnes and other “music of the night.” This Nocturne is meant to capture a very particular night-time feeling. Imagine it’s cold and dark out, but you’re inside at a party where people are dancing. As the party gets noisier and more crowded you begin to get a little overheated. You step out the back door and take a breath of crisp, refreshing night air. (We don’t often get that kind of air here in Houston, which makes it all the more special to me!) You take in the sounds of the night, and eventually the noise of the party fades into the distance as you begin the walk home.
–Kathryn Ladner
Prayer for the Free World is a concerto in three movements for percussion soloist and orchestra. I began writing this piece in 2017 when I was asked by Houston Civic Symphony to perform a percussion concerto with that orchestra, which I did in 2018. Choosing to perform my own music is something that I have not often had the opportunity to do, so this piece is an outpouring of inspiration. This music reflects my concern about the times in which we live, hence the title.
In 2022, with conductor Robert Spano, I was able to perform the second movement on the Jones Hall stage with my colleagues of the Houston Symphony. Today’s performance will be of the first movement, in a reduced scoring for two keyboards, extra percussionist, and percussion
Program Notes
B. DEL SIGNORE/ J. VINSON
First Movement of Prayer for the Free World
soloist, arranged by Jaylin Vinson.
This first movement begins with the soloist introducing the percussion instruments of the concerto. The first theme is then expressed on the marimba, followed by a drum interlude which is meant to somehow represent the entire world of drumming. The theme then returns, followed by a bowed vibraphone interlude of calm refuge. After the soloist asks some questions of God (on drums), the main theme returns for a third time, transformed, reflecting more understanding.
–Brian Del Signore
In Frank Herbert’s Dune, the substance known as “spice” is the most valuable commodity in the universe. It’s a narcotic that expands consciousness and grants those who imbibe the ability to witness the possibilities of future events. In fact, the entire novel centers around a conflict between two powerful families over the control of spice production on the desert planet Arrakis.
The narcotic of choice among the elite classes of the Imperium, however, is semuta. Where spice opens the mind to infinite new perspectives on the world, semuta offers a narrowing of perception to pleasure alone, an addictive escape from the world to those who use it.
After consuming, the effects of the drug are activated by listening to “semuta music” which unlocks a state of sustained euphoria—that is, until the music stops and the pleasure collapses—leaving emptiness and craving in its place.
My composition Semuta Music imagines this ritual without the drug itself. The music assumes the role of both drug and sound; it seduces, overwhelms, and ultimately abandons the listener. After a gentle warming activation, an artificially early, long, and unearned climactic section eventually disintegrates into a painful and empty sonic depiction of withdrawal.
In order to create a sound world that feels both artificially constructed, yet also appealing and comforting to human brain chemistry in an organic way, I have chosen to combine the metallic sounds of the vibraphone with the warm, humane sounds of the traditional string quartet. This instrumentation presents a wide range of sonic palettes ranging from the warmest, most life-affirming richness to the coldest and ghostliest nightmare.
Rather than humanity’s go-to favorite narrative of darkness to light, rags to riches, or good’s triumph over evil, Semuta Music describes the arc of the experience of addiction, giving the listener the experience of overwhelming ecstasy before abandoning them forlorn, broken, and alone.
–Nick Platoff
N. PLATOFF
Semuta Music
Program Bios
Kathryn Ladner, composer
Kathryn Ladner joined the Houston Symphony in the fall of 2016. She moved to Houston from Nashville, Tennessee, where she played third flute and piccolo with the Nashville Symphony from 2012–16. While in Nashville, Ladner also enjoyed playing with the Nashville Opera Orchestra and the Alias Chamber Ensemble, among other groups, and teaching flute lessons at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt and the W.O. Smith Music School.
Born and raised in Seattle, Ladner began playing flute in public schools at age 10. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree and Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music and a Master of Music degree from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. While at Eastman, she studied flute with Bonita Boyd and took piccolo lessons with Anne Harrow. In 2010, she was the Piccolo Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival, and she has also performed with the National Repertory Orchestra and the Pacific Music Festival. At the Shepherd School of Music, Ladner studied with Leone Buyse, graduating in 2012.
Nick Platoff, composer
Nick Platoff harnesses the power of music to deliver compounding benefit to the world. He enjoys a multi-faceted career as a trombonist, composer/producer, singer, educator, conductor, and concert producer. After eight seasons as Associate Principal Trombone of the San Francisco Symphony, where he was appointed by Michael Tilson Thomas at age 23, Nick joined the Houston Symphony Orchestra as Principal Trombone in September 2024.
Nick loves using music to delight, inspire, and empower audiences, and does so in a wide variety of mediums and genres as a soloist as well as in collaboration with artists like Jacob Collier, KNOWER, Esperanza Spalding, Common, Metallica, Steve Lacy, Sigur Ros, Nu Deco Ensemble, the New York Philharmonic, and Yo-Yo Ma. Recent highlights include conducting the Stanford Brass Ensemble on a concert which included the world premiere of his The Fanford Stanfare, composing music for Ramazan Nanayev’s film Ikigai, and producing a silly music video about spies, both of
which premiered Fall 2024. In August 2024, he toured Spain with Zirzuví, a Santa Cruz based band specializing in Sephardic music. Other proud moments include the August 2023 world premiere of his Symphony No. 1 with the SF Civic Symphony, and the November 2022 release of his debut album Limousine of Creative Potential featuring songs written and recorded in his friend Joel’s limousine during the pandemic. Nick’s compositions center on themes of family, hope, mental health, and nature, and he genrehops between the symphonic world, silly-pop, bumpin’ funk bangers, heartfelt tributes, and jungle soundscape. He regularly performs as a singer-songwriter on the Sofar Sounds series.
Nick joined the faculty of the University of Houston Moores School of Music in September 2024, and has previously served as a faculty member at Stanford University, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music PreCollege Division, and the SF Symphony Youth Orchestra. As a guest educator, he has taught recently at Rice, Yale, Juilliard, the National Orchestral Institute, and Amateur Music Network. He has collaborated as video producer and co-host with his father, musicologist John Platoff, on various SF Symphony online educational events as well as the Professor Platoff YouTube channel. Nick is a proud alumnus of New Haven’s Neighborhood Music School, Northwestern University, and the New World Symphony.
Program Bios
Jaylin Vinson, arranger
Jaylin Vinson is an African American composer whose music has been described as both “bold and compelling” (DC Theater Arts) and “an awakening” (Sioux City Journal ) marked by an “insatiable curiosity” (Heifetz Institute). Spanning chamber ensembles, full orchestra, and opera, his compositions celebrate the intrinsic beauty of human connection, investigating the depth of humanity, and the complexities of identity in the United States, with a constant pursuit of unadulterated joy.
Vinson’s compositions have been showcased at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the DiMenna Center for Classical Music. His works have been performed by ensembles across the country, including the New York Youth Symphony, Houston Youth Symphonies, the Oklahoma Youth Orchestras, Baylor Symphony Orchestra, University of Northern Iowa Symphony Orchestra, the Brevard Music Center Orchestra, the National Orchestra Institute, Sioux City Symphony Orchestra, the U.S. Navy Band, the Apollo Chamber Players, and KINETIC Ensemble.
Recent projects include Vinson’s one-act opera, Future of Dreams, with a libretto by Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton. The work was commissioned by the Washington National Opera and premiered at the Kennedy Center in January 2025. Set in the year 2064, the work follows two Black women vying to become the
first Black woman mayor of Houston, imagining new possibilities for Black life and representations of leadership. Other notable work includes Vinson’s concerto, Dark Matter, a 25-minute work for flute and string ensemble that premiered with Performing Arts Houston. He draws inspiration from the Afrofuturist imagination of Octavia Butler, often regarded as the mother of Black speculative and science fiction.
Vinson was a finalist for the San Francisco Symphony’s Black Emerging Composer Project. Other honors include being named Composer of the Year by the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra, a composition fellow with Aspen Music Festival, winning the inaugural Altus Adams Prize by the U.S. Navy Band, and receiving an Honorable Mention in the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award. He also participates in DaCamera’s Young Artist Program, a fellowship for chamber performance, community engagement, and arts leadership in Houston.
Vinson has a Bachelor of Music in Composition from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.
Annie Kuan-Yu Chen, violin (Bolding, Platoff)
A native of Taiwan, Annie Chen began her musical studies at age six on piano and at age eight on violin. At age 14, she moved to the United States to continue
her music education at the Walnut Hill School for the Arts and the New England Conservatory Preparatory Program in Boston.
Chen has been a participant of numerous summer music festivals including the Heifetz International Music Institute, the Music Academy of the West, where she was a winner of the 2011 concerto competition, and the Tanglewood Music Center. She has toured with the Youth Orchestra of the Americas and was a regular member of Discovery Ensemble, a Boston-based chamber orchestra that provides outreach concerts to inner-city schools with no music programs. She has also been featured as a soloist with the Dorchester Symphony Orchestra.
Chen holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the New England Conservatory in Boston and a master’s degree from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where she held the Shepherd School Distinguished Fellowship in Violin. Her principal teachers have included Lynn Chang, James Buswell, and Kathleen Winkler.
Keoni Bolding, viola, composer (Bolding, Platoff)
Described as “mesmerizing” by The Burlington Hawkeye Times and “transportive” by the Santa Barbara Voice, 25-year-old violist Keoni Bolding
Program Bios
has established a career across the United States and Europe. He has toured Europe with the New York Philharmonic and Rome Chamber Music Festival as well as performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra and London Symphony. Last year, he won the Transcription Prize at the Primrose International Viola Competition with his transcription of Tosca, Act II. Earlier this year, he oversaw the premiere of his electronic chamber opera 52 Hz at Lincoln Center.
James Cunningham, viola (Bolding)
James (Jimmy) Cunningham IV was born in Pittsburgh, PA, and recently moved to Houston to study with James Dunham at Rice University. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan where he studied with Yizhak Schotten, and an Artist Diploma from the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings where he worked with Victoria Chiang and Rebecca Albers. During his Artist Diploma, he also worked closely with mentors Lawrence Dutton and Annie Fullard, and performed in numerous chamber ensembles alongside Amy Schwartz Moretti, ChoLiang Lin, Andy Armstrong, Ettore Causa, and others.
During the summer of 2024, Cunningham was a member of the New Fromm Quartet at the Tanglewood Music Center. In addition to working with student composers to premier brand-new
compositions, the quartet presented a wide variety of contemporary chamber works under the direction of curators Tania León and Steven Mackey. During the summer of 2023, Cunningham was an orchestral fellow at Tanglewood; and from 2018 to 2022, he spent four summers at the Aspen Music Festival as an orchestral fellow. While at Aspen, he performed as Principal Viola of the Aspen Opera Orchestra and Assistant Principal Viola of the Aspen Chamber Symphony.
In 2016, Cunningham performed with the National Youth Orchestra of the USA at Carnegie Hall conducted by Christoph Eschenbach and Valery Gergiev. That fall, Cunningham debuted with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra performing the Telemann Double Concerto with his teacher at the time, Marylène Gingras-Roy. He hopes to have a viola studio of his own in the future, and at home he enjoys making pasta from scratch and exploring manual espresso.
Jeremy Kreutz, cello (Bolding, Platoff)
Originally from Loveland, Colorado, Jeremy Kreutz was appointed a member of the Houston Symphony in 2020 by Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada. Prior to joining the orchestra, he worked under conductors such as Marin Alsop, Christoph Eschenbach, David Robertson, Robert Spano, Larry Rachleff, and
Valery Gergiev. His primary studies were completed with Darrett Adkins at the Oberlin Conservatory, and Desmond Hoebig at Rice University’s Shepherd School.
Kreutz has performed both domestically and abroad as an orchestral and chamber musician, including engagements with the Aspen Music Festival, Round Top Institute, National Youth Orchestra of the USA, and the Pacific Music Festival in Japan. An avid chamber musician, he has studied with members of the Juilliard, Borromeo, Miró, Verona, and Cleveland Quartets, and was a two-time fellow at the Kneisel Hall Festival in Maine. In the summer of 2017, he was invited to perform alongside members of the International Contemporary Ensemble as part of the Ojai Festival, premiering works by Vijay Iyer and Courtney Bryan. While at Oberlin, he was featured in the premiere of Jesse Jones’s Snippet Variations, recorded for the Oberlin Music label.
Kreutz began learning the cello at age 11 in his local public school system, where his father taught the orchestral program for 30 years. He continued his studies in high school with cellist Katherine Azari. He considers community engagement an incredibly important aspect of his life, and has worked with public schools in Colorado, Ohio, Texas, and Illinois, as well as Colorado’s El Sistema program. Outside of music, he enjoys exploring Houston’s vibrant food culture and marathons of competition reality shows.
Program Bios
Avery Weeks, double bass (Bolding)
Avery Weeks joined the Houston Symphony in 2024 under the baton of Juraj Valčuha. Originally from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Weeks received his bachelor’s degree in music performance and economics from Northwestern University, where he studied with Andrew Raciti. He continued his training at the University of Southern California, where he studied with David Allen Moore. Weeks has performed with various orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Utah Symphony, before joining the Houston Symphony. He has also been selected as a fellow for music festivals, including the Aspen Music Festival, The Music Academy of the West, and Spoleto (USA).
In his spare time, Weeks enjoys losing golf balls on the golf course and searching for the perfect cup of coffee, the latter of which fuels the former.
Judy Dines, flute (Ladner)
Flutist Judy Dines is a very active performer in Houston and beyond. Locally, she is a frequent performer in the Greenbriar Consortium, a diverse chamber group made up of Houston Symphony members and other musicians in the Houston area. She was also a member and frequent soloist with the former Houston Chamber Symphony. Other local groups Dines has played with include Mukuru, Aperio, and the St. Cecilia Society.
Outside of Houston, Dines is a member of the Ritz Chamber Players, a dynamic chamber ensemble which performs all around the country. She is also a member of the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra, which convenes every summer in beautiful Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Several times, most recently in August 2008, she performed at the National Flute Association Convention, a four-day extravaganza which celebrates the flute. In the orchestral world, Dines has performed selected weeks with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.
Born in Washington, D.C., Dines attended Temple University in Philadelphia and the Peabody Institute in Baltimore before coming to Houston. She joined the Houston Symphony in 1992.
Alexander Potiomkin, clarinet (Ladner)
Alexander Potiomkin joined the Houston Symphony as Bass Clarinet/Utility in October 2012. A native of Ukraine, he moved with his family to Israel in 1991, where he attended the Rubin Jerusalem Academy of Music, while appearing as a regular substitute clarinetist with Israel Philharmonic. He came to Houston in 1995 to study at Rice University, where he earned his Master of Music Degree in 1997.
He has appeared as substitute Principal Clarinet of the Alabama Symphony on their Carnegie Hall tour in spring 2012. He has also performed as guest principal clarinet with the Kansas City Symphony and as a soloist with the Tel Aviv Symphony and the Brooklyn Philharmonic. He has participated in the Mozart, Bellingham, Blossom, and Tanglewood music festivals.
Equally committed to teaching, he maintains a large, private studio. His main teachers include David Peck and David Weber, with additional studies with Michael Wayne and Mark Nuccio on clarinet and Chester Rowell and Ben Freimuth on Bass Clarinet.
Program Bios
Wei Jiang, viola (Ladner)
Born in China, Wei Jiang began studying violin with his father at the age of five and began studying viola after being admitted to the prestigious Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Having graduated with the highest honor, he was subsequently offered a teaching position at the conservatory as the youngest member of the music faculty. During his five-year tenure at the Central Conservatory, Jiang was actively involved in performing both solo and chamber music and toured extensively with his string quartet in Asia and Europe. He was also a founding member of the Eclipse Ensemble, a unique performing group that showcases music by contemporary Chinese composers throughout China.
Jiang came to the United States in 1996 to further his musical training at the Oberlin Conservatory and later at the University of Maryland. In 1999, he became a member of the Houston Symphony. Jiang is also a member of the Fidelis String Quartet which performed in recital at Carnegie Hall in 2005 and toured Puerto Rico in 2006.
Maki Kubota, cello (Ladner)
Maki Kubota was appointed a member of the Houston Symphony in 2017 by Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada. He has made appearances with the Dallas Symphony, Charleston Symphony, and the New York Philharmonic, performing with conductors such as Thomas Ades, Edward Gardner, Alan Gilbert, Osmo Vänskä, Edo de Waart, and Christoph von Dohnanyi. As a chamber musician, he has performed at the Library of Congress, Morgan Library, and Embassy of Singapore, collaborating with artists such as Jeremy Denk, Richard O’Neill, and Lynn Harrell.
Prior to joining the Houston Symphony, Kubota toured Mediterranean Europe and Central America with Lincoln Center Stage, Holland America Line’s partnership with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
Kubota first began cello lessons while in high school as a student of Stanley Sharp. After completing his undergraduate studies with Alan Stepansky at the Peabody Conservatory, he graduated from Rice University under the tutelage of Desmond Hoebig. His training includes fellowships at the Music Academy of the West, Aspen Music Festival, and Takacs String Quartet Seminar, as well as studying abroad at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore
with Li-Wei Qin and in residence with the New York Philharmonic as a Zarin Mehta Fellow.
Outside of music, Kubota enjoys weight lifting and has recently picked up a liking of fine whiskey.
Brian Del Signore, percussion, composer (Del Signore)
Brian Del Signore is the Principal Percussionist of the Houston Symphony. Brian joined the Houston Symphony in 1986. Prior to the Houston Symphony appointment, he held a one-year position as principal percussionist of the Grand Rapids Symphony in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and performed with numerous other orchestras including the Pittsburgh Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestra.
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Brian Del Signore earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1981, where he studied with the Pittsburgh Symphony percussionists. In 1984, Del Signore earned a Master in Music degree from Temple University where he studied with Alan Abel of the Philadelphia Orchestra. He began piano lessons at age six and drums at age 11. His first drum teacher in the late 1960s was Lou Carto, pop star Bobby Vinton’s drummer and bandleader at that time.
Program Bios
Besides keeping a very busy schedule with Houston Symphony performances, Del Signore heads the percussion department at Houston Christian University. Additionally, he has presented clinics and master classes at music schools around the USA including Baylor University, New England Conservatory, Boston Conservatory, Yale University, The Julliard School, Manhattan School of Music, New York University, Curtis Institute of Music, Temple University, Peabody Conservatory, Carnegie Mellon University, Cleveland Institute of Music, Texas A&M Commerce, Sam Houston State University, The Colburn School in Los Angeles, and San Francisco Conservatory. He also maintains a local education and outreach schedule, presenting percussion programs in elementary schools, and percussion clinics in high schools across the Houston area.
As a composer and soloist, Brian Del Signore premiered his Percussion Concerto with Houston Civic Symphony in 2018 and performed the Marimba Movement from that concerto with Houston Symphony in 2021.
Brian Del Signore endorses and is sponsored by manufacturers of high-quality percussion instruments. These companies: Remo Corporation, Sabian Cymbals, Pearl/Adams Percussion, ProMark Sticks (D’Addario), and Black Swamp Percussion, support Del Signore’s educational and outreach programs. For more information on these programs please visitbriandelsignore.com.
Brian and his wife Leah have
three grown children, Damian, Dominique, and Dione.
Boson Mo, violin (Platoff)
Winner of Third Prize at the 2013 Michael Hill International Violin Competition, Boson was named as one of Canada’s “30 under 30 Top Classical Musicians of 2015” by CBC Radio-Canada. He is a recipient of the Prix JosephRouleau at the 2010 Montreal International Violin Competition as well as a top 25 candidate at the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition, and is a winner of Canada’s prestigious Sylva Geber Foundation Award. Additionally, he is a two-time winner of Canada Council for the Arts’ Musical Instrument Bank loan. Mo served as Acting Assistant Concertmaster of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in the autumn of 2017 and is now a member of the Houston Symphony. He will forever be a student of mentors Keqiang Li and Paul Kantor, and he currently performs on a violin by MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Joseph Curtin.
Matthew Strauss, vibraphone (Platoff)
Matthew Strauss has been applauded throughout the United States as an energetic percussionist and timpanist with a diverse musical background. In addition to his position as Associate Principal Timpanist / Section Percussionist with the Houston Symphony, Strauss is an Associate Professor of Percussion at Rice University and faculty member at the Texas Music Festival at the University of Houston. Prior to his post in Houston, Strauss performed as a member of the percussion section in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra throughout the 2002–03 and 2003–04 seasons.
He also has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and Detroit Symphony Orchestra, to name
Program Bios
a few. Solo appearances include performances with the Houston Symphony, Texas Music Festival Orchestra, Akron Symphony, New Hampshire Music Festival, Reading Symphony Orchestra, and Delaware Symphony Orchestra. An active chamber musician, Strauss has performed with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, Da Camera of Houston, Foundation For Modern Music, Bard Festival Chamber Players, Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival, and Skaneateles Music Festival, and has participated in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s contemporary chamber series, Music Now, under the batons of Pierre Boulez and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Strauss received his bachelor’s degree in Percussion Performance from Juilliard School and his master’s degree in Performance from the Temple University. He is an alumnus of both the Tanglewood and Aspen Music Festivals and has participated in the Spoleto Music Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. Prior to his post at Rice University, Strauss taught percussion performance as a Visiting Lecturer at the Frost School of Music at University of Miami for 10 years. He has presented master classes and clinics at numerous schools, festivals, and conventions such as the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, New World Symphony, Juilliard School, Aspen Music Festival, Northwestern University, Texas Bandmasters Association Convention, Conservatoire de Region in Paris, Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel,
Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, Temple University, Bard Conservatory, New York University, Peabody Conservatory, Tanglewood Music Center, University of Maryland, George Mason University, Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Roosevelt University, and DePaul University. Strauss is a performing artist and clinician for Promark, Evans Heads, Zildjian Inc., and Pearl/Adams Corporation.
Terry McKinney, percussion (Del Signore)
Terry McKinney is currently in his 18th season as Principal Percussion with the Baton Rouge Symphony, which he joined in 2007. He has also performed with various organizations including the San Antonio Symphony, Midland Symphony, Abilene Symphony, Houston Ballet, Gateways Festival Orchestra, and frequently with the Houston Symphony as a regular substitute musician. He has also performed with ROCO, the Greenbriar Consortium, the Magnolia City Brass Band, Ars Lyrica, Musiqa, and the Foundation for Modern Music.
Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Terry received his Bachelor of Music from the University of Texas at Austin in 1993, and received his Master in Music degree from Texas A&M University-Commerce in 2000. His teachers include George Frock, Brian West, and Tony Edwards. After moving to Houston in 2008, Terry studied with Brian Del Signore and Matthew Strauss, both of the Houston Symphony.
Terry continues to perform regularly throughout Houston in various settings and played in touring Broadway shows such as Mean Girls, Wicked, Tina, and Ain’t Too Proud. He has presented masterclasses at Lamar University, Louisiana State University, and Texas Christian University, and maintains a private studio in the area.
Program Bios
Lisa McCarroll, piano (Del Signore)
Lisa McCarroll is an award-winning pianist from Derry, Northern Ireland, and has performed extensively throughout Europe and the United States as a soloist and collaborative pianist. Lisa has enjoyed the stage with established artists such as Grammy Awardwinning soprano Jessica Jones; British opera and West End star, baritone Rodney Earl Clarke; clarinetist and artistic director of Sydney Omega Ensemble David Rowden; and award-winning Colombian percussion ensemble Tamborimba. Her playing has been described by critic Bryce Morrison as “a technique that disguises technique, and an art that disguises art.”
A passionate advocate of Irish and Northern Irish classical music, Lisa has made it her mission to promote and perform works from her native country around the world. A primary focus of her work is the two-piano repertoire of Enniskillen-born composer Joan Trimble. Responsible for several U.S. premieres of Trimble’s works, Lisa performed The County Mayo for baritone and two pianos at
the 2013 Texas Music Festival Grand Finale Concert, which was broadcast on KUHA 91.7 FM.
The William J. Flynn Irish Cultural Center at University of St. Thomas featured Lisa in their 2019 concert series, performing a completely Irish chamber music program with repertoire by Joan Trimble, E. J. Moeran, and Frank Martin. In 2021, Lisa recorded two of Trimble’s most famous and celebrated twopiano works, The Green Bough and The Humours of Carrick, with her brother, pianist Paul McCarroll, at the Moores Opera Center for the University of Houston’s virtual piano series “Piandemia.”
Lisa holds a bachelor’s and LRAM degree from the Royal Academy of Music in London and master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Houston, Texas. Lisa is indebted to the many distinguished artists she has worked with throughout her career such as Frank Heneghan, Nancy Weems, Timothy Hester, Diana Ketler, Patsy Toh, Michael Dussek, Petras Geniušas, Michael Young, Boris Berman, Anne Epperson, Daniel Sher, Martin Jones, Jun Kanno, Luíz de Moura Castro, Andrew Brownell, Jan Cap, Réamonn Keary, and Fanny Waterman.
May 15, 16 & 17, 2026