Looking For the Next Beethoven In Houston — A Night Of Music, Wine and Art Champions Lifts Musiqa

The stunning McClain Gallery turned out to be the perfect backdrop for Musiqa’s Spring Benefit 2026, celebrating two of the Houston music organization’s most enthusiastic benefactors: Sallie Morian and Michael Clark. Patrons, musicians and music lovers who support Musiqa’s unique presentation of contemporary music poured into the light-filled space to honor the couple. It was a joyous gathering of conviviality, wine tasting and — of course — wonderful music.

Morian and Clark, both champions of art and music in Houston, first discovered Musiqa 15 years ago at a performance at the Miller Outdoor Theater. Clark had been looking to support an organization doing new music, and board member Mary Lou Swift drew the couple in.

Clark doesn’t hide his enthusiasm for new music — his face beams when he talks about it. A fundamental goal that drives him is to find the next Beethoven.

“They’re here,” Clark says. “We just have to be aware and encourage them.”

An interlude of three short pieces was performed by three of Musiqa’s core contributors — violinist Nanki Chugh, a multidisciplinary artist passionate about connecting music, science and narrative; cellist Caio Diniz, who joins his dedication to new music with deep roots in Brazilian folk music; and clarinetist Maiko Sasaki, memorable to many from her performances at ROCO, where she holds the Connie Pfeiffer chair.

Musiqa supporters took in the important and lyrical Donald Sultan exhibition on view, “New Mimosa Paintings,” and browsed silent auction offerings supported by Isabelle Asakura, Catastrophic Theatre, Nice Winery, Hamsa, Pamela Horton and Keiji Asakura, McClain Gallery, Chef Soren Pedersen, Texas Wine School, Mary Lou Swift, Nanako Tingleaf and Sandra Tirey, and Jan van Lohuizen.

Anthony Brandt is Musiqa’s co-founder and artistic director. An academic, composer and writer, he is one of Houston’s most prominent musical figures. In addition being a professor of composition and theory at the Shepherd School of Music, Brandt oversees Musiqa’s programming along with three other distinguished composers and professors — Karim Al-Zand and Pierre Jalbert of Shepherd and Marcus Karl Maroney of The Moores School of Music at the University of Houston. Together, they form Musiqa’s strategically aligned artistic board.

“Musiqa’s mission is to enrich and inspire our community through programs that integrate contemporary music with other art-forms,” Brandt says. “Through interdisciplinary collaborations and educational programming, Musiqa makes modern repertoire accessible to audiences of all ages and stretches the boundaries of concert-going.”

Musiqa’s dedication to youth and educational work is a longstanding priority. The goal, Brandt notes, is to “create opportunities for students to experience living art and nurture creativity in young people.”

Since its inception in 2002, Musiqa has performed interactive programs for more than 70,000 public school students and teachers as part of the Hobby Center’s Discovery Series, at no cost to the schools. Musiqa also offers composition workshops called MusiqaLab in area public high schools. Each year, several dozen students compose music for the first time.

Music lovers left the party in high spirits, if reluctantly. Several carried brightly wrapped packages from their success in the wine pull, the gala game of chance involving mystery bottles. Some — including this writer — may have been wishing to hear Hans Gál’s charming 1949 Serenade for Clarinet, Violin and Cello, played during the evening, one more time. I scribbled on my program “Like three friends coming out to play together.”

Whether through new music by living composers — such as Jessie Montgomery and Guillaume Connesson, both represented on the program — or an older work like Gál’s 1949 Serenade, which may have been new to a listener, the artistry of the three benefit musicians was just as Brandt likes to describs it.

“They make hearing a work for the first time a moving and treasurable experience,” he says.

PC Seen: Musiqa’s benefit host committe of Seth Stolbun, Kathleen Boyd, Martha Gannon, Heidi and David Gerger, and Linda Shearer; Musiqa board president Pamela Horton, board members Julia Sychuk and Ricardo Castillo, executive director Dawson White, and creative education director Nanki Chugh; Musiqa 2025 Catalyst Commission winner Jaylin Vinson; Celena and Jesse Espinosa; Or Shaham; Minnette Boesel; Houston Symphony’s Keoni Bolding; Nolan Hennessey; Hunter O’Brien; and Chris Ellis.

Musiqa will present a double feature with WindSync at Miller Outdoor Theater on Friday, September 4 at 8 pm. Admission is free. For more information, go here.