Best Bets: Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Stefanie Eskander and The Herricanes

Welcome to October! As arts
organizations continue to open their seasons, there is no shortage of things to
do. This week, we’ve got festivals, musical masterworks, world premiere dance
pieces, and some peeks back into history. Keep reading for these and more on
our list of best bets.

It’s that time of year again to get your
“opa” on as the 58th Annual Original
Greek Festival returns to Annunciation
Greek Orthodox Cathedral on Thursday, October 3, from 5 to 10:30 p.m. The
three-day festival promises live Greek music, tours of the Byzantine-style cathedral,
a gift shop, children and adult dance performances reflecting the culture and
costumes of particular regions, craft beer, Greek wine, and all the food you’d
want and expect – souvlaki, spanakopita, baklava, kourambiedes, and more. The
festival will continue from 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. on Friday, October 4, and
Saturday, October 5. Adult tickets will be available at the gate for $8, and
children 12 and under will be admitted free. Festival-goers can also take
advantage of free admission on Friday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Performance company Group Acorde will present its latest
evening-length program, Beat, at 8 p.m. on
Thursday, October 3, at the MATCH. The
program will feature three premiere dance works that draw inspiration from the
heart and the positive influence music and movement can have to alleviate the
effects of mental trauma on the physical body. Choreographer Roberta Paixao
Cortes, a co-founder of Group Acorde, recently told the Houston Press that she
hopes the program will be “a
journey we bring people on with us,” one that will allow the performers to
“connect
with you in a way that that is different from other ways you might have
connected throughout the week.” The program will be performed a second time
at 8 p.m. on Friday, October 4. Tickets can be purchased here for $22 to $32.

Houston
Symphony will open their season with a work dubbed the “ultimate
piece of Americana,” Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, more commonly known
as the New World Symphony, at Jones Hall on Friday, October 4, at 7:30 p.m. during Dvořák’s
New World. The program highlights
the work of Bryce Dessner and Bohuslav
Martinů in addition to Dvořák’s beloved work, which has been called “remarkable
for its sheer number of memorable tunes, nearly all of them are the sort that
you hum going home from the concert.” The concert will also be performed at
7:30 p.m. Saturday, October 5, and 2 p.m. Sunday, October 6. Tickets to the
in-hall performances are available here for $42 to $140. Saturday’s night show will also be livestreamed; access to the
livestream is available here for $20. 

The entire 16-member Kinetic Ensemble, a conductor-less
orchestra, will open its tenth concert season at the MATCH on Friday, October 4, at 7:30 p.m.
with Traditions
Reimagined. The program that finds composers transforming music from
its geographic and cultural context into something new. The program will
feature two works from Dutch composer Joey
Roukens, “In Transit” and Visions at
Sea, a musical voyage through Netherlands’ maritime past written for string
orchestra; two works from Turkish-American composer Erberk Eryılmaz, including one that
is a premiere of a new version of his Turkish folk music-inspired Piyanomun Düğümü from 2022; and
Brooklyn-born Alvin Singleton’s
2009 composition After Choice, which
references “one of the
pre-eminent musicians of 1970s free jazz,” violinist Leroy Jenkins. Tickets
for the concert are available here for $15 (student) to $30 (regular).

The Latinx experience takes center stage
at the MATCH on Friday, October 4, at
7:30 p.m. during La Vida Es
Cortos/Life Is Shorts Festival, a showcase of short plays and films
presented by local Latinx theater company TEATRX.
Marissa Castillo, one of the company’s co-founders, recently told the Houston
Press that pairing short films and plays is their “way
of introducing the Latinx community to a different form of storytelling,”
adding that people will “find
one story that resonates with them, at least one if not many…something is going
to touch you.” The festival will continue at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday,
October 5, and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, October 6, with performances for young
audiences also scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are pay-what-you-will
here,
starting at $10, with a recommended price of $25.

Fresh off the release of their ninth
studio album Swing Forever back in August, the three-time Grammy-winning salsa and Latin jazz band Spanish
Harlem Orchestra will come back to Houston on Friday, October 4, at 8 p.m.
when DACAMERA welcomes the 13-piece band,
led by pianist Oscar Hernández,
to the Wortham
Theater Center. Felix Contreras, co-creator and co-host of NPR’s Alt.Latino, has called the Spanish Harlem Orchestra “one
of the best out there,” saying “one
of the things that the Spanish Harlem Orchestra and Oscar Hernández in
particular specialize in are the horn arrangements -’cause they’re so vibrant.
They’re so rhythmic. They’re so sophisticated. You got to be a good player to
play in this band.” Tickets to the performance can be purchased here for $51 to $91.

Barbie, Cabbage Patch Kids, Rainbow
Brite, Popples, Polly Pocket, Trolls – they’re some of the most popular toys of
the ‘80s and ‘90s. And what do they have in common? The answer is Stefanie
Eskander, a longtime toy designer who will be stopping by the Houston Toy Museum on Saturday,
October 5, at 3 p.m. to talk about how toys are developed and her four decades
working and freelancing for classic toy companies like Mattel, Fisher-Price,
Tonka, Hasbro and more. Eskander’s visit also coincides with the Houston
Heights museum’s two-year anniversary weekend. You can purchase tickets for the
event, recommended for adults and those aged eight and up, here for $14 (with pay-their-age tickets available for kids). Currently, the museum
is also offering a special 2-for-1 admission option.

The Houston Herricanes were a team in
the National Women’s Football League (NWFL), the first full-tackle football
league for women. On Wednesday, October 9, at 7 p.m., you can catch The
Herricanes, a documentary from Olivia
Kuan, daughter of Herricanes safety Basia Haszlakiewicz, at River Oaks Theatre. Kuan has
said the story appealed to her “because
it was a lost piece of history that no one knew about,” adding that there “is
a great amount of strength involved in a bunch of women coming together to play
football. It’s like A League of Their Own but with this whole other layer to it because of the nature of the sport.”
Following the screening, stay for a Q&A with film subjects Haszlakiewicz
and Billie Cooper. Tickets to the screening can be purchased here for $10.16 to $12.93.

This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.