The Houston Symphony Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski

Houston, Texas, is one of the major port cities of the United States (despite being several dozen miles away from the Gulf of Mexico and connected to it only by bayous and canals), a center of the U.S. petroleum industry, and the headquarters of the American space agency, 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 who is most responsible for the birth, rebirth, and development of the Houston Symphony Orchestra was a remarkable woman named Ima Hogg. She ...