Texas Music Festival

The Immanuel and Helen Olshan Texas Musical Festival will mount its landmark 30th Anniversary Season June 1-29. 

The Immanuel and Helen Olshan Texas Musical Festival will mount its landmark 30th Anniversary Season June 1-29, celebrating the successes of nearly 3,000 of classical music's rising stars over the past three decades. For this musical milestone, three former TMF Fellows will return to the University of Houston (UH) Moores Opera House (MOH) stage as guest artists.

Founded in 1990, the mission of the Immanuel and Helen Olshan Texas Music Festival is to prepare college aged and young professional musicians for careers in music through a four-week intensive summer orchestral training program. The Texas Music Festival serves communities in the greater Houston area, College Station, and throughout the Southeastern Texas regions with a diverse array of orchestral and chamber music performances by student participants, faculty and guest artists.

Key events include the TMF 2019 Orchestra Series concerts, set for the four Saturday nights of June, which will showcase the talents of 93 pre-professional orchestral musicians, as well as the Perspectives series, featuring TMF faculty artists and guests, set for Tuesday nights. See below for details on these events:

Perspectives:
Tuesdays (June 4, June 11, June 18, June 28), 7:30 p.m. Dudley Recital Hall
Repertoire and performers TBA

TMF Orchestra Series Week 1:
"30th Anniversary Season Opener" Friday, June 7, 8 p.m. at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in The Woodlands (Free), and Saturday, June 8, 7:30 p.m. at Moores Opera House
This event launches with Aaron Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man, one of 18 fanfares written to promote a patriotic response to America's entry into World War II, and the only one still performed regularly. A counter balance will be Joan Tower: Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman. Next, TMF Alum Kenny Broberg will take to the Steinway for Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini. The evening concludes with Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade, an evocative piece that channels Sinbad and other tales of the Arabian Nights. TMF will welcome back violin virtuoso Xiao Wang, winner of its 2012 Cynthia Woods Mitchell Young Artist Competition.

TMF Week 2:
Saturday, June 15, 6:30 p.m. at Moores Opera House
"Cinematic Splendor," a nod to the music featured in Walt Disney's epic film, Fantasia, is the theme for TMF Week 2, with Ernesto Tovar Torres making his Texas Music Festival solo debut with R. Strauss: Concerto for Horn No. 1. Filling out the bill will be Dukas: The Sorcerer's Apprentice; Bach/Stokowski: Toccata and Fugue in D minor; Wagner: Ride of the Valkyries; and R Strauss: Die Frau ohne Schatten Fantasie. Rossen Milanov, Music Director of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, Princeton Symphony Orchestra and the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias in Spain, will be making his third TMF appearance.

TMF Week 3:
Saturday, June 22, 6:30 p.m. at Moores Opera House
The TMF Week 3 repertoire will be "Simply Fantastic!" under the baton of seven-time TMF Maestro Carl St. Clair. As a 30th Anniversary Festival tribute, St. Clair will reprise his 2005 TMF performance of David Heuser's overture, A Screaming Comes Across the Sky, a TMF-commissioned work that debuted at the Festival July 3, 2005. he program also will feature Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique, and the work performed by the Orchestra Fellow selected as the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Young Artist Competition first place winner and guest soloist.

TMF Week 4:
June 29, 6:30 p.m. at Moores Opera House
The Festival will close with TMF Week 4 "Grand Finale," with the epic Mahler: Symphony 6, also known as "Tragic." Josep Caballé-Domenech, who last graced the TMF podium in 2014, will conduct the dramatic four-movement work. The maestro currently serves as Music Director of the Colorado Springs Philharmonic and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Bogotá and General Music Director of the Opera and Staatskapelle Halle (Germany).