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    Beautiful Partnership

    Heartthrob maestro and Houston Symphony extend partnership through 2021-22 season

    Clifford Pugh
    Mar 24, 2017 | 2:54 pm
    Houston Symphony Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada
    The Houston Symphony has extended Andrés Orozco-Estrada’s contract as music director for another three seasons.
    Photo by Julie Soefer

    It sounds like a beautiful partnership will continue. The Houston Symphony announced Thursday that it is has extended music director Andrés Orozco-Estrada's contract another three years. Orozco-Estrada, who came to the symphony with much fanfare in 2013 and was almost immediately dubbed the "heartthrob maestro," will continue to lead the orchestra through the 2021-22 season.

    Before the extension, Orozco-Estrada was in the middle of a five-year contract.

    He is the fourth Houston Symphony music director to hold the Roy and Lillie Cullen Chair, a position endowed in perpetuity by The Cullen Foundation. He is the symphony's 15th music director, the first Hispanic conductor to assume the post in the orchestra's 104-year history (he hails from Colombia), and, at only 39, remains one of the youngest conductors of a major symphony.

    In reporting on Orozco-Estrada's hiring in 2013, then CultureMap reporter Joel Luks noted his background was important for a musical organization furiously working to adjust to Houston's changing demographics. Luks wrote:

    What's distinctive about Orozco-Estrada, on top of having a sexy, hyphenated name that both hint and dim his foreign provenance (let's not dismiss that benefit for marketing departments) is that he's lived the immigrant story so essential to appreciating Houston's ethos. His South American heritage speaks to a rapid demographic shift; and his European artistic pedigree appeases those needing a dose of Western authenticity in the leader of an art form that stems from Germany, France and Italy.

    In a press release, Orozco-Estrada said he plans to continue "to explore inspiring new works and projects that allow us to embrace new and loyal audiences as well as further our artistic growth.” Soon after assuming the position in 2013, Orozco-Estrada told CultureMap he hoped to make the Houston Symphony one of the top five orchestras in the world.

    Orozco-Estrada, who is known for his enthusiastic conducting style, will lead two programs this weekend marking the conclusion of his three-season cycle of all nine Beethoven symphonies, which began in his inaugural season. The orchestra will perform and Symphonies No. 6 & 7 and a new, semi-staged production of Beethoven's Fidelio on March 31 and April 2.

    The announcement comes on the heels of the international release of the Houston Symphony’s and Orozco-Estrada’s most recent recording of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, part of a 3-disc series featuring Dvořák’s last four symphonies. It is Orozco-Estrada’s first commercial recording project with the orchestra.

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    Hodge Podge

    Houston artist bids farewell, for now, with career-spanning new exhibit

    Craig D. Lindsey
    Jun 18, 2025 | 10:29 am
    Robert Leroy Hodge Sanman Studios
    Courtesy of Robert Leroy Hodge/SANMAN Studios
    The exhibit shows a range of the artist's works.

    Artist Robert Leroy Hodge is saying goodbye to Houston – well, not exactly.

    The Houston-born multidisciplinary artist recently debuted his latest exhibit, Diamonds That Fall from the Treetop, at SANMAN Studios. Known more for his eye-catching, pop-art collages (in 2023, he collaborated with Austin artist Tim Kerr for the No Kings But Us exhibit at Blaffer Art Museum), this mini-retrospective will feature selected works from his two-decade career – including the early stuff.

    “A lot of kids think I only make collages,” Hodge tells CultureMap. “And, also, I'm not making collages anymore like that. So, it's like the end of an era. I show where I started with these portraits and real paintings and drawings and how I kind of got into collage. It's a wide range of things I do, not just collage.”

    Diamonds will also be his last exhibit in Houston, but he’s not moving away. Hodge will cut down on doing local exhibits and focus more on getting his art and his name out there in other parts of the world. He’s out to prove that serious art can come out of this place.

    “When I interact with politicians and people in higher positions, they treat local artists like they're secondary, they're not good enough,” he says. “[They say] ‘They're in Houston because they can't be in New York and LA,’ and that's not the case. I could be anywhere, and I chose Houston.”

    But Hodge wants to be known as an artist from Houston, instead of just in Houston. “There’s nothing wrong with being a local artist in your city, but that’s not what I want,” he says. “I live here, but for me to get to the next space I wanna get to, I need to be showing more in New York, LA, out the country. And it's nothing personal – when you do a lot of stuff here, you just can't keep doing the same thing. You start to feel stagnant.”

    As much as he loves both the city and its art scene, Hodge knows that the visual arts isn’t a high priority around here. “We are an oil-and-gas city,” he says. “And because that's the main way money is being made, arts and culture is not primary. And, then, the new mayor is not really into art. So, it's like it all depends on who loves art and who's in office.”

    Within city limits, Hodge says he will be more of a curator and mentor, helping young artists and working with galleries and studios on creating showcases for those artists and others. He also wants to continue collaborating with fellow art enthusiasts of color, like the folks at SANMAN.

    “I wanted to do it with SANMAN because it's owned by two young Black men,” he says. “They got a staff of Black creatives, and I wanted to really show cohesiveness between Black men.”

    But Hodge isn’t completely hanging up the idea of doing another big solo show in his hometown. “This is the last one for a while,” he says, “unless the Menil calls or something crazy happens.”

    -----

    Diamonds That Fall will be on display through Saturday, July 26.

    Robert Leroy Hodge Sanman Studios
      

    Courtesy of Robert Leroy Hodge/SANMAN Studios

    The exhibit shows a range of the artist's works.

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