Steve Tyrell and Friends to Join the Houston Symphony, 3/13

On Thursday, March 13, the Houston Symphony will continue its legendary centennial celebration by performing alongside one of the leading figures in the recording industry, Steve Tyrell. Under the leadership of Houston Symphony Associate Conductor Robert Franz, Tyrell and the orchestra will perform American standards like "You're So Nice to Come Home To," "The Way You Look Tonight" and "I Get a Kick Out of You," to name just a few. The Grammy Award-winning Tyrell will also invite his friends Diane Schuur, Judith Hill and Lew Soloff to the stage to share the evening with him as he sings the night away to timeless classics in this one-night only special performance.

The performance will take place at Jones Hall, 615 Louisiana St., Houston, TX 77002 on Thursday, March 13, 2014, 7:30 PM. Tickets from $29.

Featuring:

Steve Tyrell & Friends

Robert Franz, conductor

Steve Tyrell, vocalist

Diane Schuur, vocalist

Judith Hill, vocalist

Lew Soloff, trumpet

About Robert Franz: In his sixth season as Associate Conductor of the Houston Symphony, Robert Franz has led the Symphony in a broad range of creative educational and family concerts. Highlights for the 2013 - 14 Season include a performance at the annual awards of the Anti-Defamation League and a side-by-side concert of Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony with the Houston Youth Symphony, which will result in a total of 150 musicians on stage. Last summer, Franz conducted the orchestra's 100th Birthday Concert.

Franz is also the Music Director of the Boise Philharmonic, the Fairbanks Summer Arts festival Opera and Orchestra and the Windsor Symphony in Ontario, Canada. He continues to serve as Music Director Emeritus of the Carolina Chamber Symphony, an orchestra that he founded, and provides educational programming workshops at the National Symphony Orchestra during the summer.

Under his direction, both the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (2008) and the Louisville Orchestra (2001) were awarded ASCAP's Leonard Bernstein Award for Educational Programming. The Louisville Orchestra's award led to the creation of an educational program for Kentucky Educational Television entitled Creating Music and Stories. Winner of the 2008 BPO/ECMA Music Educators Award for Excellence, Franz has created arts education programs for the Carolina Chamber Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Louisville Orchestra, West End Chamber Ensemble and the Winston-Salem Piedmont Triad Symphony, including that organization's innovative Bolton Research Project. Franz has also authored his first children's book with CD, Stella's Magical Musical Tour of America.

Franz received his Bachelor of Music degree in oboe performance in 1990 from the North Carolina School of the Arts, and his Master of Music degree in conducting in 1992 from the same institution.

About Steve Tyrell: Grammy Award-winning vocalist Steve Tyrell has achieved great success as an artist, producer, songwriter, music supervisor and performer - and a Houston favorite.

After breakthrough performances in Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride II, Steve Tyrell re-popularized classic pop standards for a modern audience. His hits "The Way You Look Tonight," "The Simple Life," "Crush On You" and "The Sunny Side of The Street," have launched thousands of weddings.

He enjoys sold out shows and raves from around the world. At the request of the Sinatra family, he was the featured performer with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra when Frank Sinatra was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame and reprised that performance at Carnegie Hall.

As a record producer, he has collaborated with artists from Rod Stewart to Diana Ross. An album with the late Andy Griffith won a 1995 Grammy for Gospel Album of the Year.

All nine of his American Standards albums have achieved top 10 on Billboard's Jazz charts. Tyrell has received a daytime Emmy Award, three Ace Award Nominations, American Society of Young Musician's All That Jazz Award (2004), The Wellness Community Human Spirit Award (2004), Society of Singers Lifetime Achievement Award (2006), and Los Angeles Jazz Society's Jazz Vocalist of the Year (2008). His music for the Children's special, Cartoon All Stars to the Rescue, received special Emmy recognition.

About Diane Schuur: Regarded as one of contemporary jazz's leading vocalists, Diane Schuur has built a stellar career by embracing not only the jazz of her parent's generation, but the pop music of her own youth during the late 1950s and '60s. As electric as she is brilliant, Schuur taught herself piano by ear and developed a rich, resonant vocal style.

With a distinguished career that spans nearly three decades - and includes two Grammy Awards and three Grammy Award nominations - Schuur's music has explored nearly every corner of the 20th century American musical landscape. Her collaborations with The Count Basie Orchestra, B. B. King and Barry Manilow, among others, have produced numerous No. 1 Billboard jazz chart recordings, including Pure Schuur and Heart to Heart.

Her 2011 release The Gathering is unique in both material and style, infusing her unique jazz styling into 10 country-brewed tunes from seminal songwriters such as Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Hank Cochran, Kris Kristofferson, Roger Miller and others.

Including return performances at the White House and Carnegie Hall, Schuur continues to tour the United States, Europe, South America and Japan, as well as record and perform on television.

About Judith Hill: Judith Hill, a Los Angeles native, has spent her life immersed in music. She penned her first song at age four. Her father, Robert "Pee Wee" Hill, is a pioneering funk bassist, and her mother, Michiko Hill, is an accomplished keyboardist. They own Master's Crib Recording Studios, which served as her motivating playground.

Hill pursued a degree in music composition at Biola University, where she wrote her first symphony and pieces for piano, vocal groups, chamber ensembles and string quartets.

After graduation, she sang background vocals for the legendary Michael Polnareff in Paris. Plans to branch out were put on hold when she was chosen to back Michael Jackson, and perform a duet with him, on his "This is It" tour. Their performance of "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" is part of the posthumously released film, This is It. She sang "Heal the World" at Jackson's public memorial.

Hill spent the next few years refining her sound and incorporating her zeal for fashion and theater into her act. In 2011, she starred in the Avon Believe World Tour. When Stevie Wonder asked her to perform background, she couldn't resist. Not surprisingly, she is in Morgan Neville's 20 Feet of Stardom, which tells the true story of backup singers in the 21st century.

Her debut solo release is due out later this year.

About Lew Soloff: A consummate fixture on the New York jazz scene, Lew Soloff is a virtuoso whose expertise includes trumpet, flugelhorn, harmon mute, plunger mute and piccolo trumpet.

Lew Soloff and the Afro-Cuban Ensemble creates excitement around New York City; and the Lew Soloff Quartet tours Europe regularly. His is a regular in Carla Bley's Big Band, remains a founding member of The Manhattan Jazz Quintet and has joined the contemporary quintet Manhattan Brass. His longtime collaboration with the late Gil Evans resulted in a relationship with the Bohuslän Big Band in Sweden.

Born in Brooklyn in 1944, Soloff was raised in Lakewood, New Jersey, and studied piano before taking up the trumpet at age 10. He attended Julliard Preparatory until he entered the Eastman School of Music. After graduating from Eastman, he spent a year in graduate school at The Julliard School before the mid-1960s New York jazz scene ignited his career.

It was in the groundbreaking group Blood, Sweat and Tears that Soloff's trumpet solos became an indelible part of American culture. His abilities in the studio have led to recordings with entertainers from Roy Ayers to Miles Davis and Quincy Jones. He is a chameleon in front of the microphone, participating in sessions and concerts for some of pop's most respected figures.

Soloff has been on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music for nearly 20 years.

About the Houston Symphony: During the 2013-14 Season, the Houston Symphony celebrates its 100th year as one of America's leading orchestras with a full complement of concert, community, education, touring and recording activities. The Houston Symphony is one of the oldest performing arts organizations in Texas whose inaugural performance was held at The Majestic Theater in downtown Houston on June 21, 1913. Today, with an annual operating budget of $30.4 million, the full-time ensemble of 87 professional musicians is the largest performing arts organization in Houston, presenting more than 280 concerts for 280,000 people, including 84,000 children, annually. For tickets and more information, visit www.houstonsymphony.org or call 713-224-7575.

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