Texas Medical Center Orchestra Concert presents The Healing Power of Music

The Texas Medical Center Orchestra will return to the stage after COVID, hoping to spread healing and encourage optimism, with powerful and emotionally uplifting works of classical music. At the request of Artistic Director and Founder Libi Lebel, orchestra members have selected a ‘bucket list’ of their favorite works to salute the human spirit, evoking statements about freedom, unity, and the limitless resilience of humanity.

Unity of Houston’s Michael Gott will join the orchestra to open with a non-classical, but moving piece, the 2020 Oscar-nominated song, I’m Standing with You, which TMCO recorded with a cast of international singers in support of the United Nations COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, a recording that has raised more than $7 million to date.

The program will then consist of three classical works. The soothing waters of The Moldau bring peace to the listener in Smetana’s tone poem that uses instrumentation to evoke the sounds of one of the Czech countryside’s prominent rivers. Virtuoso Violinist Sergei Galperin of the Houston Symphony will perform Baal Shem: Three Pictures of Chassidic Life for Violin Solo and Orchestra. The three movements explore the Jewish spirit:  the mournfully passionate Vidui (Contrition); the artistic freedom of the Nigun (Improvisation), and the optimistic Simchas Torah (Rejoicing). The initial intensity of Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 in C minor leads ultimately to a solemn chorale that speaks of redemption and peace.

Please note the COVID-19 safety protocols on the Hobby Center website that require masks and proof of vaccination or of a negative COVID-19 test with photo identification.