The Seattle Symphony’s 2018-2019 season is the last for Ludovic Morlot, who is moving on after eight successful and innovative years at the helm of Gramophone’s 2018 Orchestra of the Year. For his first subscription concert of the new season, Morlot juxtaposed short, emotive works by Debussy and Janáček with Beethoven’s towering Violin Concerto. Augustin Hadelich,…

For the 2017-2018 season, Berlioz’s comedic opera Beatrice and Benedict is receiving its Seattle Opera premiere. But in a sense, its Pacific Northwest debut is also a world ‘re-premiere’. Fusing Berlioz’s score with Shakespeare’s play, Much Ado About Nothing (on which the opera is based), the Seattle Opera created a new, English-language production (the original Béatrice et Bénédict is in French).…

An early 20th-century program from the Seattle Symphony and guest conductor Christian Măcelaru yielded inconsistent results. Each work was written between 1909 and 1936, yet harkens back to the lush Romanticism of the previous century in contrast to the prevailing modernism of the time. Măcelaru and Norwegian soloist Vilde Frang struggled with Elgar’s epic Concerto…

‘Brahms’ music resonates with something vibrant inside me. With his music I can feel exhilarated one moment, melancholic the next and everything in between as Brahms unfolds his musical storytelling. I feel alive.’ Thomas Dausgaard’s thoughts perfectly framed this all-Brahms program with the Seattle Symphony — the conductor’s first concerts since being announced in October…

Wedged within a corner of the country, Seattle is an unlikely place for a career to incubate. Geographically, the Emerald City is distant from the traditional culture capitals of the United States. Even its closest domestic peers and rivals—San Francisco and Los Angeles—are hundreds of miles away and more readily come to mind as centers…

Among the many treasures of the Seattle Symphony’s 2017-2018 season is the focus on Hector Berlioz, a favorite of Ludovic Morlot in his time as music director.  In previous seasons Morlot conducted La damnation de Faust and Roméo et Juliette—both memorable testaments to Morlot’s affinity for the composer. Symphonie fantastique is rightfully part of the standard concert repertoire. But…