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HSC on Tour, Summer 2007!

In the summer of 2007 the Houston Symphony Chorus logged many notes and many miles!  In late May/early June, it capped off its 60th anniversary season with its fourth European Tour, presenting three concerts under the baton of Chorus director, Charles S. Hausmann (who was himself celebrating his 20th season leading the HSC). 

This Central European tour began with a sold-out appearance on the famous Prague Spring Music Festival, performing Johannes Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem (German Requiem) in Brahms’ own two-piano arrangement.    Houston favorites Melissa Givens, soprano and Timothy Jones, baritone were the soloists for this and all the HSC European tour concerts.   The pianists for the evening were Howard Pollack and Rodney Waters, also well known to Houston audiences.

The next stop on the tour was the Art Nouveau concert hall of Budapest’s famous Liszt Academy.  Here the Chorus presented what was probably the Hungarian performance premier of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ passionate anti-war plea, Dona Noba Pacem.  The concert with the Budapest Concert Orchestra, part of this orchestra’s subscription season, was nationally broadcast.

The European tour concluded in St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, for another performance of Brahms’ German Requiem, this time with the Vienna Volksoper orchestra. 

Shortly after returning from its European tour, the HSC continued its summer of great choral music, flying to Mexico City for three performances of Beethoven’s monumental Missa Solemnis.  These HSC concerts with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería continued a longstanding collaboration between the two organizations.  The concerts were conducted by Carlos Miguel Prieto, a former associate conductor of the Houston Symphony who remains a frequent visitor to the Houston Symphony’s podium.  Maestro Prieto is now Director Titular of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería.