Houston's Weekend Planning Guide Weekend Fridays

Join Bob with your family or friends for a magical evening that will kick off the holidays in style. You’ll be able to enjoy your favorite holiday standards, but don’t worry, you’ll also be dancing in your seats to Bob’s other hits! With special guest Lex Lund and other surprises!

One thing Schneider has excelled at in his career is bringing audiences back. Though he has received little national press or major label support, he has managed to become one of the biggest acts in Austin, if not in Texas. His fans, who often discover him from being brought to his shows by their friends, are fiercely loyal. Many have attended dozens or even hundreds of shows. Thanks to these fans, Schneider has won more Austin Music Awards than any other musician, including Best Songwriter, Best Musician, and Best Male Vocals, rounding in at 54 total awards to date.

Take advantage of Black Friday with a cheap getaway! Just enter code BFRIDAY40 for up to $40 off our fees on flights!

Singer-songwriter Brian McKnight for years has been turning out chart-topping and being nominated for numerous music awards. This weekend McKnight and Sebastian Mikael will be in Southwest Houston at The Arena Theatre.

One of the most consistent and enduring adult contemporary R&B artists, Brian McKnight jumped in toward the end of the new jack swing era with his platinum debut Brian McKnight (1992), and he's maintained a devoted fan base ever since, all the way through Exodus (2020), billed as his final album of all-original material. Whether writing and producing on his own or working with the likes of Diddy, the Underdogs, and Tim & Bob, McKnight has enjoyed moderate commercial success -- highlighted by four consecutive Top Ten albums for Motown -- without ever quite becoming a superstar. This, along with a down-to-earth personality and a catalog heavy on engaging and predominantly mellow material, has helped McKnight longevity. The singer holds a Grammy record for 17 nominations without a win.

Tchaikovsky’s music has always had great appeal for the general public in virtue of its tuneful, open-hearted melodies, impressive harmonies, and colourful, picturesque orchestration, all of which evoke a profound emotional response. His oeuvre includes 7 symphonies, 11 operas, 3 ballets, 5 suites, 3 piano concertos, a violin concerto, 11 overtures (strictly speaking, 3 overtures and 8 single movement programmatic orchestral works), 4 cantatas, 20 choral works, 3 string quartets, a string sextet, and more than 100 songs and piano pieces.

This weekend The Houston Symphony under the direction of conductor, Fabien Gabel and violinist Simone Lamsma will present his work durning this holiday weekend.

Britannica.com says at age four Tchaikovsky made his first recorded attempt at composition, a song written with his younger sister Alexandra. In 1845 he began taking piano lessons with a local tutor, through which he became familiar with Frédéric Chopin’s mazurkas and the piano pieces of Friedrich Kalkbrenner. Since music education was not available in Russian institutions at that time, Tchaikovsky’s parents had not considered that their son might pursue a musical career. Instead, they chose to prepare the high-strung and sensitive boy for a career in the civil service.

The Houston Ballet brings back The Nutcracker to the Wortham Center this year after the covid hiatus.

The ballet's marketing people tells us, "Bring the family back to the theater to share the joy of Clara’s magical journey to the Kingdom of Sweets this holiday season! Stanton Welch’s The Nutcracker is a grand spectacle of opulence and one of the most splendid versions of this holiday classic ever staged. With hundreds of roles and a myriad of exquisite details that will leave you discovering something new in every performance, Welch’s The Nutcracker is a positively joyous treat for ballet lovers of all ages. Rejoice in the return of this time-honored tradition!"

The Nutcracker we all know has become a holiday favorite and was created in 1892 as a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Op. 71). The libretto is adapted from E. T. A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King".

Tchaikovsky's score has become one of his most famous compositions. Among other things, the score is noted for its use of the celesta, an instrument that the composer had already employed in his much lesser known symphonic ballad The Voyevoda.

His latest album Zombies On Broadway is a follow up to the eponymous album that produced the smash single, “Cecilia and the Satellite,” which became a Top 5 hit across both Alternative and AAA radio, Top 10 hit at Hot AC and which also climbed up the Pop chart. “Cecilia and the Satellite” found great commercial success having been featured on FOX's "Red Band Society" trailer, MTV's "Real World," and the TV promo for Warner Bros. Pictures’ film PAN. McMahon performed the single on “CONAN” and on “TODAY.” Most recently, he completed a massive summer tour across North America with Weezer and Panic! At The Disco. The lead single off the new record, “Fire Escape,” flew up the Alternative radio chart reaching Top 10 at Alt Radio and Top 5 on Billboard’s Alternative Song chart. His current single, “So Close,” is climbing Top 30 at Alt radio.