Harmonia Stellarum Houston

05/01/2026

marketplace—sung.

In Priuli’s Alla fiera, vendors call out, compete, and pull you into the bustle of daily life. The madrigal at its most vivid, theatrical, and alive. From rehearsal for this Sunday’s A Madrigal Feast.

houstonarts houstonevents livemusic
rehearsal behindthescenes vocalmusic

04/11/2026

Our latest streaming single is out and available on all standard platforms! Link in comments!

02/11/2026

Meet Josef Antonín Štěpán—keyboard teacher to the young Marie Antoinette, and virtually unknown today. Yet among his works are remarkable treasures such as this sonata for violin and piano—an early example in which both instruments share the drama as equals. The music moves in the spirit of Sturm und Drang: sudden shifts, sharp contrasts, and emotional volatility. Clouds gather quickly—the tension tightens—and just as suddenly, the light breaks through again.

02/08/2026

The Harmonious Espresso is Harmonia Stellarum’s short-form video series—conversations over coffee about how we listen, play, and think about music.
In this episode, violinist Manami Mizumoto reflects on playing an original 18th-century violin and what historical instruments make possible. Rather than uniformity or standardization, these instruments invite difference: sharper beginnings, gentler endings, and a wide range of articulations that can feel almost like speech.
Manami speaks about sound as something shaped—by inflection, emphasis, and contrast—and about music as a way of staying in conversation with the past while addressing the same questions we still live with today: love, loss, curiosity, and community. Full episode on youtube!

01/09/2026

We’ve been getting to know our new fortepiano — how it blends with the ensemble and shapes the sound in the room. Each rehearsal brings us closer to the sound world Mozart knew and the one we’ll share with you.

01/06/2026

Rehearsals begin. This week, we start listening — learning how our new fortepiano speaks with the other instruments, how it carries in the room, and what it reveals when sound, space, and ensemble come together. Every rehearsal is a conversation, and this one begins with a remarkable instrument.

12/25/2025

Frohe Weihnachten! Merry Christmas! Buone feste! Feliz Navidad! Joyeux Noël!

0:00 Christoph Bernhard: Currite pastores (from Collection Gustaf Düben, Cod. 80)0:16 Johann Caspar Horn: Es begab sich aber (from Geistliche Harmonien)0:45 ...

12/23/2025

“Fear not — behold, I bring you great joy.”
In Johann Caspar Horn’s setting of the Christmas Gospel, the angel’s words are carried by music of clarity and warmth — joy proclaimed for all people.
From Geistliche Harmonien (Dresden, 1680)

12/22/2025

“Tam ardenter — so ardently.”
At this moment in Christian Geist’s Hymnus natalitius (c. 1670), God's love becomes the turning point of the Incarnation: love so intense that the order of the world is inverted in the divine infant: strength becomes weakness, immensity becomes small, the liberator is bound, eternity is born.

We were struck by how far Geist pushes the music here — harmony strained, intensity heightened. One of the most startling discoveries of our Advent program.

12/18/2025

This is what Advent sounds like to us.

Students from Texas City High School joined our ensemble and audience in singing “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen” by Michael Praetorius, creating a moment of harmony shared across generations.

These moments of communal singing remind us that Advent is not only something we hear, but something we experience together ✨