A Grammy Award-winning opera singer. An Academy Award-winning actor. A beloved, longtime Pops composer.<\/p>\n
Alright, alright, alright.<\/p>\n
Houston Symphony celebrated America\u2019s 250th birthday in a big way Saturday, with major, all-American talent such as mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, actor and native Texan Matthew McConaughey, and Principal Pops Director Steven Reineke on the marquee.<\/p>\n
The classical music institution\u2019s Opening Night Concert and Gala leaned into all things patriotic\u00a0\u2014 not\u00a0politics.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s wonderful to celebrate your country, regardless of political inclinations. You can be patriotic and have different political views,\u201d Leonard told the Houston Chronicle. \u201cBe proud of the country you\u2019re from; every country has its ups and downs.\u201d<\/p>\n
She praised Reineke\u2019s use of all American composers. Fourteen are still living; at least one, Karen LeFrak, sat in the audience at Jones Hall Saturday evening.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor this one, we thought, ‘Let\u2019s craft an all-American program.’ It was a lot of fun\u00a0and a lot of work. I went through five different drafts to make sure there were some crowd-pleasers and also had some weight for the orchestra,\u201d Reineke told the Chronicle. \u201cIt\u2019s all from the 20th and 21st century. The oldest piece comes from 1930\u00a0by (George) Gershwin, ‘I\u2019ve Got Rhythm.’\u201d<\/p>\n
One performance Leonard most looked forward to was\u00a0\u201cI Could Have Danced All Night,\u201d from the film \u201cMy Fair Lady.\u201d She also shared a bit of advice for appreciating the program\u2019s more poignant moments.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the lyrics are particularly important and meaningful. I love music where the text means something,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Her suggestion might also apply to McConaughey\u2019s narration of \u201cLincoln Portrait,\u201d by Aaron\u00a0Copland, which includes excerpts from President Abraham Lincoln\u2019s documents, most notably text of his Gettysburg Address.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis speeches are really astounding. He was very much a unifier during a very difficult time in America,\u201d Reineke said. \u201cThe team at the symphony were looking for someone to read the ‘Lincoln Portrait’ and some extra star power to make this gala very, very special. Matthew accepted and made everything an even bigger event than it was already going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
After his 14-minute appearance, Reineke said, \u201cAnd that I have to tell y\u2019all, that was one of the greatest performances of that piece I have ever heard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before the encore, Reineke added about the famous Longhorns fan: \u201cMr.\u00a0McConaughey had to go because there\u2019s a football game on, as you know.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is a developing story and will be updated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Grammy Award-winning opera singer. An Academy Award-winning actor. A beloved, longtime Pops composer. Alright, alright, alright. Houston…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-441649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}