Houston Chamber Choir presents This Sky on Saturday, November 16th with special guest, NASA Astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson

Artistic Director Designate Dr. Betsy Cook Weber will conduct

Event will be held at at St. Philip Presbyterian Church at 7:30 p.m.

The Grammy® Award-winning Houston Chamber Choir, under the direction of Artistic Director Designate Dr. Betsy Cook Weber, presents This Sky for its November concert offering on Saturday, Nov. 16 at St. Philip Presbyterian Church with special guest NASA Astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson.  She will join the Choir for an interview segment, as well as helping to close out the concert with a special surprise collaboration.

Caldwell Dyson was selected as a NASA astronaut in 1998 and, most recently, launched to the International Space Station on March 23, 2024, as a flight engineer on the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft. She spent six months aboard the station as an Expedition 71 flight engineer, conducting science experiments and maintaining the space station.

Humans have always looked to the sky for answers to the big “Why?” And composers have done the same. The Houston Chamber Choir offers a stellar compilation of pieces that ponder the heavens. The centerpiece of this program, in addition to music by Heinrich Schütz, Venezuelan-Texan Carlos Cordero, Johannes Brahms, and others, is the breathtaking “Consolation of Apollo.”

Written in 2014 by American composer Kile Smith, “Consolation” has important connections to Houston, with texts pulled from the philosopher, Boethius, as well as from the astronaut crew of Apollo 8. Accompanied by breathtaking projections of images from and about space, this concert is sure to engage the imagination aurally and visually.

The Houston Chamber Choir is made up of 24 professional musicians of diverse backgrounds who hail from some of the finest music programs in the country, including Cleveland Institute of Music, New England Conservatory in Boston, Moores School of Music at the University of Houston, College Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati and the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. Members of the Choir have performed professionally across the United States and internationally, singing in festivals, operas, concerts, church choirs and in musical theater.

 The concert will be held at St. Philip Presbyterian Church, 4807 San Felipe St., Houston, TX 77056.

Single tickets for the performance range from $10 for students to $45 for general admission. Seniors and military personnel receive a discount. Tickets can be purchased online at www.houstonchamberchoir.org/2024-2025-season/this-sky. Parking and seating: first come, first served.

More information is available at their website at HoustonChamberChoir.org and follow @houstonchamberchoir on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

Photo credit: Jeff Grass Photography and NASA