ANDREW SCHNEIDER

A native of Houston, ANDREW SCHNEIDER is a pianist and vocal coach whose virtuosic technique and interpretative daring has cemented his reputation among clients as a fearless musician. His extensive collaborative activity encompasses early music, standard operatic and art song repertoire, as well as contemporary music. Proficient in Italian, German, French, Latin - and especially adept in less frequently encountered languages, such as Russian - Andrew enjoys using his considerable linguistic skill to help make challenging texts accessible to his clients. Andrew’s wide ranging musical activities also includes harpsichord and organ performance, composition, and conducting.

    Andrew holds a B.Mus., summa cum laude, in music composition from Rice University, and in 2009, was a finalist in the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Competition. Since 2012, Andrew has been regularly employed as a church organist around Houston; he has also functioned as a staff accompanist at Lone Star College Kingwood and Houston Community College since 2014. Andrew has frequently played harpsichord continuo, including for Mercury Houston and for period-instrument chamber ensemble La Speranza, as well as with the Lawson Ensemble in Jacksonville, Florida, for performances of Handel’s Messiah and Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers under Cara Tasher. Other ensembles have included the San Antonio Symphony, the Kingwood Chorale, and the Woodlands Chorale. He has also played piano for several chamber and vocal performances with the Texas New Music Ensemble, including in touring performances at SFA University, Nacogdoches.
    

For Mercury Houston, a period instrument ensemble, Andrew regularly plays harpsichord continuo, and has participated in several performances for the Houston Early Music Festival. As a continuo player,  Andrew has also played Handel’s Messiah with the San Antonio Symphony and the Kingwood Chorale, as well as Haydn’s Creationwith the Woodlands Chorale.

More recent highlights have included a summer 2021 concert of Polish vocal and piano music sponsored by the Consulate of the Republic of Poland, Houston, and the kickoff concert of the French Cultures Festival sponsored by the Consulate of the French Republic, Houston.

In the field of opera, Andrew has served as music director for a production of Sweeney Todd and has coached Ariadne auf Naxos for the Kingwood Summer Opera. Andrew has also served as music director for Lone Star Lyric Theatre's production of Victor Herbert's Madeleine, and rehearsal pianist for the Houston Gilbert and Sullivan Society's production of A Topsy Turvy Mikado. Other operas Andrew has coached include Rita, L’heure espagnole, L’italiana in Algeri, and La scala di seta and Zanetto for Operativo Houston, as well as Hansel and Gretel. For a 2016 Pittsburgh production, Andrew also coached the leading role in Die schweigsame Frau. Recently, Andrew has worked with HGOco, Houston Grand Opera's community outreach initiative, to assist in coaching singers for performances of Kamala Sankaram's Monkey and Francine in the City of Tigers, Mary Carol Warwick's Cinderella in Spain and Donizetti's The Elixir of Love.    

In his spare moments, Andrew enjoys history, literature, linguistics, cartography, and mystery novels, all interests upon which he is apt to draw for his renowned store of indelible anecdotes.