A home for new and unusual music from all corners of the classical genre, brought to you by the power of public media. Second Inversion is a service of Classical KING FM 98.1.
The notion of the artist as the hero is one of the central tenets of the Romantic era, with composers from Beethoven to Berlioz crafting symphonies of enormous scope and heroic splendor. Composer David Lang turns that notion on its head in his symphony without a hero, which receives its world premiere this week at the Seattle Symphony, conducted by Ludovic Morlot. The program juxtaposes Lang’s new work against the epitome of the heroic symphony archetype: Richard Strauss’s epic tone poem, A Hero’s Life.
The titles are nearly exact opposites. As it turns out, so is the music. Second Inversion’s Maggie Molloy talks with Lang about his new symphony and the relationship between artist and hero in the 21st century.
Seattle Symphony performs David Lang’s symphony without a hero Feb. 8 and 10 at Benaroya Hall. For tickets and additional information, please click here.
Second Inversion and theLive Music Project create a monthly calendar featuring contemporary classical, cross-genre, and experimental performances in Seattle, the Eastside, Tacoma, and places in between!
Keep an eye out for our this flyer in concert programs and coffee shops around town. Feel free to download, print, and distribute it yourself! If you’d like to be included on this list, submit your event to the Live Music Project at least 6 weeks prior to the event and tag it with “new music.”
Wayward Music Series Concerts of contemporary composition, free improvisation, electroacoustic music, and sonic experiments. This month: improvised musical games, digital synthesis, site-specific sounds works, and piano pieces with alliterative pretensions. Various days, 7:30/8pm, Good Shepherd Chapel | $5-$15
Spontaneous Combustion New Music Festival: Ashley Bathgate Cellist Ashley Bathgate is constantly pushing the boundaries of traditional cello repertoire with her performances of contemporary, avant-garde, and experimental works. For this performance she plays music with and without electronics by Steve Reich, Martin Bresnick, Fjola Evans, Emily Cooley, and Alex Weiser. Thurs, 2/1, 8pm, Rainier Arts Center | $20
Karen Bentley Pollick: New York Women Composers Violinist Karen Bentley Pollick premieres a new original solo violin piece in a program of music by New York women composers. Plus, Seattle violist Heather Bentley joins for the Washington premiere of Victoria Bond’s Woven for violin and viola. Thurs, 2/1, 8pm, Good Shepherd Chapel | $5-$15
Matrio & Resonant Bodies Taking its name from the Japanese word for “the space between two structural parts,” Matrio is an improvising collective that creates set-long experiences which explore the space between sound, noise, music, and silence. They’re joined by the jazz trumpet and percussion duo Resonant Bodies. Thurs, 2/1, 8pm, The Royal Room | $8-$12
Byrd Ensemble: Paradise There is no shortage of masterpieces about death and the afterlife. From Renaissance works to the early 20th century and the contemporary era, the Byrd Ensemble performs a program of the most hauntingly beautiful motets across the ages. Sat, 2/3, 8pm, St. James Cathedral | $20-$30
200 Years of Music by Black Composers Internationally acclaimed countertenor Reginald L. Mobley joins pianist Henry Lebedinsky for a program of music by Black composers from the Classical era to the present, including art songs, spirituals, and gospel. Featured composers include José Mauricio Nuñes Garcia, Florence B. Price, William Grant Still, and Harry Burleigh. Wed, 2/7, 12pm, Christ Our Hope at the Josephinum | FREE
Seattle Symphony: David Lang World Premiere David Lang is a pretty big deal in new music world. He’s a Pulitzer Prize and Grammy-winning composer, one of the founders of the Bang on a Can collective, the list goes on and on. This month the Seattle Symphony performs the world premiere of Lang’s symphony without a hero, playfully juxtaposed with a performance of Richard Strauss’s epic tone poem, A Hero’s Life. Thurs, 2/8, 7:30pm, Benaroya Hall | $22-$74 Sat, 2/10, 8pm, Benaroya Hall | $22-$74
The Sound Ensemble: A Life Transformed Seattle’s Sound Ensemble performs an evening of monumental works inspired by transformative experiences in either the life of the composer or the character of the piece. Featured works include Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, John Adams’ Chamber Symphony, and a new work by composer Kevin Clark. Sat, 2/10, 7pm, Good Shepherd Chapel | $5-$15
Seattle Improvised Music Festival No scores, no plans, no safety net: just a whole bunch of artists from all different musical backgrounds collaborating in an atmosphere of spontaneity, intuition, and discovery. Featured performers include Tomeka Reid, Tom Baker, Evan Flory-Barnes, and many, many more. Feb. 10-17, Various times and locations | $5-$15
Seattle Symphony: Celebrate Asia Erhu and sitar soloists perform with the Seattle Symphony in their 10th annual Celebrate Asia concert featuring contemporary (and traditional) music by Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Indian composers. Arrive early and stay late for pre- and post-concert entertainment in the lobby. Sun, 2/11, 4pm, Benaroya Hall | $29-$67
Opera on Tap Local singers let their hair down and sing their hearts out, performing famous operatic masterpieces and hidden musical gems alike in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere. Tues, 2/13, 7:30pm, Solo Bar | $10
Meany Center: Danish String Quartet The internationally acclaimed Danish String Quartet performs traditional classical music alongside their own contemporary arrangements of Scandinavian folk music. Catch their intimate performance at Cafe Solstice or see them on the Meany Theater mainstage. Tues, 2/13, 7pm, Cafe Solstice | FREE Wed, 2/14, 7:30pm, Meany Theater | $40-$48
Emerald City Music: Spiritual Journey Emerald City Music explores the power of the voice in chamber music through a program of 20th century songs and spirituals by Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and more. Fri, 2/16, 8pm, 415 Westlake Ave, Seattle | $10-$45 Sat, 2/17, 7:30pm, Minnaert Center, Olympia | $10-$43
NOCCO: Vibrant Hearts – A Romanian Celebration The North Corner Chamber Orchestra performs 20th century works inspired by Romanian folk music traditions, including compositions by George Enescu and Béla Bartók. Sat, 2/17, 2pm, University Christian Church | $15-$25 Sun, 2/18, 7:30pm, The Royal Room | $15-$25
Philharmonia Northwest: Viva Americas! The exhilarating colors and rhythms of Latin American music come alive in this concert featuring music by Astor Piazzolla, Silvestre Revueltas, Arturo Márquez, and a new commission by young Mexican composer Osvaldo Mendoza. Sun, 2/25, 2:30pm, St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church (Seattle) | $15-$20
The Pacific Northwest seems in the midst of a Ligeti boom. Last year the Seattle Symphony presented the regional premiere of his Requiem, along with a live-music presentation of Kubrick’s2001: A Space Odyssey, which features music from the Requiem and three other Ligeti scores from the 1960s. Second Inversion marked the occasion with a profile of the Hungarian composer (seeGyörgy Ligeti’s Musical Odyssey) and the groundbreaking works from that era that made him one of the 20th century’s most influential musical figures. This Thursday and Saturday, the Seattle Symphony is back with Augustin Hadelich to offer the local premiereof Ligeti’s Violin Concerto, a late and quite different piece that offers an opportunity to examine the composer’s post-Odyssey music.
Opera in Breughelland
Ligeti’s output, like Beethoven’s, divides rather neatly into three style periods. The early works, written while he was still in Hungary, are Bartókian and often folkloric. The middle period works, coming after his escape to the West in 1956, include sonorist compositions such as Atmospheres, Lux Aeterna, and the first two movements of the Requiem—pieces that aren’t based on conventional melody and harmony but are pure explorations of timbre and texture. It’s this music that was made famous by the monolith and stargate sequences in Kubrick’s film. Others works from this time, like the little pseudo-operas Aventuresand Nouvelles Aventures, and the third movement of the Requiem, express Ligeti’s idiosyncratic take on the Darmstadt pointillist style. (Each of these works are surveyed in ourprevious article.)
Ligeti’s middle period is considered to culminate with the 1978 premiere of Le Grand Macabre, his only full-length opera, and by far his longest work. Much of it resembles Aventures and Nouvelles Aventures, but at other times it points in several new directions, including that quintessential postmodern technique, pastiche. There are many musical references to the past: aCan CanquotingOffenbach, abouréethat’s modeled after theBaroque dance, amidnight clock scenethat parodies the cemetery chimes in Verdi’sFalstaff, and a Don Giovanni-stylemoralizing finale where the singers address the audience directly.
The opera’s most famous passage is apassacagliabased on a crazy distortion of the theme from the finale of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. It accompanies the entrance of Nekrotzar, the opera’s villain and namesake, one of the most debauched processional scenes in opera history.
Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony through a distorting mirror in Le Grand Macabre.
Beethoven isn’t the only reference here. Look closely and you’ll see that Ligeti’s tune uses a Schoenbergian 12-tone row. But since the tune has 13 notes in it, each iteration begins on a different pitch (the first two passes are shown above). After 12 times through, the cycles line up again, a technique perfected centuries ago in the isorhythmic motets of Machaut and Dufay.
The libretto, adapted from a play by the Belgian dramatist Michel de Ghelderode, is a farcical sendup of operatic clichés, influenced by carnival and commedia dell’arte traditions, and by the allegorical imagery of Breughel, one of Ligeti’s favorite visual artists (indeed, the work’s setting is the imaginary country of Breugelland). Besides Nekrotzar and his Sancho Panza-like sidekick, the characters include a court astrologer (kind of a cross between Klingsor and Dr. Frankenstein) and his dominatrix wife, an incompetent secret police chief, and acouplewhose male half is a trouser role sung by a mezzo-soprano in the manner of Cherubino or Octavian. The plot, such as it is, concerns Nekrotzar’s attempt to destroy the world, an effort eventually foiled by ineptitude and drunkenness.
Although Ligeti was attracted to Ghelderode’s drama for its unconventionality, the resulting libretto has not proven terribly popular, striking many people as more daft than profound. And younger composers likeLouis Andriessenhave had better success liberating new music theater from conventional narrative by jettisoning full-throated bel canto singing and other accoutrements of traditional opera-making. Nevertheless, Ligeti’s mastery at eliciting an almost unbroken succession of unexpected colors from voices and instruments has earned Le Grand Macabre a foothold in the repertory of international opera companies—one of the very few post-Britten operas to accomplish this.
An arrangement of the opera’s music for coloratura soprano, called Mysteries of the Macabre, has become a favorite showpiece for Barbara Hannigan, who has performed it in various concert stagings, including the above version where she both sings and conducts the ensemble.
At a Crossroads
Le Grand Macabre ends with a secondpassacagliathat manages to be triadic but practically atonal. Although each of the chords are themselves consonant, they clash sufficiently with each other that no clear key or chord progression can coalesce. Ligeti called this consonant atonality, and it was the first time since escaping from Hungary that he had used traditional harmonies. Having reached a point in his career where he felt he had little more to say in the vein of his most experimental works, he was interested in reclaiming music based on pitch and rhythm. But as a survivor of both Nazism and Communism, he deplored both the dogmatism of the avant-garde and the insouciance of the neoromantic and post-minimalist styles that were then coming into vogue. So how to use melody, consonant intervals and well-defined rhythms outside the permissive context of operatic pastiche and without reverting to hackneyed tonal chords and melodies?
The solution took a while to develop (like Beethoven, Ligeti endured a few years of artistic quiescence before his late works started to emerge), but eventually a compelling new line of musical thought synthesized in his imagination, spurred in large part through contact with several composers from America.
American Ingenuity
Ligeti had a formative experience in 1972 when he traveled to the US for a half-year residency at Stanford University. Among other things, he encountered the West Coast fascination with alternative tunings, a perspective associated with Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison, but above all withHarry Partch, then largely unknown in Europe. Ligeti visited Partch in his Encinitas home, chatted about the latter’s unique tuning system and self-built instruments, and jammed a bit on thediamond marimba. But whereas Partch strove to create pure consonance, the complexity-craving Ligeti wondered how clashes between different tuning systems could create new dissonances—what he called a “dirty sound,” but one under the control of the composer. Ligeti had previously used quarter tones (intervals halfway between the adjacent keys of a conventionally-tuned piano), but Partch’s system suggested a different and more systematic approach.
One of the first manifestations of this approach is theHungarian Passacaglia, a little harpsichord piece that Ligeti dashed off in 1978. Ligeti asks for the instrument to be tuned in meantone temperament, an adaptation that causes the thirds and sixths in the repeating ground to be pure, but makes them sound strangely out of tune with each other. The effect in this otherwise straightforwardly polytonal piece is akin to adding exotic spices to an otherwise bland dish.
Hungarian Passacaglia.
In his 1982 Horn Trio, Ligeti plays off natural harmonics in the horn with the conventional tuning of the piano and violin. The clashes are quite audible in thethirdandfourthmovements.
It was also at Stanford that Ligeti first encountered American minimalism, specifically its rhythmically lively strain (which originated in the Bay Area) to which he paid explicit homage in hisSelf-Portrait with Reich and Riley. This 1976 piece for two pianos also looks back at the finale of Chopin’s Second Piano Sonata, one of the 19th century’s most important precursors to minimalism.
Once back in Europe, Ligeti conveyed his excitement over these discoveries in an article titled “Tendenzen der Neuen Musik in den USA: Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Harry Partch.”
American Rhythm
Ligeti’s North American explorations of 1972 also took him to Mexico City, where he met several local composers, but ironically not the one that would later become a crucial influence: Conlon Nancarrow. It wasn’t until 1980 that Ligeti finally heard the music of this most obstinate and isolated of American Mavericks, a reticent expatriate who labored patiently for four and a half decades with two player pianos and a machine for hand-punching pianola rolls to create music of unprecedented rhythmic density and complexity.
Nancarrow and Ligeti.
Nancarrow’sStudy 40b is a straightforward example. Two player pianos play the same music, but the second one enters 28 seconds after the first, playing its roll at 9/8 the first piano’s tempo, so that it gradually catches up as the piece goes on. Both pianos finish together in a loud cadential flurry.
Nancarrow’s influence is heard in the third movement of Ligeti’sPiano Concerto, which is notated in three simultaneous time signatures and often gives the impression of different cascades of notes tumbling along at different tempos. Ligeti was so impressed by Nancarrow’s work (“the greatest discovery since Webern and Ives“) that he authorized player piano versions of some of his own compositions, such as the piano etude Vertige.
Another key American was Ligeti’s composition student, Roberto Sierra, who from 1979 onward made available his extensive LP library of non-Western music. Ligeti was especially interested in the polyphonic music of Central Africa, such as this example from the Banda peoplewhich became a model for his piano etudeFém. Ligeti’s infatuation with complex African music passed on to his son, Lukas, a drummer and composer who oftencollaborateswith African musicians.
Violin Concerto
All of these new interests from the 1970s and 1980s—pastiche, intonation, polyrhythms, concepts from non-Western music—find a voice in the Violin Concerto, a kind of résumé of Ligeti’s late period music. Completed in 1993 and scored for soloist and a chamber orchestra of two dozen musicians, its seeds go back to the Stanford residency, which had been arranged by John Chowning, a pioneer of computer music and inventor of the technology later used in the popular Yamaha DX7 synthesizer. Through his friendship with Chowning, Ligeti obtained a DX7ii with a custom enhancement that allowed him to experiment with complex alternative tunings.
The results are on display in the Concerto. One of the orchestral violins is tuned about a quartertone sharp, and one of the violas is tuned flat so that both are “out of tune” with the rest of the ensemble. Brass players are often directed to use natural harmonics (produced through overblowing without changing fingering), and woodwind instruments are given the occasional quarter tone inflection. Curiously, the solo violin plays in conventional equal temperament throughout.
The Concerto starts out sounding a bit like John Adams, with consonant bowed tremolos in the solo violin, soon joined by the (detuned) first viola. But the texture quickly dissolves into a dense chromatic web as the remaining string instruments enter, each going its own way with arpeggios and harmonic glissandos. The soloist, doubled by a marimba, shoots out a sequence of accented notes that go up and down a custom scale like a roller coaster. At1:38, the woodwinds enter in a Nancarrowish commotion with the soloist, accompanied by a vibraphone and a couple of orchestral strings, going at a different tempo from the rest of the ensemble (see score excerpt). A little brass fanfare at2:45provides some punctuation as the mood of the opening returns.
Thesecond movementis a pastiche of those Romantic violin concertos whose slow movement starts with a lyric melody that’s repeated with elaborate ornaments and filigrees added in the solo part. In Ligeti’s case, the melody is a nostalgic one, cribbed from a movement of hisMusica Ricercata(an album of keyboard music written during his Hungary years that he arranged as the third of his Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet). Listen to the horns’ entrance at2:18as they play natural harmonics, intentionally clashing with the standard tuning of the other instruments.
At2:38Ligeti’s sense of humor comes out as the melody is reprised by a quartet of ocarinas, later joined by two slide whistles (all notorious for their wobbly intonation). Ligeti, like Berio, could be counted on to inject the occasional dose of playfulness into the otherwise stern proceedings of the European avant-garde. Here he was also inspired by music from theIatmul peopleof Papua New Guinea who play on some of the world’s longest transverse flutes and, in lieu of finger holes, build their music exclusively from natural harmonics.
The briefthird movementis like a mid-lesson review, combining the string webs and polyrhythms of the first movement with the melodic lyricism and natural brass harmonics of the second.
First two cycles of the Movement IV passacaglia.
Thefourth movementis yet another passacaglia, this time over a two-voice chromatic ground played by wind instruments. It’s a bit tricky to follow because the starting notes change with each cycle (the first two cycles are shown above), and other variations creep in as the movement proceeds. But any fixed form in Ligeti’s hand is a license to do crazy things on top of it—like bringing in a Romanian village dance at3:21, or directing the xylophone (with its limited dynamic range) to crescendo from p to ffffffff over the course of three bars at the movement’s end.
Thefinalereturns to the sound world of the first movement, starting with the Adams-like tremolos. Woodwinds enter with a descending figure in whole tones (a kind of inversion of the passacaglia theme), then the soloist enters with accented notes, quickly leading us into another Nancarrowish brouhaha, which sounds chaotic but is strictly notated by Ligeti. At1:53the soloist and woodwinds seem to be playing two different dance tunes in two different tempos, with hints of a waltz rhythm in the bass. After a couple more minutes in the stylistic blender we arrive at the violin cadenza, which the soloist can either devise herself (in the tradition of Classical concertos) or reproduce from music supplied by Ligeti and Saschko Gawriloff (the work’s dedicatee). Eventually the cadenza is rudely interrupted by the orchestra in a bravura flourish—inspiring a few performers toham up the endinga bit.
Despite being challenging to perform, the Violin Concerto has become one of Ligeti’s most frequently played and recorded large ensemble pieces. Its influence on younger composers is evinced in the eclecticism, layering and unpredictable rhythms of a piece such as Unsuk Chin’sViolin Concerto. And the emphasis on tuning clashes and derivation of musical ideas from overtone patterns creates results not far from the world of spectralist composers such as Grisey, Murail, andAvram.
Ligeti went on composing for another decade, bringing forth a viola sonata, songs, more piano etudes and the Hamburg Concerto (which puts the idea of clashing natural horn harmonics on steroids). But it’s the Violin Concerto that seems the best summation of the musical ideas that intrigued him in his later years—a quarter century of work capping off a lifetime of innovation.
Augustin Hadelich performs the Ligeti Violin Concerto with the Seattle Symphony on Thursday, Jan. 4, 2018 and Saturday, Jan. 6, 2018.
Click here for a list of recommended recordings of Ligeti’s music.
Second Inversion and theLive Music Project create a monthly calendar featuring contemporary classical, cross-genre, and experimental performances in Seattle, the Eastside, Tacoma, and places in between!
Keep an eye out for our this flyer in concert programs and coffee shops around town. Feel free to download, print, and distribute it yourself! If you’d like to be included on this list, submit your event to the Live Music Project at least 6 weeks prior to the event and tag it with “new music.”
Wayward Music Series Concerts of contemporary composition, free improvisation, electroacoustic music, and sonic experiments. This month: vintage sampling keyboards, avant-garde noise, graphic scores, and etudes from the likes of György Ligeti and John Cage. Various days, 7:30/8pm, Good Shepherd Chapel | $5-$15
Seattle Symphony: Ligeti Violin Concerto Grammy-winning violinist Augustin Hadelich joins the orchestra for a performance of György Ligeti’s stunningly virtuosic Violin Concerto. Also on the program: Stravinsky’s long-lost Funeral Song and Mozart’s sublime Symphony No. 39. Thurs, 1/4, 7:30pm, Benaroya Hall | $22-$74 Sat, 1/6, 8pm, Benaroya Hall | $22-$74
Paper Puppet Opera: Schubert’s ‘Winterreise’ One of the darkest works in the classical canon is reimagined through bleak shadow puppet abstraction in this Schubertiade-meets-puppet-show spectacular. Baritone David Hoffman and pianist Peter Nelson-King join the Paper Puppet Opera for a shadow puppet performance of all 24 songs in Franz Schubert’s Winterreise. Fri, 1/12, 7:30pm, Trinity Parish Hall | $25 Sat, 1/13, Trinity Parish Hall | $25
Jesse Myers: To Sober and Quiet the Mind Seattle pianist Jesse Myers presents an evening of introspective solo piano works from the masters of time and space—Arvo Pärt, Morton Feldman, John Cage, and more. Forgo the chairs and bring a pillow or mat for the ultimate musical meditation. Fri, 1/12, 8pm, Good Shepherd Chapel | $5-$15
Bern Herbolsheimer Musical Memorial In celebration of the late Bern Herbolsheimer’s life and music, the St. Helens String Quartet and local soloists come together to perform a selection of his chamber works. Sat, 1/13, 5pm, Good Shepherd Chapel | FREE
Second City Chamber Series: Just Us Folks The Carpe Diem String Quartet performs chamber works inspired by folk music from every corner of the world, featuring music by Erberk Eryilmaz, Vittorio Monti, Lev Zhurbin, Dave Brubeck, and more. Fri, 1/19, 7:30pm, Annie Wright School, Tacoma | $10-$25
SCMS Winter Festival Seattle Chamber Music Society’s annual Winter Festival features a variety of classical music performances from across the centuries, including 20th century works by Amy Beach, Paul Hindemith, Dmitri Shostakovich, William Walton, and Edward Elgar. 1/19-1/28, Various times, Nordstrom Recital Hall | $16-$52
Spontaneous Combustion New Music Festival This brand new music festival touring through Seattle, Portland, and Eugene features contemporary music by the likes of Julia Wolfe, Andy Akiho, Andrew Norman, Steve Reich, and Lou Harrison, among others. Featured performers include Ashley Bathgate, the Sandbox Percussion Quartet, the Iktus Duo, and more.
Delgani String Quartet: Fri, 1/19, 8pm, Good Shepherd Chapel | $20 Orlando Cela: Sun, 1/21, 3pm, Youngstown Cultural Arts Center | $20 Hub New Music: Mon, 1/22, 7:30pm, 18th & Union | $20 Iktus Duo: Thurs, 1/25, 8pm, Good Shepherd Chapel | $20 Sandbox Percussion: Sat, 1/27, 7pm, Music Center of the Northwest | $20 The City of Tomorrow: Tues, 1/30, 7:30pm, The Royal Room | $20 Ashley Bathgate: Thurs, 2/01, 8pm, Rainier Arts Center | $20
NUMUS Northwest 2018 This day-long event is dedicated to the creation, performance, and experience of new music in Seattle and beyond. Musicians, composers, and curious bystanders alike come together for a day of live performances and interactive presentations on topics ranging from fundraising to networking, media pitching, grant writing, and more. Sat, 1/20, 8:30am-9:30pm, Cornish Kerry Hall | $20
SMCO: Journeys of Discovery and Hope Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra performs Gabriela Lena Frank’s Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout. Mixing elements of Western classical with Andean folk music traditions, the piece draws on the concept of mestizaje: where cultures can coexist without the subjugation of one by the other. Also on the program is Haydn’s Mass for Troubled Times. Sat, 1/20, 8pm, Plymouth Congregational Church | $15-$25
Third Coast Percussion: ‘Paddle to the Sea’ Third Coast Percussion performs their own live score in this special screening of Paddle to the Sea, a Canadian film which illustrates the epic journey of a young boy’s small wooden boat from Northern Ontario to the Atlantic Ocean. Third Coast’s film score weaves in music by Philip Glass and Jacob Druckman, along with traditional music of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. Thurs, 1/25, 8pm, Meany Theater | $28-$44
Erin Jorgensen: Bach and Pancakes It’s Bach like you’ve never heard it before—on marimba! Erin Jorgensen performs a marimba arrangement of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor, followed by a pancake breakfast. Sun, 1/28, 10am, Studio Current | $5
Pacifica Chamber Orchestra: Sunshine Concert From scherzos to serenades, the Pacifica Chamber Orchestra performs 20th century works by Dag Wirén, Julius Fučík, Eugène Bozza, and more. Sun, 1/28, 3pm, First Presbyterian Church, Everett | $15-$20
Music of Remembrance: Art from Ashes Music of Remembrance presents a free community-wide concert to honor International Holocaust Remembrance Day, featuring chamber music written in Terezín and in the Vilna ghetto, plus works by composers whose lives were cut short by Nazi persecution. Mon, 1/29, 5pm, Nordstrom Recital Hall | FREE
Second Inversion and theLive Music Project create a monthly calendar featuring contemporary classical, cross-genre, and experimental performances in Seattle, the Eastside, Tacoma, and places in between!
Keep an eye out for our this flyer in concert programs and coffee shops around town. Feel free to download, print, and distribute it yourself! If you’d like to be included on this list, submit your event to the Live Music Project at least 6 weeks prior to the event and tag it with “new music.”
Wayward Music Series Concerts of contemporary composition, free improvisation, and sonic experiments. This month: wind improvisations, sleepy music podcasts, jazz-infused songs on war and poetry, and electroacoustic ruminations on West Coast minimalism. Various days, 7:30/8pm, Good Shepherd Chapel | $5-$15
World New Music Days: Vancouver, BC Not technically in Seattle—but definitely worth the drive. Nearly 50 countries come together for this festival of new music, which features over 30 experimental concerts and outreach events. Thurs-Wed, 11/2-11/8, Vancouver, BC | $10-$39
Live @ Benaroya Hall: Hauschka German pianist and composer Volker Bertelmann (better known as Hauschka) takes prepared piano to a whole new level, employing everything from ping pong balls to Tic Tacs and tin foil to create stunning new sonic landscapes. Fri, 11/3, 7:30pm, Nordstrom Recital Hall | $25-$30
Peter Nelson-King: Modern American Piano Multi-instrumentalist and composer Peter Nelson-King presents a concert of daring modern American works for the piano, featuring music by Dane Rudhyar, Stephen Jaffe, David Diamond, Hugo Weisgall, and more. Fri, 11/3, 8pm, Gallery 1412 | $5-$15
Pacific Northwest Ballet: Her Story PNB presents the American premiere of Crystal Pite’s haunting Plot Point, set to music from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. The spellbinding program also features music by Benjamin Britten and Vladimir Martynov. Weekends 11/3-11/12, McCaw Hall | $30-$187
Saratoga Orchestra: Un/Questionable Visionaries Oak Harbor-based horn player Sean Brown performs his new Horn Concerto with the Saratoga Orchestra. Symphonies by Mozart and Louise Farrenc frame this world premiere performance. Sat, 11/4, 7pm, Trinity Lutheran Church Freeland | By donation
Kronos Quartet Known around the world for their adventurous programming, the San Francisco-based Kronos Quartet comes to Federal Way to share a bold program of string music ranging from George Gershwin to Aleksandra Vrebalov. Sat, 11/4, 8pm, Federal Way Performing Arts and Event Center | $17-$73
Music of Remembrance: Snow Falls Two world premieres by Japanese composers form the basis of this powerful program. Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Snow Falls is based around Kiyoko Nagase’s haunting poem of the same name, while Keiko Fujiie’s song cycle Wilderness Mute features English translations of Japanese poetry from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sun, 11/5, 7pm, Nordstrom Recital Hall | $30-$45
Cornish Presents: Projeto Arcomusical World music sextet Projeto Arcomusical reimagines the Afro-Brazilian berimbau through a program of original chamber music which draws from folk, classical, and traditional capoeira music. Sun, 11/5, 7:30pm, Performing Arts Center, Western Washington University | $10-16 Mon, 11/6, 8pm, Cornish College of the Arts’ Kerry Hall | $10-$20
Opera on Tap Local singers let their hair down and sing their hearts out, performing famous operatic masterpieces and hidden musical gems alike in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere. Wed, 11/8, 7pm, Naked City | $5-$8
Early Music Seattle: Forces of Nature Music and meteorology intertwine in this concerto for electric theorbo by Seattle-based composer Aaron Grad. Inspired by Vivaldi’s famous Four Seasons (adapted here to portray the idiosyncratic weather patterns of Seattle), each movement features its own sonnet narrated by Former KING 5 meteorologist Jeff Renner. Sat, 11/11, 7:30pm, Nordstrom Recital Hall | $20-$40
Seattle Symphony: DeVotchKa Denver-based indie rock band DeVotchKa joins forces with the Seattle symphony to transform their intimate melodies into a full-scale orchestral experience. Wed, 11/15, 7:30pm, Benaroya Hall | $35-$50
Seattle Symphony: Harry Potter Wizards rejoice! Seattle Symphony breaks out the big screen for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, performing John Williams’ iconic score alongside the movie. Thurs-Sat, 11/16-11/18, 7:30/8pm, Benaroya Hall | $50-$120
Cornish Presents: Frequency Frequency is a new Seattle-based chamber ensemble combining the talents of violinist Michael Jinsoo Lim, violist Melia Watras, and cellist Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir. In this program, the group lends their bows to music by Daníel Bjarnason, Frances White, and Richard Einhorn. Fri, 11/17, 8pm, Cornish College of the Arts’ Kerry Hall | $10-$20
Kin of the Moon Debut Concert Three cutting-edge and iconoclastic women performers come together for a new chamber series that explores sonic rituals, improvisation, and a fearless cross-pollination of genres. Composer and vocalist Kaley Lane Eaton, flutist Leanna Keith, and violist Heather Bentley perform original works, improvisations, and a piece by Kate Soper. Sat, 11/18, 8pm, Good Shepherd Chapel | $5-$15
UW School of Music: Hindustani Classical Music Ethnomusicology visiting artist Zakir Hussain is known in India and around the world as a virtuoso tabla player, percussionist, and composer. In this program he performs the tabla solo and also presents the culmination of his work with UW faculty and students. Sun, 11/19, 7:30pm, Meany Theater | $10-$35