Houston Symphony Orchestra/Christoph Eschenbach

Houston, Texas, home of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, is one of the major port cities of the United States (despite being several dozen miles away from the Gulf of Mexico, connected only by bayous and canals), a center of the U.S. petroleum industry, and the headquarters of NASA. The city's "can do" spirit shows itself in the interrupted history of what grew from a small, nearly amateur, orchestra to one of the best in the U.S. The person most responsible for the birth, rebirth, and development of the Houston Symphony Orchestra was a remarkable woman named Ima Hogg. She was...