Dallas Symphony Orchestra

American-born Jacob Joyce leads the PSO in a French-themed program in November.

He currently serves as associate conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony, but has some history with North Texas, both as a conducting fellow previously with the Fort Worth Symphony and guest conductor with the Dallas Symphony.

He'll lead the PSO in Gershwin's American in Paris, Berlioz's overture to Benvenuto Cellini, Saint-Saëns' cello concerto with cellist Bennett Tsai, and a lesser-known piece by Francis Poling titled Les Biches.

Kind of what we call neoclassical in that it was written in the early 20th century, but... based on music that's much older.

Is that right? Like Houston Symphony.

Dallas Symphony.

Dallas Symphony.

Five years.

Yeah.

And I'm Ron Corning.

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra has a new creative director, and it's a familiar name to fans of the DSO.

Enrico Lopez-Yañez is also the principal conductor of Pops and Specials.

Emilio Alvarez with our sister station WRR sat down with Lopez-Yañez to learn more about him and what's in store for the current season.

Uh, w- so anything basically non-classical now falls under this new umbrella.

Uh, and the creative director side just allows me to grow my relationship with the organization and with the community and sort of be one of the critical thinkers in our organization, and expand upon the way that we're thinking about approaching symphonic music, and collaborating with not only the city of Dallas and all of our community partners, but also bringing in guest artists from other places and kind of expanding upon what we can do as an institution.

On the pops side of things, the DSO's upcoming season includes an Elvis-themed program, a concert with Broadway star Idina Menzel, a Día de los Muertos program, and even a program Lopez-Yañez created himself to honor the pop queens of the '90s and 2000s called Oops, I Sing It Again.

You know, Beyoncé, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, the girl groups like Spice Girls, Destiny's Child, TLC, so all the hits.

hold on

a second uh Dallas Symphony there's gotta be a Dallas Symphony I'm gonna look right now Dallas Symphony Orchestra I'm already on it I see a guy playing a violin they're doing a Harry Potter concert coming up do you like the Harry Potter

Kind of.

I got a lang lang here.

I was able to amuse myself.

And a couple of things, though, you're going to probably have to answer for later.

I did send you a link to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra so she can see a flautist play.

Oh, okay.

content.

In trade news, Dallas Symphony Orchestra has appointed friend of the show Enrico Lopez Yanez as creative director and principal conductor of Pops and Specials.

The three-year appointment begins this week.

Meanwhile, Houston Grand Opera has announced John Churchwell as the company's new head of music staff.

I've always been in music my whole life.

Since I was 12, I played the violin and I got to be in the Dallas Symphony a couple of times, which was amazing to be a part of that orchestra.

And then it just wasn't my gig.

And so I went straight into Red Dirt Country and then I found blues and I kind of mixed both.

I just talked to one of our outliers.

He actually performs in the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, if you can believe that.

I just thought that was amazing.

Yeah, he plays trombone in the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

Do you think you become world-class? Joe, I'm going to ask you this question.

I do want to answer from you.