Over the course of its 25 years, the Texas Medical Center Orchestra has earned national acclaim in becoming a fixture of the Houston musical community.

But how it got to this point can be traced to the vision of one woman—Libi Lebel, who moved to the Houston area in the late 1990s as an aspiring conductor and simply wanted to find a group to lead.

She had studied piano at Juilliard as an undergraduate, then found her passion for conducting during her graduate years studying at the Westminster Choir College and directing the Princeton University Sinfonia.

It was after moving to Houston when she remembered seeing an ad for a doctors’ orchestra in Philadelphia.

Why not apply the same idea in Houston? She was 26.

“I spoke to the dean of the University of Texas Medical School,” she said. “I said I wanted to start an orchestra.”

She then listed what she would need: “I said I needed free space, free parking, free photocopying, and I need you to send an email to the entire Houston Medical Center saying I’m hosting auditions.

“He said yes, yes and yes.”

About 100 people showed up to audition. In one afternoon, she had a full orchestra, including doubles on the winds.

“There were too many of these doctors who just wanted to play,” she said. “I accommodated them.”

Today, the Texas Medical Center Orchestra has about 75 regular musicians and is one of the nation’s leading community orchestras.  For six of the past eight years it has won the American Prize, earning special recognition for performances of works by American composers.

Along the way, the orchestra has expanded its mission to include education, charitable outreach and chamber performances in hospitals.

Last year TMCO had about 80 chamber ensemble concerts, with many taking place in hospitals.

Music and medicine

None of this happens without the deep well of musical talent in the Houston medical community.

In a broader sense, the Texas Medical Center Orchestra is another example of the connection between music and medicine.

Alexander Borodin, the 19^th century composer of symphonies and string quartets, was a medical doctor and chemist. Theodore Billroth, a famed surgeon and accomplished violist, was a close friend of Johannes Brahms, who dedicated the first two string quartets of Opus 51 to Billroth.

“Science and music scoop from the same well,” Billroth once said.

Then there are the many community orchestras that draw from the medical field. Philadelphia has several such orchestras, and there’s also the Yale Medical Symphony Orchestra, the Doctors Orchestral Society of New York, and the World Doctors Orchestra, to name a few. There is even a National Association of Medical Orchestras, which lists about 40 groups.

Lebel has seen the connection between medicine and music play out among her orchestra members.

“There is a creative aspect that doctors are very much into,” she said. “It also takes a lot of dedication and ambition to really practice. The act of practicing for adults, unless they make a living in music, is difficult.”

Dr. Daniel Musher, a violinist, is one such musician. He was a founding member and served as concertmaster for many years. He played in the orchestra until a few years ago and still practices medicine, specializing in infectious diseases and serving on the faculty of the Baylor College of Medicine.

Musher credits the orchestra’s success to Lebel’s ambition, energy and talent. It’s no accident, he said, that she took third prize out of 170 entrants in 2023 in the International Orchestra’s Conductor Competition in Romania.

“She really is passionate about the music,” Musher said. ‘A fair amount of the time she conducts without the score.”

The orchestra

The result is a thriving orchestra that performs four to five times a year. One concert is outdoors, at the Miller Outdoor Theater, with the rest held at Zilkha Hall in the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts.

The orchestra practices every Wednesday, with seven to eight rehearsals per concert.

“I don’t have to beg people to come,” she said. “They just come.”

About 10 members have been with the orchestra since the beginning.

Perhaps one reason is Lebel’s ambitious programming. Thanks to the orchestra’s size, it can perform larger works like the Mahler or Bruckner symphonies.

“We have 10 cellos, 12 violins in each section,” she said. “It’s a full-size orchestra.”

Lebel also brings creativity to her programming.

Last fall, one concert, “Voice of Resilience,” highlighted the struggles of homelessness and mental illness. A composition by Max Vinetz was commissioned, and the program also featured Symphony No. 4 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who coped with depression and mental illness.

The whole venture makes for a continuous need to raise funds, Lebel said. Staging one concert at the indoor venue and paying a soloist can cost $25,000.

Even with the cost, the TMCO board keeps the dues modest, around $100 a year.

For the rest, Lebel looks anywhere and everywhere for funds, including grants from the Texas Commission on the Arts and the Houston Arts Alliance.

The orchestra’s biggest fundraiser is an annual bicycle race. Known as the Gran Fondo, it’s also a fundraiser for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society—a charity that is close her since her father has fought MS for many years. The ride is in its 12^th year and covers 90 miles outside Houston. About 3,000 people participate.

Today, as the orchestra celebrates its 25^th anniversary, Lebel, who has three children with her husband, Neville Fleishman, can reflect on what she and the orchestra have achieved.

“I started the orchestra thinking it would be a starting gig,” she said. And her journey is not over.