The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University continues its multiyear 50th anniversary celebration in the upcoming 2025-26 season. With orchestral, chamber, opera and recital programs, the milestone season showcases the excellence of Shepherd’s students and faculty alongside appearances by distinguished guest artists.
“With this 2025-26 season, we build on the momentum begun in the 2024-25 season to properly honor this major Shepherd milestone,” said Matthew Loden, the Lynette S. Autrey Dean of Music. “Our school is poised to launch into its next phase with a stellar faculty — including eight new faculty members joining us this season — as well as an array of recent alumni achievements that make us all proud. This upcoming season celebrates everything our community has built together and looks ahead at what’s still to come.”
“The content throughout the entire school year reflects our balanced musical diet comprising a wide range of repertoire from the classics, romantics, impressionists, modernists and living composers,” said Miguel Harth-Bedoya, distinguished resident director of orchestras. “The high level of the Shepherd School orchestras allows me to challenge and inspire them beyond imagination.”
“In programming our operas for this important milestone year, we’ve selected pillar works of the canon that feature and challenge a large number of our world-class virtuosic vocalists and instrumentalists,” said Joshua Winograde, director of opera studies. “Big operas, big casts and big orchestras. We want our audiences to be very aware that they are seeing the stars of tomorrow when they come to the Shepherd School.”
Founded in 1974 with students first enrolling in the music program in 1975, the Shepherd School provides a one-of-a-kind experience to its students: a world-class conservatory training with the opportunities and resources of a leading research university pairing artistic mastery with academic rigor and curiosity. In its 50th anniversary season, Shepherd celebrates its deep connection to the Houston community, its preeminent faculty and its global alumni network while also looking ahead to the future of the musical arts.
Season highlights include:
- A 50th anniversary celebration gala Nov. 8 featuring the Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke ’04 led by Harth-Bedoya. Cooke performs the premiere of a movement from “Another Starry Night,” a song cycle by Shepherd’s chair of composition and theory Pierre Jalbert, commissioned for the 50th anniversary. The full cycle will premiere in the 2026-27 season. An elegant seated dinner on the Morrison Theater stage in the stunning Brockman Hall for Opera will take place following the concert for gala event supporters. Anne Duncan is the gala honoree; Anne and Albert Chao and Isabel and Danny David are the gala co-chairs; Shawn Stephens and Jim Jordan are the underwriter chairs.
- Ten symphony and chamber orchestra performances programmed by Harth-Bedoya in his first full season as distinguished resident director of orchestras. Throughout the season, both the Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra perform cornerstones of the classical repertoire such as Ravel’s “Daphnis et Chloé” Suite No. 2 and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 “Pathétique” as well as works by living composers John Adams, Mason Bates, Pulitzer Prize-winner Tania León and Shepherd School Cooper Prize winner Nicky Sohn.
- Two concerts that showcase the breadth of student talent featuring Shepherd School Concerto Competition winners Szuyu Su and Sebastian Berofsky, Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting students Kyle Haake and Ana Spasovska and alumni composers Jiaying Li and Xingyi Chen.
- A first-ever collaboration between the Chamber Orchestra and Chamber Players on the stage of Morrison Theater at Brockman Hall for Opera featuring Concerto Competition winner Jackson Bernal. New faculty member David Chan, concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, prepares the ensemble and conducts one piece on the program.
- The continuation of the Shepherd School’s 50th anniversary commissioning initiative begun in the 2024-25 season with five additional premieres by composition faculty. This includes Anthony Brandt’s Chamber Concerto for Cello and Orchestra featuring professor of cello and chair of chamber music Norman Fischer; Kurt Stallmann and Joseph Campana’s multimedia collaborative work “The Fruit and the Work”; Jalbert’s “Another Starry Night”; Karim Al-Zand’s “A Joint Interest”; and Arthur Gottschalk’s “Tombeaux: pour un creation d’une rhapsodie for piano and chamber orchestra” featuring pianist Milton Rubén Laufer ’98 ’03.
- Fully staged performances of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” (Louis Lohraseb, conductor; R.B. Schlather, director) and Verdi’s “Falstaff” (Harth-Bedoya, conductor; Matt Hune, director, as part of an all-Houston creative team) presented by Shepherd School Opera and helmed by Winograde with the Chamber Orchestra. Opera students also perform on “Modern American Opera Scenes,” which includes the world premiere of faculty composer Al-Zand’s “A Joint Interest” with the Chamber Players conducted by Harth-Bedoya, as well as scenes from other contemporary American operas led by Aleko-Endowed Artist Paul Curran.
- Two chamber music festivals, each featuring three days of captivating chamber music of various configurations, which involve all Shepherd instrumental students and provide crucial opportunities for ensemble-building.
- Contemporary ensemble Latitude 49, which blends the finesse of a classical ensemble with the drive and precision of a fine-tuned rock band, works with Shepherd composition students and gives a public concert during a three-day residency. Other guests include Molly Carr (violist of The Juilliard String Quartet), Jean Bernard Cerin (baritone), Chelsea Chen (organ) and Jason Hardink (piano).
- Free livestreams of most Shepherd School performances, including orchestra, chamber music and faculty and student recitals.
- Family friendly programming including a holiday Spirit of the Season performance in December and a family concert performance of Britten’s “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra” by the Symphony Orchestra in February.
- Eight new faculty members: Miguel Harth-Bedoya, distinguished resident director of orchestras and professor of conducting; David Chan, professor of violin; Elizabeth Freimuth (Shepherd ’98), professor of horn; Erin Hannigan, professor of oboe; Allegra Lilly, associate professor of harp; Cristian Mӑcelaru (Shepherd ’06, ’08), distinguished visiting artist; Nick Platoff, associate professor of trombone; and Valentin Radutiu, professor of cello. There will also be faculty recitals throughout the season and Sharing the Spotlight performances, which provide Shepherd students a unique opportunity to share the stage with their faculty mentors.
- The return of the orchestral conducting graduate program led by Harth-Bedoya. Graduate students assist Shepherd orchestra activities and are associate conductors of Rice’s Campanile Orchestra. The addition of an undergraduate orchestral conducting degree, the first of its kind in the nation, with the initial cohort commencing classes in fall 2026.
- New seating and flooring in Stude Concert Hall and Duncan Recital Hall, updated for the first time since Alice Pratt Brown Hall’s opening in 1991 to provide a more comfortable and enhanced listening experience for patrons and students alike.
