by Maggie Molloy
This week’s concert calendar features marching bands, Mark O’Connor, and many more Northwestern musicians!
Seattle Rock Orchestra Performs New Works
The Pacific Northwest is known for its beautiful mountains, its gorgeous coast, its cool climate, and its commitment to the environment—but it is also known for its rich and unique musical culture, which spans everything from folk to grunge to punk, rock, indie, and even classical.
This Thursday, Seattle Rock Orchestra is honoring the Pacific Northwest’s latest contributions in contemporary music with the third installment in its New Works series. The program features chamber orchestra works by several PNW composers, including Iain Emslie, Willow Goodine, Whitney Lyman, Aaron Otheim, Wes Price, Michaud Savage, and Emily Westman.
The concert will also feature special guest singer Tamara Power-Drutis, a Seattle-based singer-songwriter with a background in indie, folk, classical, and Irish traditional music.
The performance is this Thursday, Dec. 18 at 8 p.m in the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford.
MarchFourth Marching Band at the Historic Everett Theater
A lot of marching bands tend to blend together—the loud, brassy music, the synchronized marching, the ill-fitting uniforms…If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all, right? Wrong.
MarchFourth Marching Band is a multidisciplinary music group which combines the classic marching band aesthetic with elements of funk, rock, and jazz. Known as M4 to its fans, the 15- to 20-piece group features percussion corps, brass, funky electric bass, guitar, and even vocals.
The band is known for its DIY ethic. M4 proudly writes and arranges all of its own musical material, designs its own unique marching band costumes, and even creates its own choreography. (Sorry, did I forget to mention that their performances include dancers, stilt walkers, and acrobatics?)
M4 will be marching through Everett this weekend as part of their nationwide tour. They will be performing at the Historic Everett Theater on Friday, Dec. 19 at 7:30 p.m.
Nat Evans’ “The Lowest Arc”
Winter solstice is typically never as widely celebrated as summer solstice—but this year Seattle composer Nat Evans is brightening up the darkest day of the year with a unique new outdoor site and time specific sound installation.
The piece, titled “The Lowest Arc,” will be installed this upcoming Sunday for an indeterminate exhibition period at ALL RISE. The piece is written for six speakers, each with music inspired by different natural elements. On this Sunday night only, performers will join in the sound sculpture with custom music boxes that produce an aural translation of the constellations visible from Earth during winter. Evans determined the specific music notes by superimposing the constellations on a traditional musical staff.
This aleatoric performance exploring the limits of sound and space will take place this upcoming Sunday, Dec. 21 from 4-5:30 p.m. at the ALL RISE site located at 1250 Denny Way, Seattle.
Mark O’Connor’s “An Appalachian Christmas”
Grammy award-winning violinist Mark O’Connor is coming home for the holidays this year. Though his multifaceted music career has led him all over the world, this week he is returning to Seattle with his band to share an evening of holiday music from his album, “An Appalachian Christmas.”
“Growing up in the O’Connor musical household, Christmas time was a wondrous mixture of Christmas carols, fiddling, bluegrass and other traditional American music,” said O’Connor. “And that is the spirit of ‘An Appalachian Christmas.’”
The concert is this Sunday, Dec. 21 at 7 p.m. at the University of Washington’s Meany Hall for the Performing Arts.
