Seattle – Page 2 – Gathering Note

Trisha Brown Company returns to the NW

By R.M. Campbell

It now has become a commonplace to note that the Northwest has been particularly fertile ground for choreographers. Robert Joffrey, Merce Cunningham and Mark Morris have powerful Seattle roots. The city would like to claim the fourth, Trisha Brown, but somehow she managed to skip Seattle on her way from her hometown of Aberdeen (like the painter Robert Motherwell), stopping in the Bay Area for Mills College and a couple of years in Reed College in Portland before arriving in New York where she has lived most of her life.

But she remembers the Northwest and feels a sense of kinship when she is in Seattle. It is a connection she never left.
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Don Juan—er, Don Giovanni—is alive and well in the 21st century

By Philippa Kiraly

Mozart knew what he was about when he chose the Don Juan story for his opera “Don Giovanni.” The character lives, today as much as he has through the ages, the seductive rake without conscience or regard for the consequences of his actions.

The opera is invariably popular. The current production, mounted by Seattle Opera’s Young Artists Program and performed at the Theatre at Meydenbauer Center, is set today, in a seedy little cafe somewhere in Southern Europe, where the entertainment is old, very old, movies from the silent era which play much of the time on the back screen.
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Portland Baroque presents Bach’s St John Passion as part of Handel Festival

By Philippa Kiraly

We don’t often have the opportunity to hear either of the great Bach Passions, so we owe a big vote of thanks to the Early Music Guild for bringing us a stellar performance of the St. John Passion by Portland Baroque Orchestra, Les Voix Baroques, and Cappella Romana, Sunday afternoon at Town Hall.

Monica Huggett, violinist and artistic director of Portland Baroque, chose to perform it with a small orchestra of fourteen and small chorus of twelve.which included the soloists. While this Passion is shorter than the St. Matthew, two and a quarter hours including an intermission, this puts quite a burden on the singers who stood throughout, particularly tenor Charles Daniels, who sang all the chorales and choruses as well as the demanding role of the Evangelist.
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Don Quichotte takes the Seattle Opera stage

By R.M. Campbell

A 101 years since its premiere in Monte Carlo, Massenet “Don Quichotte” finally made its way to the exotic Northwest where Seattle Opera opened a new production of this “heroic comedy” this weekend at McCaw Hall.

Although the company has traversed a good share of the Massenet canon, plus a couple of rarities thanks to Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge, it had never approached his last work, written only a few years before his death in 1912. It did not attempt to break new ground; rather it presented a production that was often subtle, often striking and allowed the luxurious perfume of the composer’s music a chance to breathe. Two excellent casts were assembled for performances Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, continuing through March 12.
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Auburn Symphony’s Nordic Spring

By Philippa Kiraly

Grieg the Norwegian and Sibelius the Finn dominated last weekend’s concert by the Auburn Symphony. On Saturday night at the Auburn Performing Arts Center what came across most strongly was the host of dark colors those two composers evoke.

Building a portrait with each work they played, the orchestra and conductor Stewart Kershaw brought out those colors and the concomitant emotions to create a kaleidoscopic whole.

They began with Grieg’s “Peer Gynt” Suite No. 1, continued with his little tone poem “The Last Spring, “and followed that with his “Sigurd Jorsalfar” Suite. After intermission, turning to Sibelius, they played his big Symphony No. 2.
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The Five: Margriet Tindemans, Artistic Director of the Medieval Women’s Choir

In advance of next weekend’s Medieval Women’s Choir concert — A Voice of Her Own — at St. James Cathedral, Margriet Tindeman’s agreed to participate in The Five. A Voice of Her Own brings together music from the pen of a number of women composers. The program will feature pieces by local talents Karen Thomas (Seattle Pro Musica), Sheila Bristow, and Margriet Tindemans as well as works by Hildegard of Bingen.

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SSO “Viola Spectacular” opened Thursday at Benaroya

By R.M. Campbell

One often does not know how a particular symphony program comes into being. Take what the Seattle Symphony Orchestra is calling “Viola Spectacular with Pinchas Zukerman.” The first of three concerts was Thursday at Benaroya Hall. Does the idea belong to SSO music director Gerard Schwarz, the soloist or was it a collaboration of the two men? The end result was Zukerman as viola soloist in two works and conductor in one.

Zukerman, as violinist and violist and conductor, in that order, has been plying these waters for several decades. He is now in his early 60s. He has always been a musician of effortless grace, full-bodied technique, a virtuoso in any sense of the word. He was among the first of major instrumentalists to seek the podium. He still plays dozens of concerts every year in a good share of the world. leads his own chamber ensemble, is principal guest conductor of the Royal Philharmonic and guest conducts a fair number of others.
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Alissa Firsova Clarinet Concerto, “Freedom”

By Peter A. Klein

The Northwest Sinfonietta’s February program “Mozartiana” featured a world premiere—the Clarinet Concerto “Freedom,” by Alissa Firsova, written for Seattle Symphony clarinetist Laura DeLuca. The concert was heard Friday night, February 11 at Benaroya Recital Hall, with performances on Saturday and Sunday at Tacoma’s Rialto Theater and in Puyallup.

Firsova was born in Moscow in 1986. Her parents are the noted Russian composers Elena Firsova and Dmitri Smirnov. The family emigrated to England in 1991, where Alissa completed her musical education. She is both a composer and an accomplished pianist. A sampling of her music can be found on YouTube.
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Peter Serkin returns to Seattle for Messiaen and Mozart

By R.M. Campbell

The Seattle Symphony program had plenty of merit — Ravel, Messiaen, Mozart and Brahms — and so did the playing and conducting Thursday night at Benaroya Hall. Douglas Boyd was the conductor and pianist Peter Serkin the soloist. The Scottish conductor is new to Seattle, Serkin is not.

The young conductor has a career that is ever widening, beginning in United Kingdom and expanding to the continent and North America. He is music director of the Manchester Camerata, principal conductor of the Musikkollegium Winterthur and principal guest conductor of the Colorado Symphony and City of London Sinfonia. Little wonder. He demonstrated Thursday in Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin” how he can create vibrant textures, clarity and balance and readily evoke the 18th century along with the 20th. The Ravel had remarkable restraint and balance in which everything had its place. The reading sustained admirable evenness. Ben Hausmann’s oboe solo was notable.
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Brahms, Brahms and more Brahms

By Philippa Kiraly

Last year at Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Winter Festival, one of the concerts was devoted to Schumann’s Piano Trios. It was such an enlightening and successful performance that artistic director Toby Saks asked the same three players to do a similar concert at this year’s festival with Brahms’ Piano Trios. The result was Friday night’s concert at Nordstrom Recital Hall.

In the pre-concert recital, pianist Alon Goldstein linked the two concerts with comments on the connections between the Schumanns and Brahms and the Schumanns’ reaction, as they wrote it themselves, when the young Brahms first came to their house to play for them. Then Goldstein played one of the pieces Brahms had performed on that occasion: the Scherzo in E-Flat Minor, Op. 4.
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