Ms. Johnston received her Masters Degree in Performance from the University of Houston where she sang the title role in Argento’s Miss Havisham’s Fire and ‘Antonia’ in Les Contes d’Hoffmann. As a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, she added ‘Suzanna’ in Le nozze di Figaro, ‘Blanche’ in The Dialogues of the Carmelites, and ‘Lucette’ in Cendrillon to her credits. In 1997 Ms. Johnston was named Outstanding Performer of the Year at the Regional NATS competition and won the Charlotte Opera Guild and Greensboro Euterpe competitions. She was a finalist in the Shreveport Opera Singer of the Year competition in 2003.

Promenade Series Season Ticket includes all ten (10) concerts. The Individual price is $70 if purchased before August 19, 2013. If purchase on or after August 19, the Individual ticket price is 80.

Single ticket prices are: $12 adult, $10 senior, $6 child/student. Group tickets are also available for $8 each for groups of 6 or more.

Simply Swingin’ with Sinatra & Friends, is a sensational new show featuring Pops phenomenon Steve Lippia singing American Pop songs – of yesterday and today – made famous by Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Vic Damone and Sammy Davis, Jr., Bobby Darin, Barry Manilow, Elton John and Billy Joel.

Individual tickets go on sale at 9 a.m., Monday, August 19, 2013. Tickets are $65 Platinum, $50 Gold, $45 Silver, $35 Bronze.

Houston Grand Opera’s Opera to Go! presents “Rapunzel”

Rapunzel is a sheltered young girl. When a prince comes along, she falls in love and must make a choice between the security of the known and the danger of the unknown.

Experience high-energy opera in a fully-staged, 45-minute performance. The show is sung in English and is designed especially for today’s audiences. Costumes, sets and beautiful music bring it to life.

Thank you! to our underwriter for providing the funds to allow us to present this concert free to the public.

ASL Interpreter provided upon request. Please contact the box office. A minimum of 5 working days advance notice is requested.

Trout Fishing in America

Trout Fishing was based in Houston for many years but moved to Prairie Grove, Arkansas in 1992.  Grimwood and Idlet have successfully recorded and marketed their own music under the label Trout Records.

Although largely characterized as playing folk/pop, Trout Fishing in America is influenced by reggae, latin, blues, jazz, and classical music.  The band has garnered critical recognition for both family and adult music.  This includes three National Indie Awards, several Parents’ Choice awards, and four Grammy award nominations in the Best Musical Album for Children category.

In the past few years, the duo has become committed to encouraging arts in schools.  They’ve developed a variety of song writing workshops for teachers and students in order to illustrate how art and music come from the fabric of everyday life.

Keith Grimwood plays the string bass, electric bass guitar, and provides the grittier vocals for TFIA.  He graduated from University of Houston with a music degree and spent two years performing with the Houston Symphony shortly after.

Ezra Idlet plays acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo, and vocals for TFIA.  Born in San Antonio, Texas, Idlet was raised in both Baltimore, MD and Houston.  After a short stint on the bench of a local college basketball team, Idlet decided to pursue music.

Four Fishing Facts:

• The band takes their name from a 1967 Richard Brautigan novel.
• Idlet is six feet nine inches tall; Grimwood is five feet five and a half inches tall.
• Their song “When I Was a Dinosaur” was played frequently by disc-jockey Dr. Demento on his radio program.
• They’re coming to The Centrum on February 20th!

Four time Grammy nominees Trout Fishing in America, joined by multi-instrumentalist and producer Fred Bogert, perform “Day Care Blues” during a concert produced by the Arkansas Educational Television Network.

Family Series Season Tickets are just $12 child/student, $20 senior, and $24 adult.
Family Series Individual Ticket Prices: $12 Adult, $10 Senior, $6 Student/Child, $8 Group Rate (15 or more).

Who is Aperio?

Aperio is an ensemble of local and internationally recognized musicians dedicated to preserving chamber music literature through performances that showcase contemporary composers from the Americas. Through an interactive performance format, the ensemble’s programming examines the art music of South and North America, while revealing the mutual impact that each cultural tradition has had on the other. Concert programs are thematically unified to foster greater appreciation and understanding of the national styles that developed in the New World set in their social and political context with an eye towards contemporary artistic trends and movements. The relationship between selected repertoire and other art forms, such as visual arts, literature, dance, and theater is frequently explored. Programming mainly emphasizes the music of composers from South America and the United States, focusing particularly on the cultural contributions drawn from many indigenous and foreign cultures, while featuring the promotion of new works and emerging composers.

The ensemble aims to enliven Houston’s concert music scene by presenting this unique brand of programming in both conventional and innovative settings, through various broadcast media, and through educational and community outreach programs.

Promenade Series Season Ticket includes all ten (10) concerts. The Individual price is $70 if purchased before August 19, 2013. If purchase on or after August 19, the Individual ticket price is 80.

Single ticket prices are: $12 adult, $10 senior, $6 child/student. Group tickets are also available for $8 each for groups of 6 or more.

Known for his affinity for the works of Olivier Messiaen, Connelly’s recent performances include Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus and Catalogue d’Oiseaux for piano, the complete songs cycles with soprano Carmen Pelton and mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer, all of the chamber music, the Oiseaux exotiques with chamber orchestra, and the Trois petites liturgies de la Présence Divine with conductor Donald Runnicles at the Grand Teton Music Festival.

Mr. Connelly is also widely respected as a scholar and performer of historical instruments, appearing in the U.S. and Europe on 18th- and 19th-century pianos by Walther, Rosenberger, Graf, Pleyel, Bösendorfer, and Streicher.  He has for 13 years been a member of the renowned ensemble Context; his recent recordings with that group—of music by Robert Schumann and Prince Louis Ferdinand—has received exuberant praise.

Mr. Connelly has appeared with many of today’s most respected instrumentalists, such as violinist Sergiu Luca, cellists Roel Dieltiens, Gary Hoffman, and Lynn Harrell, flutist Carol Wincenc, clarinetist Charles Neidich, and pianists Ian Hobson and Andre-Michel Schub, and he has shared ragtime recitals with jazz pianist Marcus Roberts.  He teaches piano performance and chamber music.

Promenade Series Season Ticket includes all ten (10) concerts. The Individual price is $70 if purchased before August 19, 2013. If purchase on or after August 19, the Individual ticket price is 80.

Single ticket prices are: $12 adult, $10 senior, $6 child/student. Group tickets are also available for $8 each for groups of 6 or more.

Atlantic Steps

Following an highly successful Summer 2012 debut at Dublin Irish Festival OH, Irishfest La Crosse WI and Irish Fair of Minnesota MN, the show has been booked for PAC engagements during 2013 and 2014 throughout Arizona, California, Kansas, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Texas and Wisconsin.

Individual tickets go on sale at 9 a.m., Monday, August 19, 2013. Tickets are $65 Platinum, $50 Gold, $45 Silver, $35 Bronze.

Richard Bjella was most recently hired in September 2009 as full professor and Director of Choral Studies at Texas Tech University. The highly acclaimed University Choir who made its Carnegie performance debut on May 2, 2010 to rave reviews.   They just performed as the only college choir to sing at the 2012 TMEA Convention in San Antonio to two standing ovations and will be appearing at the 2013 ACDA National Convention as well.

Previous to 2009, Bjella was the Director of Choral Studies at Lawrence University, Conservatory of Music.  The Concert Choir most recently performed for the 2009 National American Choral Directors Association Convention in Oklahoma City.  Bjella has conducted outside the United States in Prague, Paris, Lucerne, Vilnius, Seoul, and London and has guest conducted over 350 festivals and workshops in 29 states.  Most recently he was honored to conduct the Arizona All-State, the All Northwest 6 state MENC All-State (Seattle), the Connecticut All-State, the Collegiate All-State Choir in Wisconsin, the National OAKE HS choir in Phoenix, AZ, Mozart Requiem in Lincoln Center, and presented sessions in Tennessee and Washington for music educators.  This year he is presenting workshops or guest conducting in Ohio, Tennessee, Iowa, Florida, Georgia, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Alaska.  He will be presenting a session at the National ACDA convention in 2013.

Bjella served as President of the Wisconsin Choral Directors’ Association, has been a part of the Comprehensive Musicianship through Performance leadership team for Wisconsin Music Educators Association, and various state and regional leadership positions with ACDA and WMEA as well. He was been inducted into the Washington High School Fine Arts Hall of Fame, and is also listed in the World Concert Artist Directory of Conductors and Biltmore’s “Who’s, Who in America”, and was most recently awarded the Hanns Kretzchmar Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2006 and received the ‘Lawrence Excellence in Teaching Award’ in 2007.

Promenade Series Season Tickets includes all ten (10) concerts. Individual price is $70 if purchased before August 19. Beginning August 19, the price of the Individual ticket is $80.

Single ticket prices are: $12 adult, $10 senior, $6 child/student. Group tickets are also available for $8 each for groups of 6 or more.

Poetry in Motion is an exhilarating tour de force for actor/ mime David Zucker who has over 35 year of experience performing for children all over the world. David combines acting, mime, almost non-stop audience participation, comedy and an old steamer trunk brimming with props, costumes, masks, and puppets; bringing the best English language children’s poetry vividly to life. He recreates the fine tradition of spoken verse with the poems of such authors as A.A. Milne, Lewis Carroll, Emily Dickenson, Langston Hughes, James Whitcomb Riley, Robert Frost, Judith Viorst, and many more; treating audience members to poetry’s drama and inspiring them to develop their memories, while they learn about poetry’s various elements.

Recommended for children at least 5 years old.

All Children’s Series concerts are FREE and no tickets will be distributed.

ASL Interpreter provided upon request. Please contact the box office. A minimum of 5 working days advance notice is requested.

Thank you to our underwriter!

For more info, visit www.poetry-in-motion.com

Rob began studying the piano at the age of three and made his debut on the Art Linkletter House Party program at the age of four, receiving great applause and kudos from both Mr. Linkletter and Tommy Dorsey, who was on the same broadcast. Rob, an active composer and church musician, continued to perform throughout the world with Liza Minnelli and Marilyn Maye, and conducted the Count Basie Orchestra and the Buddy Rich Band in concert. Rob Landes has been the Organist/Artist-in-Residence at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Houston since 1996. In addition to his duties as organist, he composes music for the choirs and performs organ and piano concerts at St. Luke’s and throughout the country.

Promenade Series Season Ticket includes all ten (10) concerts. The Individual price is $70 if purchased before August 19, 2013. The Individual price is $80 starting August 19, 2013.

Single ticket prices are: $12 adult, $10 senior, $6 child/student. Group tickets are also available for $8 each for groups of 6 or more.