Tag: Seattle
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When I moved to Seattle in the summer of 2004, I had never seen a live opera. It wasn’t for lack of interest; classical music had taken hold of me during my student years in Iowa, and opera was part of that passion from early on. The first I ever heard was Salome, followed by…
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Originally published on Seen and Heard International I have heard the Seattle Symphony perform Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring countless times. This includes at least one performance each under the baton of its permanent music directors over the past two decades—from Gerard Schwarz’s unrelenting drive to Ludovic Morlot’s textural brilliance and Thomas Dausgaard’s focus on…
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Fantastic news from the Netherlands: Elena Dubinets has been named Artistic Director of the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Dubinets was a transformative force during her time at the Seattle Symphony, and now Amsterdam is about to see why. During her Seattle days, Dubinets brought fresh ideas to programming that made the Symphony not just good but great.…
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The election last week has been, to put it mildly, numbing. I made it through about a year of the first Trump administration before the despair set in. It was the Jesuits—thank you, St. Joseph and Seattle University—who helped keep my soul intact, offering me a lifeline of reflection and community. And, surprisingly, Leif Ove…
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Ludovic Morlot impressed again this week with a program that featured the smartly chosen Ameriques of Edgard Varese and Stravinsky’s classic ballet the Rite of Spring. As Morlot pointed out in the open rehearsal earlier in the week — Varese is to Stravinsky the way Beethoven is to Haydn. Ameriques’s homage to the Rite is…
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Listen boldly. This is the new motto for the Seattle Symphony. In only two concerts with his new orchestra, Ludovic Morlot is challenging audiences to do exactly that. Last weekend he began this season’s survey of Henri Dutilleux’s orchestral music with the composer’s violin concerto — Tree of Dreams. Violinist Renaud Capucon made his Seattle…
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By R.M. Campbell Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” is a fairy-tale set in an exotic land with good and evil clearly laid out and all sorts of magic generously sprinkled throughout the piece. It has held the stage steadily since its premiere in Vienna in 1791. The production closes the company’s current season. The first two…
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Cornish College is fast becoming Seattle’s center of daring, modern classical music performances. It is a rapid turn around for a college and a music program which identifies itself readily with John Cage, a composer critical to the growth of avant garde music in the United States. The school doesn’t boast a resident student orchestra…
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By Philippa Kiraly For the past year, Pacific Northwest Ballet’s artistic director, Peter Boal, dance historian Marian Smith, and Boal’s assistant and choreographic decipherer Doug Fullington, have been working on a restaging of the romantic ballet “Giselle” which goes back to the original score of composer Adolph Adam, original and extensive 1842 rehearsal notes, a…
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Orchestra Seattle will mount one of the classical music highlights of the spring – Bach’s epic St. Matthew Passion – this Sunday at First Free Methodist Church. As has been the case all season, a guest conductor will helm the orchestra. This week it is noted Bach specialist Hans-Jurgen Schnoor. Earlier in the week, I…