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THE SHEPHERD SCHOOL SYMPHONY AND CHAMBER ORCHESTRAS
Larry Rachleff, Music Director
From
its inception in 1974, The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University
has emphasized orchestral training as a central element in its performing
curriculum. As the Shepherd School has grown and matured, so too
has the orchestral program until it is now made up of a full Symphony
Orchestra of one hundred-plus music students and a Chamber Orchestra
made up of some thirty more music students. Orchestra members rehearse
at least five and one-half hours a week, and they also attend classes
in orchestral excerpts and orchestra repertoire classes for brass,
percussion, woodwind, and string sections.Houston Symphony members
who are members of the Shepherd School faculty also frequently lead
section rehearsals for the Orchestras. Larry Rachleff has been Music
Director of the orchestral program since the fall of 1991, and under
his leadership the Orchestras have reached new artistic levels,
performing major works from the standard orchestral repertoire as
well as giving several premieres of important new works and performing
with the Shepherd School Opera.
Regional critics have hailed the free concerts given by the Orchestras
as "the best orchestral value in Houston" and have specifically
complimented the "tonally attractive, well-synchronized sound
from the string section...," "nice tonal shadings and
subtly controlled soft passages...," and "brilliant, pointed
sound...marked by strong bursts of brass tone." Each of the
two Orchestras typically performs three or more concerts a semester,
and works performed in recent seasons include Copland´s Appalachian
Spring in both its large orchestra and chamber orchestra versions;
Mahler´s First, Fourth, and Sixth Symphonies; Beethoven´s
First, Third, Fourth, Seventh, and Eighth Symphonies; Shostakovich´s
Fifth and Eleventh Symphonies; Debussy´s La Mer; all four
Brahms symphonies, Bartók´s Miraculous Mandarin Suite;
and Stravinsky´s Firebird Suite, Petrouchka, and Rite of Spring.
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