Timothy Hester will perform works of German composer Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897). These musical gems—Opus 116, 117, 118, and 119 – were composed in the last five years of Brahms’s life. They represent the epitome of the character piece, a genre of composition he had refined over the decades that captures the deepest feelings of the human spirit.

To end each program, Mr. Hester will be joined by clarinetist Mark Nuccio performing one of the sonatas for clarinet and piano from Opus 120. Brahms composed these works for his friend Richard Mühlfeld, and through them brought the clarinet sonata form to new heights.

Timothy Hester is professor of piano and director of keyboard collaborative arts at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music.  He has performed internationally in solo and collaborative capacity.  Mr. Hester studied with Albert Hirsch at the University of Houston and earned a Master of Music degree at the Juilliard School, where he studied with Adele Marcus.

Mark Nuccio is the newly appointed principal clarinetist of the Houston Symphony and a new faculty member of the Moores School of Music. He was previously on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music and served as acting principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic. After study at the University of Northern Colorado, he earned his Master of Music degree at Northwestern University.