The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts announces Jalen Baker, Musiqa, and Harrison Guy featuring Urban Souls Dance Company for the 2026-2027 Houston Is Inspired Series, showcasing new and bold performances rooted in Houston’s stories, culture, and creative spirit. Single tickets as well as three-show ticket packages on sale now.
Reflective of the Hobby Center’s commitment to be an active partner in strengthening Houston’s arts ecosystem, the organization continues to invest in local artists and serves as a portal for audiences to discover something new, unexpected, and distinctly Houston.
“We believe great cities are shaped by the artists who give them voice, imagination, and meaning,” said Deborah Lugo, Vice President of Programming and Education at Hobby Center. “That spirit was reflected in the remarkable response to Houston Is Inspired call for proposals, which received 70 applications from artists and organizations across Greater Houston, an increase of more than 40 percent from last year’s program cycle. This speaks to the extraordinary creative energy and cultural dynamism of our city.”
Kicking off the new season is a mainstay on the international jazz scene, Houston’s own Jalen Baker with RePaved playing Dec. 4, 2026, in Zilkha Hall at the Hobby Center.
The series continues with two performances in Zilkha Hall: Contemporary music ensemble Musiqa presents Looking Back, Looking Forward on March 19, 2027, followed by Harrison Guy featuring Urban Souls Dance Company on April 24, 2027, with Gentrified: Where have all the porches gone?, a performance exploring Houston’s historic Black neighborhoods, memory, change, and the communities shaping the city’s evolution.
On this season’s recipients Lugo said, “This year’s projects reflect powerful themes shaping Houston today: history and cultural legacy, innovation and new creation, neighborhood identity, and the importance of human connection. From honoring the stories of our historic wards, to premiering new works that engage with urgent issues, to creating space for dialogue across neighborhoods, these residencies show the many ways art can bring people closer. Each project is distinct, yet collectively they form a vivid portrait of Houston as creative, diverse, thoughtful, and always evolving.”
Houston Is Inspired celebrates and amplifies the work of local artists and organizations through week-long residencies, offering access to the Hobby Center’s premier spaces, professional production support, and marketing resources.
Selected artists and organizations for the 2026-2027 Season will receive comprehensive production, administrative and promotional support including a $20,000 stipend to help fund the creation and development of their performance. They will receive five days of full access to Zilkha Hall comprised of the stage, dressing rooms, technical equipment, production staff for rehearsals, tech and final performance as well as community engagement support through the education department. Additionally, a marketing investment from the Hobby Center alongside a project-specific promotional plan will be created and executed in partnership with the artist/organization. Each week-long residency is valued at over $60,000 in support of the project.
The Houston Is Inspired series logo and mural, on display in Zilkha Hall, were created by artist GONZO247 for the Hobby Center, reflecting Houston culture and drawing from a visual theme in his mural at Market Square Park.
The Hobby Center’s Houston Is Inspired 2026-2027 Series Performances in Zilkha Hall
Jalen Baker | RePaved | December 4, 2026
RePaved brings the stories of Houston’s Third, Fourth, and Fifth Wards to life through a new suite of jazz music featuring a 9-piece chamber ensemble. Drawing on histories like Freedmen’s Town and Juneteenth, RePaved connects past and present, revealing how these communities continue to shape the city we know today.
Musiqa | Looking Back, Looking Forward | March 19, 2027
Looking Back, Leaping Forward celebrates Musiqa’s 25th anniversary with a double bill of new chamber operas exploring memory, change, and the choices that shape our lives.
Iphigenia by composer Anthony Brandt and librettist Neena Beber reimagines a Greek myth in a contemporary setting, where a proposed wind energy project becomes a flashpoint for a community navigating uncertainty. When shifting conditions force a reversal, the work explores the tension between progress and short-term comfort, asking what we’re willing to give up, and who ultimately bears the cost.
In Follow the Sky by Pierre Jalbert and Stephanie Fleischmann, a philosophy student is haunted by the music of an aging violinist, whose playing permeates the apartment building where they live. Inspired by HP Lovecraft’s The Music of Erich Zann, this meditation on music as a lifeline in the face of fractured memory explores the trauma of displacement and the meaning of home.
Harrison Guy featuring Urban Souls Dance Company | Gentrified: Where have all the porches gone? | April 24, 2027
Gentrified: Where have all the porches gone? is a multidisciplinary performance that centers the porch as a vital gathering place in Black communities, where neighbors connected, stories were shared, and everyday life unfolded in full view. Through dance, spoken word, and storytelling, the work brings forward voices from seven historic Black Houston neighborhoods: Fourth Ward, Fifth Ward, Third Ward, Independence Heights, Sunnyside, Acres Homes, and South Park.
As porches disappear and communities face change, Gentrified: Where have all the porches gone? reflects on what those spaces made possible—connection, visibility, and care—while asking what it means to carry that spirit forward today.
TICKETS: Single tickets start at $20. Three-show packages start at $49 and are available online and in person at the Hobby Center Box Office (800 Bagby, Houston, TX 77002).
Sponsors for the 2026-2027 Houston Is Inspired series are Gene and Debbie Straka.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Jalen Baker has been lauded as “A bold new vibraphonist in Jazz town who warrants an ear with a promising career” by Downbeat Magazine. A graduate of Columbia College Chicago with a MFA from Florida State University he is also an alumnus of Houston’s famed performing arts high school HSPVA. Jalen has gone on to become a mainstay on the international jazz scene performing often with notable bandleaders such as Jeremy Pelt, Johnathan Blake, Ulysses Owens Jr. Tim Warfield and many others. He is also an accomplished composer/bandleader in his own right with The Jalen Baker Quartet. With the release of Baker’s first album in 2021 “This Is Me, This Is Us” and his second album in 2023 “Be Still” he earned worldwide recognition from various Jazz Publications such as Downbeat, UK Jazz Journal, Texatura, JazzIZ, and Stereo Gum. Jalen is also recognized as a rising star in Downbeat Magazine’s Critics Poll and was included in Houston City Book’s Leaders and Legends series. In addition to an often robust touring schedule Jalen is also an educator and adjunct professor at Texas Southern University who uses both his classical percussion training as well as his jazz training to guide even younger musicians who may aspire to make playing jazz their career choice.
Musiqa is Houston’s creative convergence point for new music, bringing together artists, ideas, and disciplines—from dance and theater to neuroscience and AI—to create work that reflects the world around us. Since 2002, Musiqa has performed works by more than 300 living composers, presented more than 100 world premieres, and commissioned 50+ new works in collaboration with artists across disciplines.
Rooted at the Hobby Center with nearly 150 performances in Zilkha Hall since 2004, Musiqa has grown into a nationally and internationally recognized organization, with awards from Chamber Music America, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and New Music USA, and a presence that has reached as far as the French-American Cultural Exchange and the UN’s AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva.
Harrison Guy is a Houston-based choreographer, educator, and cultural leader whose work centers on Black history, identity, and community. He is the founder and artistic director of Urban Souls Dance Company, where he has spent more than two decades creating movement-driven work that reflects memory, spirit, and lived experience. A graduate of Prairie View A&M University, his choreography has been presented on national stages, including Carnegie Hall, and in collaboration with institutions like Houston Ballet Academy.
Beyond performance, Guy leads cultural initiatives across Houston as Director of Arts and Culture for the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation, where he advances the city’s African American Heritage District and stewards the historic DeLUXE Theater. He is the founder of Black Arts Movement Houston and the African American Dance Festival and serves on the faculty at Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. A Dance/USA Fellow and NAACP Image Award–nominated producer, Guy continues to create work that connects art, community, and place.