Seattle Symphony Spotlight

Conrad Tao is the pianist, composer and new music champion who appears in two concerts presented by the Seattle Symphony this week. He spoke with KING FM Creative Director, Dacia Clay.  Conrad talks about his recital in Octave 9 on March 6 and his appearance at the SSO Celebrate Asia concert this weekend.  And he introduces us to a lesser known side of Aaron Copland.  Copland's outspoken activism as a gay man in early 20th Century America is often overshadowed by the composer's iconic and bucolic ballet music.

One of the themes of Seattle Symphony music director Thomas Dausgaard’s artistic life is his deep, joyful fascination with creativity and how music connects us all. Thomas speaks with KING FM’s Dave Beck about how that philosophy is reflected in the programming presented during the SSO’s 2020-2021 concert season. The new season has just recently been announced.

The Seattle Symphony’s critically acclaimed “untitled” series explores new music in the informal atmosphere of the lobby of Benaroya Hall. Concerts are Fridays at 10pm, and attract a mix of new music fans and concert hall first-timers, intrigued by the event that's more like a nightclub experience than a classical concert. Nathan Chan is assistant principal cellist of the Symphony and a player in the next “untitled” program on Feb. 28th. Here, Chan talks about the rewards and challenges of new music.

35 members of violinist Gidon Kremer’s family perished in the Jewish ghettos of Riga, Latvia during the Second World War. The Holocaust also took a devastating toll on the family of Polish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg. Weinberg’s music is rarely heard. But Gidon Kremer is making a powerful case in support of the Weinberg 1960 Violin Concerto. The work highlights Weinberg’s Jewish roots.  Weinberg’s father-in-law, the director of a Moscow Jewish theatre, was assassinated in 1948 on orders from Josef Stalin.

Each of the pieces on the Seattle Symphony program this week have very personal associations for Music Director Thomas Dausgaard. He led Grieg’s ”Peer Gynt Suite” at his professional conducting debut.  He was a young cellist in a Copenhagen youth symphony when he first played the Carl Nielsen First Symphony. And as he told Classical KING FM’s Dave Beck this week, his experience in the Russian dacha where Shostakovich once composed string quartets left a deep impression on the young conductor Thomas Dausgaard.

There are not too many people that a symphony orchestra can call when it loses the person who was supposed to be the violin soloist and conductor of the concert coming up. That happened to the Seattle Symphony this week. Fortunately the orchestra had Rachel Barton Pine's phone number. Rachel is a baroque music specialist--a violinist who is accustomed to both soloing and directing the ensembles she plays with. Rachel tells KING FM's Dave Beck about how the baroque bug bit her in a Chicago sheet music store when she was 14 years old.

Austrian violinist Thomas Zehetmair regularly pulls off the feat of both playing and conducting the Beethoven Violin Concerto. And he does that with a little help from his friends. Thomas tells KING FM's Dave Beck how he calls on musicians from inside the Seattle Symphony to help with a few conducting duties along the way. Plus, he tells the story of a little known and eccentric cadenza that Beethoven wrote for his violin concerto. Thomas Zehetmair is back in Seattle this week after a critically acclaimed debut with the orchestra in 2018.

Jean Efflam Bavouzet, this week’s guest pianist at the Seattle Symphony, has recorded the complete piano sonatas of Haydn, the complete piano concertos of Mozart, and all of the Prokofiev piano concertos. His passion for the piano might seem all-consuming. But Bavouzet finds time to savor everything from great jazz to the wonders of the world of model railroading. The energetic and effusive French pianist Mr. Bavouzet shares a fascination for miniature mechanical devices with one of his musical heroes, Maurice Ravel. He talks about jazz, trains, Beethoven and more with Classical KING FM’s Dave Beck.

Though she came from a family of distinguished music teachers, performing is the first love of Seattle Symphony Principal Second Violin Elisa Barston. She'll do plenty of performing in December and January when she solos with the SSO in the demanding Four Seasons Violin Concertos. She'll present versions by both Vivaldi and the Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla. On our Seattle Symphony Podcast, Elisa speaks with KING FM's Dave Beck about her upcoming first ever public performances of the complete Vivaldi Four Seasons and about the underappreciated role of the second violin section of the symphony orchestra.

Performing on an instrument made of ice, introducing a high-tech concert hall and taking musical inspiration from the worlds of dance and martial arts are all in a day's work for the cellist Seth Parker Woods. He's the first ever Seattle Symphony Artist in Residence at the new Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center in Benaroya Hall. A dedicated advocate of new music, Seth is also passionate about creating new opportunities for fellow African-American and Latinx musicians, woefully underrepresented in the world of "classical" music. Seth Parker Woods speaks with Classical KING FM's Dave Beck.

“Be Prepared” is not only a motto in the world of scouting, but it’s good advice for those who work as Associate Conductors of professional symphony orchestras. Lee Mills holds that position with the Seattle Symphony. When the orchestra’s music director, Thomas Dausgaard, was unable to conduct the season opening dress rehearsal due to illness, Lee stepped in to lead the rehearsal at the last minute. Lee grew up in the small city of Belgrade, Montana and began to pursuit music seriously after his physics studies didn’t quite work out how he had hoped. Lee Mills’ path as a conductor has taken him to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil where he’s served for the past 5 years as resident conductor of the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra. KING FM’s Dave Beck talks to Lee Mills on this edition of our Seattle Symphony Podcast.

A signature programming approach of Seattle Symphony Music Director Thomas Dausgaard is to collaborate with folk musicians in exploring the roots of symphonic music by composers like Rachmaninoff and Sibelius. This week’s SSO performances of Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” in Benaroya Hall are preceded by a 20 minute presentation exploring the folk roots of Stravinsky’s revolutionary 1913 ballet score. Dausgaard talks with Dave Beck about the performers of traditional folk music and dance who will be on the Benaroya Hall stage this week with the SSO. We’ll find out how these folk artists take us into the ancient sound world of Lithuanian folk music that Stravinsky studied in creating "The Rite of Spring."

For about a year, Seattle Symphony Principal Cellist Efe Baltacigil has been in conversation with Seattle-based composer Angelique Poteat as the two have collaborated on this week’s world premiere of Angelique’s new cello concerto. Angelique is a much admired clarinetist and composer with deep ties to the Seattle Symphony. She’s already had orchestral and chamber works performed by the players in the orchestra, and she’s participated over the years in the Seattle Symphony’s Merriman Family Young Composer Workshops. Her music has been heard not only in Seattle but throughout the United States and in Australia, Japan and across Europe. Efe Baltacigil talks with KING FM’s Dave Beck about Efe’s admiration for the craft and musicianship of this gifted young composer. Efe says Angelique has even woven Efe’s love for jazz and the art of improvisation into the new concerto.

Andy Liang, a member of the Seattle Symphony’s first violin section, wasn’t so sure how committed he was to music when it was time to decide where he would go to college. Andy had played in Carnegie Hall and appeared on the NPR Program From the Top in his teen years. So he had the talent to study pretty much anywhere he wanted. But his interests outside of music gave him second thoughts about where he saw his life going. That all changed when Andy found out about a violinist hero of his who was going to be teaching at Rice University in Texas. Andy took up that story with us when he visited recently at Classical KING FM and spoke with host Dave Beck.  

Augustin Hadelich returns to Benaroya Hall this week to play the Brahms Violin Concerto. In 2016, Augustin won the Grammy for Best Classical Instrumental Solo for his performance of Henri Dutilleux’s Violin Concerto, The Tree of Dreams, with the Seattle Symphony and Music Director Emeritus Ludovic Morlot. KING FM’s Dave Beck speaks with Augustin about his long association with the Brahms Violin Concerto, a work he first performed publicly when he was just 10 years old. We hear how Augustin Hadelich wrote his own cadenza for the Brahms Concerto, a piece he has recently recorded. We get an informative primer from Augustin on the tradition and history of the cadenza in famous violin concertos. And he talks about the challenges of writing a cadenza in the authentic style of Brahms. 

This week we hear from Peter Oundjian, who stepped in on short notice to guest conduct the Seattle Symphony. Oundjian is Conductor Emeritus of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, where he was music director for 14 years. He’s conducting the SSO this week in place of Cristian Macelaru who could not be here due to illness. Oundjian talks about his admiration for the music of Felix Mendelssohn as heard in the composer’s “Scottish” Symphony on the program this week. He tells Dave Beck about how his many years as first violinist in the Tokyo String Quartet inform his interpretation of symphonic music, and speaks on his recent return to the violin after a neurological condition forced him to put down the instrument in the mid-1990s.

Dave Beck speaks with guest conductor Masaaki Suzuki. Together with his son, Masato Suzuki, Masaaki has created a performing version of Mozart’s very last composition, the famously unfinished Requiem Mass. The piece was written by Mozart on his deathbed and it was left to his students and others to complete the work. Masaaki Suzuki leads the SSO, Seattle Symphony Chorale and vocal soloists in Benaroya Hall this week in an edition of the Requiem that the Suzukis put together from fragments of the music Mozart left behind. All three of the works on the program this week explore topics of mourning and loss. There are also works by Toru Takemitsu and Karl Amadeus Hartmann on the program.

Claire Chase was awarded the MacArthur Genius Grant in 2012 for her work, not only fostering the creation of new music, but for building organizations, forming community alliances and supporting educational programs reaching new audiences. That work is on display in Seattle this week when she is soloist with the Seattle Symphony and Music Director Thomas Dausgaard in the 2018 composition “Aello: Ballet Mecanomorphe” by Olga Neuwirth. It’s for flute, bass flute and an ensemble that includes tuned water glasses and a typewriter. Claire Chase gave the world premiere of the piece, an homage to the Bach Brandenburg Concerto Number 4, last year at the BBC Proms with Thomas Dausgaard leading the Swedish Chamber Orchestra.

This week in Seattle, Claire Chase also presents music by Marcos Balter as part of her innovative Density 2036 project. She explains more about this effort to generate new flute music, a project unfolding over a 23 year time span.

We meet the occupant of the Charles Simonyi Principal Horn Chair in the Seattle Symphony. Jeffrey Fair has been playing in the SSO since 2003 when Gerard Schwarz was music director. In 2013 he won the principal horn position during Ludovic Morlot’s tenure as music director. Jeff Fair tells KING FM’s Dave Beck about Jeff’s journey as a musician from a grade school child picking up the french horn for the first time in Oklahoma, to performing the pinnacle horn solos of the symphonic repertory with one of the world’s finest orchestras, the Seattle Symphony.

Daniel Muller-Schott played the Dvorak Cello Concerto with the SSO in September, 2019. Born in Munich, Germany in 1976, Daniel Muller Schott came to international attention as a teenager winning the Tchaikovsky International Competition at age 15. That achievement brought him to the attention of the great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. Daniel talks with us about a year he spent following Rostropovich around the world and studying with the great Slava. Daniel learned that if Rostropovich wanted to give you a cello lesson at 2 in the morning, you woke up and took that lesson.