HGO music director Patrick Summers will conduct; Michle Assaf is the concert's director. Roger Moore, the British actor and onetime star of the James Bond films, will serve as master of ceremonies.
The program will include excerpts from two important operas that premiered at HGO: Philip Glass's 1984 Akhnaten and John Adams' Nixon in China.
Tickets for the gala are $250 and $500, and include admission to the concert and a post-concert party.
The concert will be simulcast on two giant screens, one on the Ray C. Fish Plaza outside the Wortham Center in downtown Houston and the other at the Miller Outdoor Theatre, a venue in Hermann Park.
The HGO was founded in 1955 by conductor Walter Herbert, singer Edward Bing, and local cultural leader Mrs. Louis G. Lobit. After David Gockley became general director of the company in 1972, the company became one of the most influential and innovative in the United States. HGO has presented 32 world premieres, including the debuts of Mark Adamo's Little Women, Leonard Bernstein's A Quiet Place, Jake Heggie's The End of the Affair, and Carlisle Floyd's Willie Stark and Cold Sassy Tree.
