08/18/2026
✨ AURA Contemporary Ensemble is gearing up for another exciting season. Take a look at what’s on the horizon this fall!
October 2 | Signs of Life
AURA performs music that explores signs of life. Small musical ideas constantly evolve and gain intensity In Ned McGowan’s “Garden of Iniquitous Creatures” and are treated as “signs” to be interpreted and reacted to in Latvian composer Juris Karlsons’ “Zimes.” The entire creative life of a composer, the main character in Paolo Sorrentino’s film “Youth”, is represented in David Lang’s “simple song #3”, while the genesis of a poet’s creativity is explored in Sarah Kirkland Snider’s setting of Ivanna Yi’s poem “Chrysalis.” AURA also brings to life two new works by UH alum George Heathco, a Houston based composer, and Cynthia VanMaanen, Interlochen Arts Academy faculty. These are the first two of twelve composers who will be writing new works for AURA to celebrate the UH Centennial.
November 18 | Poetic
AURA presents music that expresses itself with heightened imagination, deep emotion, and sensory beauty. In “epithets”, New York City based composer Kate Soper seeks to discover if epithets – descriptive words or phrases that characterize the person or thing they describe – still convey their meaning when taken out of context. Using epithets from epic poetry as her source material she explores if music might aid or complicate in this endeavor. This program also includes new works by two of the twelve UH alum AURA has commissioned to celebrate the UH Centennial – Joel Love, Texas Southern University faculty, and Chad Robinson, director of the Texas New Music Ensemble – and current UH graduate student Caleb Hernandez, the winner of the 2025 Sarofim Composition Competition.
