BIO
The special oral history collection is created in response to COVID-19 that started in February 2020. Jerry Hou, our Rice University's own faculty and conductor at the Shepherd School of Music, originally from Taiwan, leads the university's contemporary ensemble and works with the symphony orchestra, chamber orchestra, chamber music program, and opera. He is a founder and artistic director of the music series, Hear&Now . He conducted a broad range of repertoire from classical to contemporary, leading projects in a variety of settings including orchestra, opera, theater, multimedia, and mixed ensemble. Hou made his mark in concert halls and opera houses in the United States and abroad, such as the Dallas Symphony, Houston Symphony, Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke's, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, amongst others. Last summer, Hou lead to much acclaim the opening concerts of the Grand Teton Music Festival, in a program of Copland, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Rachmaninoff's First Piano Concerto with renowned soloist Daniil Trifonoff. For three summers, he served as Associate Conductor of the Grand Teton Music Festival. This past spring, Hou led performances of a new collaboration between composer Steve Reich and artist Gerhart Richter to commemorate the opening of New York City's new performing arts space and center for artistic invention, The Shed. He worked at the Lincoln Center Festival with Gorillaz members Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, director Chen Shi-Zheng, and Ensemble Signal with Brad Lubman, on the opera "Monkey Journey to the West". Hou returned to Lincoln Center to make his conducting debut with Ensemble Signal for the American Songbook: Steve Reich and Stephen Sondheim in Conversation. A leading interpreter and conductor of contemporary music, he has collaborated with internationally acclaimed composers including Steve Reich, John Adams, Steve Stucky, George Lewis, Bernard Rands, Gyorgy Kurtag, Helmut Lachenmann, Unsuk Chin, Brett Dean, Mark Anthony-Turnage, James MacMillan, John Luther Adams, Aaron Jay Kernis, Melinda Wagner, and Peter Ea?tva?s.