Rice’s Shepherd School of Music will celebrate the life and legacy of late conductor Larry Rachleff Oct. 29 with a musical tribute from those who knew and loved him best.
The special concert will take place at 5 p.m. in Stude Concert Hall during Rice’s “OwlTogether” homecoming weekend, and a number of Rachleff’s former students from the Houston Symphony Orchestra will perform on the program. Musical selections will include the Larghetto from Dvorak’s “Serenade for Strings” and Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” and "Fanfare for the Common Man."
The performance will be followed by a 6 p.m. reception in the Grand Foyer of Alice Pratt Brown Hall and a performance of the Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra beginning at 7:30 p.m.
“Those of us fortunate enough to have known Larry throughout his career remember him as a once-in-a-generation musician and educator of the highest caliber,” said Matthew Loden, the Lynette S. Autrey Dean of Music at the Shepherd School. “We can think of no better way to honor him than to fill Stude Hall with beautiful music for our audience, created by the students and faculty who loved him so much.”
The concert will feature “Be” by Shepherd School composition major Alex Berko and Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major, Op. 26, with a solo by Xiaoping Wang, a piano performance major. Both works will be conducted by Rice alumnus Benjamin Manis ’19, associate conductor of the Utah Symphony, who will make his Houston Grand Opera conducting debut this spring leading “Tosca.” The orchestra will also present Hindemith’s “Symphonie Mathis der Maler,” conducted by Donald Schleicher , the Daniel J. Perrino Professor Emeritus of Conducting at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Tickets are free but reservations are required. More information on the concerts and ticketing is available online at https://music.rice.edu/events/shepherd-school-symphony-orchestra-registration-required-8.