COVID-19 cancels conductor’s return
This weekend the Houston Symphony planned a welcome back — and the beginning of an early goodbye — to its music director and conductor, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, who joined the symphony in 2013 and increased its international profile through a series of recordings and tours.
The pandemic has kept him away, but he’d hoped to close the 2020-21 season with performances Friday-Sunday and next weekend before joining the symphony for its 202122 season, which would be his last here. Now travel restrictions will keep him from leaving his home in Austria and returning this week to Houston — for the first time in well over a year.
The culprit: the National Interest Exception on travel restrictions. Artists
whose work could be framed as supporting the economic recovery of the United States were granted entry prior to March 2, 2021. But new travel limits have now been implemented, and exemptions are no longer given consideration.
The Houston Symphony’s efforts to bring its maestro back for two weekends of performances proved unsuccessful.
Principal cellist Brinton Averil Smith called the news “enormously frustrating for us and for Andrés as well. This was the time we thought everything would work. He had a suitcase packed and wanted to come. It’s hard because we have this close relationship. We’re used to seeing him 12 or 13 weeks of the year.”
Houston Symphony CEO John Mangum said the organization’s success bringing in other European-based conductors earlier this year created a hope that OrozcoEstrada could return. But, he said, “the rules changed and were tightened. We’re very upset he can’t be with us, but it’s been that kind of year. Everything in flux.”
The Houston Symphony has a backup plan in place and — barring further complications — will have an esteemed conductor with more than three decades’ experience, David Robertson, step in to lead the symphony through its programs.
Even Robertson’s appearance triggers fraught feelings: He was scheduled to be a guest conductor in March 2020, a show that was canceled early during the pandemic. And plans to bring him to Houston in February of this year were scotched during the polar vortex that brought a freeze and an electricity crisis to Houston.
“Finally, it looks like he’s arrived,” Mangum said of Robertson. “Hopefully, there’ll be no more impediments to him being with us for some wonderful music making. We hope we’ve managed to snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat.”
Perlman up next
Later this month, Itzhak Perlman, the legendary violinist and conductor, begins a three-year collaboration with the Houston Symphony. Mangum is relieved that Perlman’s travel only requires getting from New York to Houston. Perlman said his May 22 show in Houston will be his first time on stage in over a year.
“We wait, we wait and see what’s going on,” Perlman said of his performance schedule. “I’ve made plans and they’ve been canceled. Unfortunately, this pandemic really has forced us to change the ways we behave.
“Things seem to be coming back slowly, but how fast is an interesting thing to think about. Just because things seem to be going well we think everything’s fine. But you still have to be careful.”
Such has been the tenuous case of presenting classical music, or any other music, over the past year. Perlman praised the Houston Symphony for its progressive efforts to get musicians back onstage and audiences back in the seats, even at reduced capacity while making significant concessions to ensure the safety of musicians, staff and patrons.
Still, the absence of Orozco-Estrada carries a sting because his time in Houston is swiftly diminishing. When he was named music director for the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in 2018, a prestigious job in the city where he resides, the countdown began for the music director’s departure from Houston. Earlier this year, the Houston Symphony announced its 2021-22 season, acknowledging it would be OrozcoEstrada’s last.
Symphony’s higher profile
A symphony orchestra missing its creative figurehead can feel like a concern of privilege after a year of unthinkable devastation because of a global pandemic — with a death toll that continues to rise. But the Houston Symphony’s hiring of Orozco-Estrada proved a smart one at the time, as he extended the Houston Symphony brand far beyond the confines of the city. He quickly nurtured great reverence in the city.
Hired in 2013, Orozco-Estrada took over during the Houston Symphony’s 2014-15 season, having worked at the Tonkünstler Orchestra in Vienna and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. He made an immediate impression on the Houston Symphony, taking the orchestra to Europe and South America for tours, and also releasing performances of their performances by Antonin Dvorák. He expanded the symphony’s international reach through livestreaming and changed the way classical music made in Houston could be consumed.
Orozco-Estrada deflected attention back to the “incredible energy and eagerness of the Houston Symphony musicians and their commitment to giving everything they have at each of our performances.”
But he also shaped the symphony for years to come. Nearly a third of the Houston Symphony performers were hired during his time here.
Orozco-Estrada will return
Orozco-Estrada’s return remains viable and likely at some point this year, even as the most recent plans were scuttled.
Although the Houston Symphony this year begins its final season with him as music director, soprano Renée Fleming will serve as the featured guest for the 2021-22 season opener on Sept. 11 with Steven Reineke conducting. The season also includes appearances by Yefim Bronfman, Emanuel Ax, Simone Lamsma and Augustin Hadelich.
Mangum hopes Orozco-Estrada will be able to get to Houston for at least five weeks of programming during the upcoming season.
And though another conductor will lead the Houston Symphony this weekend, the performances were threaded with an anticipation for their mix of old and new that bears Orozco-Estrada’s fingerprints. He planned to lead the symphony through works by a great span of composers, suggesting a broadening of the canon: The first weekend was to include Beethoven, Mozart and Piazzolla — representative of Orozco-Estrada’s approach to a global and time-spanning canon of composers.
Next weekend, Orozco-Estrada planned to lead the Houston Symphony through a program that included Mozart and Beethoven again, along with predecessors such as Monteverdi, and pieces by Handel and Mendelssohn.
The absence of Orozco-Estrada isn’t a novel issue, as the international business of classical music has been particularly complicated during the pandemic. The performances this weekend and next weekend are just the latest in a series of frustrations as the Houston Symphony continues to set a thoughtful and safe step back to normal. Even with Orozco-Estrada stranded in Europe, the Houston Symphony managed to put on live concerts at reduced capacity since last year, doing so with a transparency about the ability to ensure the appearance of various soloists — some have been able to get to Houston, others have not.
While this weekend’s programming feels like a setback, those involved with the Houston Symphony exude an optimism as shows continue and crowds inch back slowly toward Jones Hall.
“David is a wonderful conductor, and we’re excited he’s finally able to get here,” Smith said. “It’s difficult to do something like this at the last minute.”
Smith also says the period of flux hasn’t diminished their work. “I feel like three of the concerts we did in March are among the best I’ve ever played with the Houston Symphony,” he said. “Even in masks, 6 feet apart. It was an extraordinary thing to figure out. But we’ve been doing it for almost a year now, which is inspiring.”