Cypress Ridge High School Symphony Orchestra

Cypress Ridge High School Symphony Orchestra

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The Cypress Ridge High School Symphony Orchestra will present a Concert in the Howard Performing Arts Center.  The Orchestra is under the direction of Mr. Christopher R. Mustell, a 1996 graduate of St. Joseph (Michigan) High School.  The program will include The Abduction from the Seraglio by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Love Duet, from the Merry Mount Suite by Howard Hanson, Tonight, from West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein, and the Karelia Overture by Jean Sibelius.  The Holiday portion of the concert will include the Pas de deux, from the Nutcracker by Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky which will feature Southwest Michigan Harpist, Meg Rodgers and the Carol of the Drum by Katherine Davis which will be conducted by Mr. Steven L. Reed, retired St. Joseph High School Orchestra Director and former Lake Michigan Youth Orchestra Director.  Also featured will be a world premiere of the piece Dawn to Dusk, commissioned by the Cypress Ridge Orchestra and written by St. Joseph, Michigan composer James Kraus.

Located in Northwest Houston, Cypress Ridge High School is a part of the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District.  The Cypress Ridge High School Orchestra program has grown from a little more than 50 students grades 9-12 to over 150 students in the past seven years.  The Cypress Ridge Symphony Orchestra has consistently earned superior ratings (sweepstakes awards) at the University Interscholastic League’s (UIL) Concert and Sight-Reading Contest for the past five years in a row.  Simultaneously, in 2012 and again in 2014, the Orchestra earned best in class honors at different spring festivals in the great state of Texas.

Through a recorded audition submitted in March of 2015, the Cypress Ridge Symphony Orchestra was selected to perform at the 69^th Annual Midwest Clinic, an International Band and Orchestra conference, in Chicago, Illinois.  Cypress Ridge is among six international high school orchestras that will perform at the conference.  The performances on this tour in Berrien Springs, Michigan and in Chicago, Illinois, will mark the first concerts outside the state of Texas for this ensemble. 

This concert is free of charge to the public.