Beyond the Sanctuary Walls

Houston’s artist-led, artist-curated Kinetic Ensemble closes its 8th concert season with a deeply expressive program exploring themes of love, fear, and vulnerability through music for song and strings. At the center piece is the world premiere of “Behind the Sanctuary Walls” by award-winning composer Theo Chandler, written for soprano, double bass, and string orchestra. Featuring dynamic British-Canadian soprano Alexandra Smither, and Cleveland Orchestra bassist Charles Paul, “Behind the Sanctuary Walls” takes us through the enthralling, intertwining nature of intimacy and distance, connection and separation, capturing the extremes of human experience across five movements.

Complementing this premiere is Tchaikovsky’s celebrated “Serenade for Strings,” a work that epitomizes the outward, heartrending expressivity of nineteenth-century romanticism, along with a selection of newly adapted songs by Clara Schumann, arranged for string orchestra by Kinetic violinist Giancarlo Latta. This concert is generously sponsored by and dedicated to our dear friend, John Epstein