Second Inversion and the Live Music Project create a monthly calendar featuring contemporary classical, cross-genre, and experimental performances in Seattle, the Eastside, Tacoma, and places in between!
If you’d like to be included on this list, please submit your event to the Live Music Project at least six weeks prior to the event and tag it with “new music.”
November-2019-New-Music-Flyer
Wayward Music Series
Concerts of contemporary composition, free improvisation, electroacoustic music, and sonic experiments. Coming up: acoustic portraits, immersive winds, sonic geometry, and “unofficial music.”
Various days, 7:30/8pm, Good Shepherd Chapel | $5-$15
Emerald City Music: ‘In the Dark’
Get lost in the dark as Emerald City Music performs the spine-tingling music of Georg Friedrich Haas in total pitch-black darkness. The hour-long string quartet, titled “In iij Noct,” features the four musicians stationed in the four corners of the venue, surrounding the audience and immersing them in Haas’s haunting aleatoric score.
Fri, 11/1, 8pm & 10:30pm, 415 Westlake | $45
Sat, 11/2, 7:30pm, Washington Center for the Performing Arts (Olympia) | $28-$43
Seattle Modern Orchestra: Norwegian Odyssé
The mystic sounds of Norway come alive in this concert featuring five U.S. premieres by Norwegian composers, including Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi’s chilling The child who became invisible for soprano, percussion, and electronics and Knut Vaage’s epic Odyssé for sinfonietta.
Sun, 11/3, 1:30pm, National Nordic Museum | $10-$30
Music of Remembrance: Passage
While a political prisoner at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in the 1940s, Aleksander Kulisiewicz dared to write poetry and music right under the noses of his Nazi captors. Hear composer Paul Schoenfield’s Pulitzer-nominated setting of Kulisiewicz’s biting poetry, plus world premieres by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Shinji Eshima.
Sun, 11/3, 4pm, Nordstrom Recital Hall | $30-$55
Seattle Symphony: Kate Soper in Recital
The line between live and pre-recorded sound begins to blur in Kate Soper’s immersive recital of original works for voice and electronics. Joined by sound artist Sam Pluta, Soper mines the expressive potential of the human voice.
Sun, 11/3, 6pm, Octave 9 | $25
Gamelan Pacifica: Vocal Music of Central Java
Drums, metallophones, and a wide array of tuned gongs are among the instruments you’ll see onstage during a traditional Javanese gamelan performance. Since 1980, Gamelan Pacifica has been performing traditional and contemporary gamelan music with dance, theater, and puppetry. For this performance, they’re joined by Javanese artists Ki Midiyanto and Heni Savitri.
Sun, 11/3, 7pm, PONCHO Concert Hall | $5-$20
Seattle Symphony: Chick Corea Plays ‘Rhapsody in Blue’
Twenty-two-time Grammy-winning jazz pianist Chick Corea teams up with the Seattle Symphony for Gershwin’s iconic Rhapsody in Blue, plus a performance of his own original Piano Concerto No. 1.
Wed, 11/6, 7:30pm, Benaroya Hall | $62-$82
Meany Center: Danish String Quartet
Completed in the year before his death, Shostakovich’s final string quartet is an introspective meditation on mortality. The Danish String Quartet performs this moving work alongside music of Bach and Beethoven.
Thurs, 11/7, 7:30pm, Meany Theater | $41-$49
Cappella Romana: Kastalsky Requiem
As Europe descended into the chaos of World War I, Alexander Kastalsky began composing his haunting Requiem to commemorate the allied soldiers who had fallen. Epic in scale and scope, the work receives its Northwest premiere under the baton of guest conductor Steven Fox.
Fri, 11/8, 7:30pm, St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church | $32-$52
Seattle Symphony: Angelique Poteat Cello Concerto
Seattle-based clarinetist and composer Angelique Poteat turns her attention to the cello in a new concerto which receives its premiere by Efe Baltacıgil and the Seattle Symphony.
11/14-11/16, Various times, Benaroya Hall | $24-$134
Seattle Opera: The Falling & The Rising
Interviews with active-duty soldiers and veterans formed the basis of this new chamber opera by composer Zach Redler and librettist Jerre Dye. Tracing a soldier’s journey through a battle explosion and a medically-induced coma, the opera seeks to shine a light on often untold stories of service and sacrifice.
11/15-11/24, Various times, Seattle Opera Center | $35-$45
Harry Partch Ensemble: Final UW Concerts
Two chances remain to hear the inimitable handmade instruments of Harry Partch before the collection’s residency at UW concludes. On Thursday, director Charles Corey and his cast of local musicians perform Partch’s sprawling And On The Seventh Day Petals Fell In Petaluma, selections from his haunting Eleven Intrusions, and more. On Friday, the Partch Ensemble teams up with UW Percussion for another program of ear-expanding works.
Thurs, 11/21, 7:30pm, Meany Hall Studio Theater | $10
Fri, 11/22, 7:30pm, Meany Studio Theatre | $10
Seattle Symphony: ‘The Rite of Spring’
It’s a piece that needs no introduction: Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring has been the stuff of classical music legend ever since its riot-inducing premiere in 1913. This earthshaking ballet about the pagan sacrifice of a virgin dancing herself to death is expertly paired with Scriabin’s The Poem of Ecstasy.
Thurs, 11/21, 7:30pm, Benaroya Hall | $24-$134
Sat, 11/23, 8pm, Benaroya Hall | $24-$134
Gabriel Kahane: ‘Book of Travelers’
A train ride across the country provided ample time and inspiration for composer and multi-instrumentalist Gabriel Kahane to craft a musical diary of America. He performs selections from his Book of Travelers alongside wide-ranging songs from his other albums.
Sat, 11/23, 8pm, Meany Theater | $31-$39
Paco Díez: Music from Northern Spain
Born into a family of farm workers in the heart of Castille, singer and multi-instrumentalist Paco Díez grew up steeped in the folk music, traditions, and histories of his homeland. Widely considered one of the most important champions of Judeo-Spanish music today, Díez is joined by his students in a performance of Sephardic and Castilian folk music.
Tues, 11/26, 7:30pm, UW Brechemin Auditorium | Free