HOUSTON (October 16, 2023) – The Houston Symphony announced two new additions to the 2023–2024 Season: Classical Mystery Tour: A Tribute to the Beatles, April 18 and 19; and Disney’s Encanto In Concert Live to Film,April 20 and 21.
Classical Mystery Tour features four musicians who look and sound just like The Beatles, but Classical Mystery Touris more than just a rock concert. Commemorating the 60th anniversary of The Beatles’s first U.S. tour, the show presents more than two dozen Beatles tunes performed exactly as they were originally recorded. Houston audiences can hear “Penny Lane” with a live trumpet section, experience the beauty of “Yesterday” with an acoustic guitar and string quartet, enjoy the classical/rock blend on “I Am the Walrus,” and relish the cascading crescendos on “A Day in the Life” April 18 and 19 at 7:30 in Jones Hall. Broll HERE.
The Academy Award®-winning film Encanto comes to life like never before, April 20 at 6:30 p.m., and April 21 at 2:30 p.m. in Jones Hall, with the Houston Symphony performing the score live to the feature-length film! Encanto tells the tale of the Madrigals, an extraordinary family living in a magical house in the mountains of Colombia. When Mirabel, the only ordinary Madrigal, discovers the magic surrounding their home is in danger, she may be her family’s last hope. Encanto received an Academy Award®, BAFTA, Golden Globe®, and Producers Guild of America Award for Best Animated Feature. The soundtrack features original songs by Tony® and Grammy®-winning songwriter/composer Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton,
Moana) with an original score by Academy Award®-nominated composer Germaine Franco.
For tickets or more information, call or text 713.224.7575, or visit houstonsymphony.org.
Classical Mystery Tour: A Tribute to The Beatles
April 18, 19, 2024, 7:30 p.m.
Jones Hall for the Performing Arts
Disney’s Encanto™ In Concert: Live to Film
April 20, 2024, 6:30 p.m.
April 21, 2024, 2:30 p.m.
Jones Hall for the Performing Arts
Presentation licensed by Disney Concerts
About Classical Mystery Tour
Since its initial show at the Orange County Performing Arts Center (now renamed the Segerstrom Center for the Arts) in 1996, Classical Mystery Tour has performed with more than 100 orchestras across the United States and around the world, receiving accolades from fans and the media. The Los Angeles Times called the show “more than just an incredible simulation…the swelling strings and soaring French horn lines gave the live performance a high goose-bump quotient…the crowd stood and bellowed for more.”
“We really make an effort to sound exactly like the originals,” explains James Owen, the founder of Classical Mystery Tour who also portrays John Lennon in the show. “The orchestra score is exact, right down to every note and instrument that was on the original recording. On ‘Got to Get You Into My Life,’ we have two tenor saxes and three trumpets. That’s what it was written for, and that’s what we use. And on ‘A Day in the Life,’ that final big orchestra crescendo sounds amazing when it’s played live.”
The release of The Beatles’ 50th anniversary edition of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” the addition of a Beatles station on Sirius Radio, and the chart-topping success of Paul McCartney’s new album proves that The Beatles are more popular than ever. Because many Beatles fans never had the opportunity to experience a live Beatles show, Classical Mystery Tour offers that live experience in the comfort of a concert hall.
“We have some real show-stopping numbers,” says Owen. “I wish I could actually be in the audience to see and hear this show, because the power of the emotional and nostalgic connection this music has with audiences is hard to put into words.”
About Disney Concerts:
Disney Concerts is the concert production and licensing division of Disney Music Group, the music arm of The Walt Disney Company. Disney Concerts produces concerts and tours, and licenses Disney music and visual content to symphony orchestras, choruses and presenters on a worldwide basis. Disney Concerts’ concert packages include a variety of formats, such as “live to picture” film concerts, and themed instrumental and vocal compilation concerts that range from instrumental-only symphonic performances to multimedia productions featuring live vocalists and choirs. Featuring concerts from the largest movie franchises in the world – from Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, Pixar and 20th Century Studios – current titles include the “Star Wars” Film Concert Series, “Toy Story,” “Aladdin,” Disney Princess – The Concert, “Coco,” “The Lion King,” “Up,” “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “The Muppet Christmas Carol.”
About the Houston Symphony
Under Music Director Juraj Valčuha, the Houston Symphony continues its second century as one of America’s leading orchestras with a full complement of concert, community, education, touring, and recording activities. One of the oldest performing arts organizations in Texas, the Symphony held its inaugural performance at The Majestic Theater in downtown Houston on June 21, 1913. Today, with an operating budget of $37.8 million, the full-time ensemble of professional musicians presents more than 130 concerts annually, making it the largest performing arts organization in Houston. Traditionally, musicians of the orchestra and the Symphony’s two Community-Embedded Musicians also offer over 1,000 community-based performances each year at various schools, community centers, hospitals, and churches reaching more than 200,000 people in Greater Houston annually.
After suspending concert activities in March 2020, the Symphony successfully completed a full 2020–21 season with in-person audiences and weekly livestreams of each performance, making it one of the only orchestras in the world to do so, while the Symphony’s Education and Community Engagement team continued to fulfill its mission through creative and virtual means throughout the COVID pandemic. The Houston Symphony remains committed to livestreaming all of its 2023–24 season to a broad audience in over forty-five countries and all fifty states, one of few American orchestras dedicated to transmitting live performances to a size-able audience outside its home city through this technology.
The Grammy Award-winning Houston Symphony has recorded under various prestigious labels, including Koch International Classics, Naxos, RCA Red Seal, Telarc, Virgin Classics, and, most recently, Dutch recording label Pentatone. In 2017, the Houston Symphony was awarded an ECHO Klassik award for the live recording of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck under the direction of former Music Director Hans Graf. The orchestra earned its first Grammy nomination and Grammy Award at the 60th annual ceremony for the same recording in the Best Opera Recording category. The Symphony’s most recent recordings include a Pentatone release in January 2022 of its world premiere performances of Jimmy López Bellido’s Aurora and Ad Astra, and a Naxos release in July 2023 of its world premiere performance of Jennifer Higdon’s Duo Duel.
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