What, we’re already in Season 3?! - pianist, Yvonne Chen

…and we’re back!

It’s been a solid year+ since we last updated you all on our activities. After such an amazing first season of concerts all across Houston - Rothko Chapel, “Twilight Epiphany” Turrell Skyspace, the MATCH - as well as great recording and performance collaborations with composers Shih-Hui Chen and George Lewis, we knew that Houston made a place for us.

There were a lot of growing pains that we encountered almost immediately afterwards - our players were TOO GOOD and won orchestra and ensemble jobs all across the world. With half the ensemble moved on, we decided on two things:

  • We would use this setback as an opportunity to grow organically, giving more structure to group as we moved from “project” towards “organization”

  • Our ultimate goal would be to become a reason for great musicians to stay in Houston

Our second season thus became our true foundation of the group we have now.

With Harvey, we started the season late, but were able to spark curiosity and interest with Murder Mystery Madness at Galveston Artist Residency. Between my Ligeti-esque figurations divvied up in a Reich Piano Phase style on celeste and piano, hearing skin-tingling breath sounds from the wind players and bursts of Italian whisperings from our singer extraordinaire, the performance gave me renewed excitement and hope for Loop38’s future.

That same weekend, we hosted a retreat to truly talk through our goals and start thinking about ways to make it all happen. This was all funded by a Presser Graduate Music Award I’d received in the Spring, and has since proved to be integral to our beginnings.

Given the successes of our first season, we were lucky to have been presented by Musiqa on two of their season concerts and collaborate on performances with composer Matthew Burtner and his EcoSono Ensemble, Apollo Chamber Players, Kinetic Ensemble, and WindSync. Having all of these performance opportunities helped familiarize ourselves with other performers and recruit them to become a core member.

I am happy that due to these collaborations, procuring a couple grants, and the generosity of time, talents, and resources of the members of Loop38, we are able to start the third season having saved up all contributions from our initial fundraising campaign (!!!!). All of this will go towards starting our third season with personally crafted concerts of our own.

I am so grateful to our amazing core members and wonderful donors for getting us to where we are today. Thank you.

On behalf of Loop38, we look forward to continue bringing you exciting, unfamiliar, and new works that you remember from previous seasons, performed to the highest standards. Stay “in the loop” and see you at a concert soon!

-YC