Ars Lyrica Houston Celebrates 20 Years of Magic With its 2023/24 Season

The GRAMMY®-nominated early music ensemble Ars Lyrica Houston celebrates 20 Years of Magic, a 2023/24 season celebrating two decades of music-making, with six subscription programs - including a fully staged Handel opera - and two CD releases on the Acis label. The 20th anniversary season features world-class soloists alongside a core period-instrument ensemble of “sophisticated musical prowess” (San Diego Story). Subscription programs take place in Zilkha Hall at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, St. Philip Presbyterian Church, and Duncan Recital Hall at Rice University. 

2023/24 Subscription Programs:

The season gets underway on September 22 in Zilkha Hall with Fallen Angels, program that highlights the paranormal in Baroque music. Five extraordinary singers and a colorful orchestra will perform a collection of musical enchantments including spirited masques from Henry Purcell’s Fairy Queen and Giacomo Carissimi’s harrowing Judgement of Solomon. 

Ecstatic Visions on November 3 offers a transcendent experience for listeners with a spectacular Baroque showstopper for soprano and orchestra and rapturous instrumental music. Soprano Sherezade Panthaki, described as an “astonishing coloratura with radiant top notes” (Calgary Herald), will perform G.F. Handel’s remarkable yet rarely heard Silete Venti alongside oboist Kathryn Montoya and violinist Andrew Fouts.

The festive holiday program on December 12, Awe and Wonder, features two major works for chorus and orchestra, one on the creation story and the other on the incarnation of Christ. An eight-person vocal ensemble will fill the resonant St. Philip Presbyterian Church with the music of C. P. E. Bach, Heinrich Biber, and Marc-Antoine Charpentier.

Fugal Games on January 13 in Duncan Recital Hall at Rice University celebrates the release of Artistic Director Matthew Dirst’s latest book on Bach’s Art of Fugue and Musical Offering, with a program featuring excerpts from both works. Dirst will be joined by an intimate instrumental ensemble including violinists Elizabeth Blumenstock and Stephen Redfield and traverso player Colin St-Martin on this quintessentially Baroque program. 

The all-French concert Visions and Reveries on March 16 showcases Ars Lyrica favorite and world-renowned soprano Lauren Snouffer, whose singing has been described as “effervescent” (New York Times). The program features delightful lyric cantatas on mythological themes by Elizabeth Claude Jacquet de la Guerre and Jean-Philippe Rameau.

The most significant undertaking of the 23/24 Ars Lyrica season is a production of G. F. Handel’s Amadigi di Gaula, one of the composer’s famed “magic” operas. Tara Faircloth directs and Matthew Dirst conducts a cast that includes sopranos Raven McMillon and Camille Ortiz and countertenors Randall Scotting and Nicholas Garza in this Houston premiere on May 24 and 25. Following the closing performance, patrons may enjoy a Post-Opera Soirée celebrating 20 Years of Magic at Diana American Grill.

CD Releases:

Ars Lyrica Houston will kick-off the season with the long-awaited release of Alessandro Scarlatti’s oratorio La sposa dei cantici on the Acis label on September 5, 2023. Artistic Director Matthew Dirst has described the music as “a mixture of the heavenly with the playful." Starring four international stars of the early music world alongside Ars Lyrica's critically acclaimed orchestra, this world premiere recording features the revival of a rarely-heard work.

For this project Ars Lyrica collaborated with GRAMMY®-nominated producer Geoffrey Silver and award-winning mastering engineer Ryan Edward. Later in the fall, this team will also release a recording of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, by Matthew Dirst on a Bach-style harpsichord from master builder John Phillips. Recorded at Rienzi, Museum of Fine Arts Houston.