Aralee Dorough

Affiliate Artist in Flute

Aralee Dorough is currently principal flutist with the Houston Symphony Orchestra and first appeared as soloist with the HSO in 1992, at the beginning of her second season as principal. The occasion was the season's opening gala, and the piece was Mozart's Concerto in C major for Flute, Harp and Orchestra featuring internationally-reknown harpist Marisa Robles and led by then-Music Director Christoph Eschenbach. One year later she performed the Mozart concerto—the G major—with Eschenbach and the orchestra in Stude Hall in an all-Mozart wind concerto series. Dorough subsequently recorded that concerto for a triple CD set released in 1994 by IMP Records, and in January 2004, performed it in Jones Hall with the orchestra and current Music Director, Hans Graf.

In May 1999, Dorough premiered Bright Sheng's Flute Moon, commissioned by the Houston Symphony and broadcast live by PBS. Other solo appearances have included Quantz’ Concerto in G major with conductor Nicholas McGegen and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 with conductor Joshua Rifkin. An avid chamber musician, Dorough has played with the Houston Symphony Chamber Players and Da Camera Society of Houston. With the Houston Symphony Chamber Players, she has traveled throughout Europe and Japan and appeared at the Ravinia Festival, frequently in collaboration with Christoph Eschenbach at the piano. The Chamber Players’ recording of Schoenberg’s Woodwind Quintet for Koch International has been met with critical acclaim.

Dorough grew up in a musical family—her father is jazz artist Bob Dorough, composer of Schoolhouse Rock. She received her undergraduate degree in 1983 from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Robert Willoughby. She then studied with Thomas Nyfenger as a scholarship student at the Yale School of Music, winning the position of second flute in the Houston Symphony in 1985. She and her husband, oboist Colin Gatwood, have a son, Corin.