Symphony/Chorale Concert: A review

Very positive review of Thursday's performance, I'm proud to report. It's not too late to get tickets online for tonight's or tomorrow afternoon's concerts. 

Read review

Tickets to Sunday's concert: First to email me gets them

I was pleasantly surprised by the response! Tickets are gone. Watch this blog for future offers (they're fairly rare). 

Music alert: Beethoven's Ninth at Benaroya Hall

Seattle's Benaroya Hall is one of the great concert venues in the nation. Every year the Seattle Symphony and Chorale perform Beethoven's great Ninth ("Choral") Symphony to a full house. This year's performances are New Year's Eve and January 2, 3, and 4th.

The first person to email me gets the key to order two Chorale member-discount tickets ($20 instead of $80) to the New Year's Eve 9:00 p.m. performance.

It's a great way to start the New Year.

Seattle resources: A reminder and invitation

Forgive my shameless plug, but I've been in rehearsal since September and have heard what's going on. If you love music as much I do, you'll want to be in the audience for Messiah! at Benaroya Hall on Thursday, Friday,  or Saturday. 

If you need help with the ticket price, email me. Except for Sunday's sold-out performance, I can send you my member's discount code.

Seattle resources: Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Hall

A ten-minute walk from the ferry terminal, Benaroya Hall is a world-class venue for the Seattle Symphony.

Next week plan to attend Handel's Messiah, a Seattle Symphony tradition. I can guarantee your enjoyment. I'll see you from the stage!

Seattle Times reviews opening performance

The sounds that filled the ear on Thursday showcased superb orchestral work, a wealth of choral power and delicacy from the Seattle Symphony Chorale, the Seattle Pro Musica and the Northwest Boychoir, finely integrated solos from sopranos Lauren Flanigan, Jane Eaglen and Jane Giering-De Haan, altos Nancy Maultsby and Jane Gilbert, tenor Vinson Cole, bass-baritone Clayton Brainerd and bass Harold Wilson, all underpinned by Joseph Adam's strong yet never obtrusive contribution at the organ. Schwarz kept everything under seemingly effortless control. But perhaps his greatest achievement was to bring the usually overwhelming first movement and the intermittently tedious second into an unusually effective, and often magically atmospheric, balance.


Seattle Symphony triumphs in Mahler's big Eighth

Seattle Symphony's Gerard Schwarz brings magical balance to Mahler's grand, unwieldy "Symphony of a Thousand."

By Bernard Jacobson

Special to The Seattle Times

Related

"Symphony of a Thousand"

By Gustav Mahler, Seattle Symphony Orchestra with Gerard Schwarz conducting. 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., Seattle; $17- $102 (206-215-4747 or www.seattlesymphony.org). Concert review

This week's performances of the biggest symphony Mahler ever wrote are being "dedicated to the many thousands of people who contributed to both the creation of Benaroya Hall and its monumental impact on our great city," according to the program. Thursday's subscription season opener was, in those terms, a triumph.

Never, in my few live experiences of this gigantic work, have all its multifarious textural strands emerged with such clarity and impact. It was hard to know which to admire more: Mahler's skill in creating an edifice of sound at once massive and lucid, or music director Gerard Schwarz's in realizing both the massiveness and the lucidity. But either way, the result was a ringing endorsement of the hall's acoustic excellence.

Schwarz has recently been bringing Mahler's bigger symphonies before the public at the rate of one a season — since 2006, the Third, the Seventh and the Sixth. The vividness of the composer's inspiration has benefitted, on each occasion, from the conductor's equally vivid sympathy for the expressive fervor of the music and his ability to shape its often wildly varied elements into a coherent whole.

The Eighth — known as the "Symphony of a Thousand" — poses a different structural problem. Its two movements are settings respectively of the ninth-century Latin hymn "Veni, Creator Spiritus" and the final scene of Goethe's "Faust." Mahler succeeded brilliantly in unifying his treatment of these two vastly different texts, but at the cost of variety. The seven-note figure that dominates the hourlong second movement is exploited far more repetitively than its potential justifies. And the method by which Mahler stretches relatively few motifs over his vast canvas is not development so much as permutation: the first movement's obsessive juggling with a handful of melodic ideas, in particular, reveals where Schoenberg's ultimately mechanistic 12-tone serial technique had its origins.

The sounds that filled the ear on Thursday showcased superb orchestral work, a wealth of choral power and delicacy from the Seattle Symphony Chorale, the Seattle Pro Musica and the Northwest Boychoir, finely integrated solos from sopranos Lauren Flanigan, Jane Eaglen and Jane Giering-De Haan, altos Nancy Maultsby and Jane Gilbert, tenor Vinson Cole, bass-baritone Clayton Brainerd and bass Harold Wilson, all underpinned by Joseph Adam's strong yet never obtrusive contribution at the organ. Schwarz kept everything under seemingly effortless control. But perhaps his greatest achievement was to bring the usually overwhelming first movement and the intermittently tedious second into an unusually effective, and often magically atmospheric, balance.

Bernard Jacobson: bernardijacobson@comcast.net

Seattle resources: Benaroya Hall 10th Anniversary Block Party

Seattle Symphony Orchestra
Sunday, September 14
Benaroya Hall Events
Day of Music and Art: Block Party

Celebrate good times at Benaroya Hall's 10th Anniversary! The day features free performances and activities for the whole family with Seattle Symphony, Soundbridge, Seattle Art Museum and The Triple Door. Tenth Anniversary attendees also receive free admission to SAM's permanent collection. It's a block party not to be missed! FREE Admission.


SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium
11am Cascade Symphony
12pm Northwest Mahler Orchestra Festival
1pm Seattle Choral Company (Fauré Requiem featuring the Watjen Concert Organ)
2 & 3:15pm Seattle Symphony
4:15pm Seattle Men’s Chorus, Seattle Women’s Chorus
5:15pm Seattle Symphony’s Pacific Northwest Community Orchestra Plays Mahler

Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall
11:15am Members of the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras
12pm Wesito & Friends: Wes Dyring's Classic Latin Music
12:45pm Greenwood Concert Band
1:30pm Seattle Classic Guitar Society
2:15pm The Dave Mesler Trio (musical tribute to Benaroya Hall)
3:15pm Bokréta Hungarian Dance Ensemble
4pm Northwest Sound Men’s Chorus
4:45pm Juliana and Pava (Ancient Russian Song Vocal Ensemble)
5:30pm Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra

Garden of Remembrance
10am Seattle Seahawks Blue Thunder Drumline
10:45am Orchestra Zarabanda (Hot Cuban salsa!)
11:30am Beverly Graham (guitar)
12:15pm Neil Hubbard (bagpipe)
1pm Bonnie Whiting Smith (percussion)
1:45pm Mariachi Juvenil- Voces de Mexico
2:30pm The Miho and Diego Duo (marimba and Andean flute)
3:15pm New Age Flamenco (guitar trio)
4pm Shumba Youth Marimba Ensemble
4:45pm JUBILEE (indie garden jazz)

Soundbridge
10:30am Kindermusik Demo Class
11:30am Percussion Explosion!
12:30pm Let’s Write a Song! (with David Mesler)
1:30pm Sin Fronteras: Live and Listen without Borders
2:30pm Russian Folk For Kids
3:30pm American Minimalism (intended for older audiences)
4:30pm Seattle International Film Festival (intended for older audiences)

Seattle Art Museum South Hall
12pm The Raggedy Anns (stripped down acoustic skiffle)
1pm Andre Feriante (guitar)
2pm Red Eye Flight (Experimental music)
3pm Das Vibenbass (crushing the borders of jazz)

The Triple Door Musicquarium
4pm Tor Dietrichson/ Paul Benoit Duo (roots rock & more)
5pm James Baumgart (contemporary jazz guitar)
6pm The Jelly Rollers (blues/Americana)
7pm The Boogilistics (nu-soul/funk)
9pm Salsa Dancing

*All programs and artists subject to change.

KIDS WELCOME!
Visit the Samuel and Althea Stroum Grand Lobby in Benaroya Hall between 11am and 5pm for a host of activities for the whole family. Grab your library card and check out books with the Seattle Public Library, put your artistic side to work coloring with SAM, explore instruments with KING FM, Music Center of the Northwest and Hammond Ashley Violins, create crafts with ParentMap and stick around for performances by local student musicians!

Visit Soundbridge between 10am and 6pm to try out instruments and learn fun facts about symphonic music. Also, pick up your scavenger hunt list anytime and find clues throughout the day to win great prizes!

FAMILY ACTIVITIES AT BENAROYA HALL
Outdoor Activities at the Maestro Gerard Schwarz Artists Entrance at Benaroya Hall
10am Make Your Own Marching Band
10am-4pm Artist Autographs
11:15am Musical Games
12:30pm Animal Imperssions with Musical Instruments
3pm Northwest Opera in the Schools: Meet an Opera Singer
3:45pm Musical Games

FAMILY ACTIVITIES AT SEATTLE ART MUSEUM
12-1:30pm Hip Hop Kids (WaMu Open Studio Mezzanine)
DJ B-Girl gets you moving and grooving with the five element of hip hop. Spaces are limited, so come early!
12-4pm Seattle International Film Festival Family Shorts (Knudsen Family Room, 3rd Floor)
Check out SIFF's fantastic kid-inspired film shorts and explore the Family Room

DAY OF MUSIC & ART IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY:
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
The Mayor's Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs

MEDIA SUPPORTED BY:
CLASSICAL KING FM 98.1

COMMUNITY PARTNERS AND IN-KIND SUPPORT
Northwest Opera in the Schools
Mills Music
ParentMap
Starbucks Coffee Company
Seattle Public Library
The Miho and Diego Duo
The Piano Students of Diane Chattin, Bethany Man and Cynthia Dillard
Clement J. Zipp, Jr.
Hammond Ashley Violins
Harried&Hungry
Wright Runstad
Wolfgang Puck Catering & Events
West Edge
10:00 AM

First to respond wins

The Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Hall is one of the jewels in Seattle's crown. I am proud to be associated as a member of the chorale. The first subscriber to email me with a request for them will win two tickets to Saturday night's opening gala.

It’s a grand night with Maestro Schwarz and opera superstars Frederica von Stade and Samuel Ramey with a program of favorite music from opera, the Broadway stage, and even the silver screen. Your concert tickets will also include post-concert dancing with Theresa Carnovale & City Life!

Music: Bach B-Minor Mass at Benaroya

If you love the classics, do not miss the Seattle Symphony/Chorale performance of one of Bach's greatest works. Because it demands so much, it's not performed every year. Performances are March 20-22. What follows is a trailer from a German performance. I can promise you SSO/C will surpass this one.

If you plan to attend, let me know--maybe we can meet after the show.

Holiday Music: Messiah at Benaroya Hall

Seattle Symphony and Seattle Symphony Chorale with Christian Knapp, Conductor, and soloists perform Handel's Messiah next week. I'll be in the front row looking for you. Don't miss--it's packed every year!

Many in the audience will have traveled some distance--from as far as San Francisco and Seattle. We're lucky--just a ferry ride and a short walk.

Seattle resources: Seattle Symphony

A ten-minute walk from the ferry terminal, Benaroya Hall is a world-class venue for the Seattle Symphony.
Seattle Symphony Chorale in this clip--click the play icon twice to start.

Can't get that song out of your head?

Two days after our final performance of Mozart's Requiem at Benaroya Hall the music is still stuck in my head. Beautiful, but sometimes a little annoying. It turns out that I'm not going nuts, which is a relief to me and my clients. Oliver Sacks has the explanation. I hope you find it as interesting as I did.


Oliver Sacks on the soundtrack of our lives
Full story
By Irene Wanner
Special to The Seattle Times

Some people start hearing music when they recline, writes author/neurologist Oliver Sacks. Others react to cerebral aneurysms or malformations, aging, injury, illness or hearing loss with similar "musical hallucinations." His own mother, when still a practicing surgeon at 75, began hearing patriotic German songs one night, perhaps caused by blood pressure medication or a small, otherwise asymptomatic stroke. One patient, a composer, said he had "an iPod in his head," Sacks writes in his new book, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (Knopf, 367 pp., $26).

Many others (including Sacks himself) note music triggered by radio or TV theme music, pop tunes or advertising jingles, those annoyingly catchy ditties meant to stick in our minds, burrowing like "earworms" or "brainworms." Whatever the reasons, Sacks observes, "It really is a very odd business that all of us, to varying degrees, have music in our heads."

Author of nine previous books focusing primarily on the brain and its amazing capacities, deficits and methods of coping, Sacks once again examines the many mysteries of a fascinating subject, turning it this way and that like a partially-solved Rubik's cube.

Why, he wonders, do some people associate certain colors or tastes with specific notes? Why do larger proportions of people who speak Asian languages or who became blind at a young age have absolute pitch? (Absolute pitch is, among other things, the ability to identify or sing a note with no frame of reference). Why don't we all have absolute pitch? Why do certain brain lesions leave some persons utterly indifferent to music? Yet for others -- those with Tourette's syndrome or autism, for example, with Parkinson's disease or after "sleeping sickness" that left victims in a "frozen state" for years -- music temporarily frees them from their conditions' constraints. Will the day come when the brain's instructions to a phantom limb could allow an amputee's prosthetic hand to play piano?

Virtually everyone, Sacks writes, has "innate musicality," even though there is clearly a wide range of talent. And in fact, modern imaging technology lets researchers compare the sizes of various brain structures of musicians with nonmusicians. "Anatomists today," he states, "would be hard put to identify the brain of a visual artist, a writer, or a mathematician -- but they could recognize the brain of a professional musician without a moment's hesitation."

Like his previous books, "Musicophilia" combines case histories with Sacks' observations and speculations. He is sometimes his own patient, as when he ponders how music allowed him to emerge from a time of bereavement.

In another instance following a serious climbing accident, "a sort of marching or rowing song" enabled him to struggle off the mountain, then months later, to learn to walk again when aided by the rhythm and melody of the Mendelssohn violin concerto. He finds others inspired by musical rhythm, too: a woman with a complex hip fracture whose apparently paralyzed and useless left leg nevertheless began to tap a toe to Irish jigs; a cyclist who clocked his personal best time when he listened to operatic overtures.

Just how music becomes a "key to ... transformation" in so many cases is still being studied. But music therapies, it's now understood, must be tailored to different disorders. For instance, some music triggers tics in people with Tourette's, while jazz and rock may mask and channel energy. A drumming group cannot only bring calm and focus, but also provide musical and social bonding.

Sacks' tales of musicophilia, loving music, work their way beyond passionate personal appreciation of music toward potential uses with neurological conditions. "This might seem a very tall order," he remarks when discussing music therapy to help people with dementia, but "... music of the right kind can serve to orient and anchor a patient when almost nothing else can." The same, his excellent book shows, might be said for each of us, that music -- like love -- works its own unique magic.

Seattle Times review of last night's concert

A few weeks ago I wrote about my first rehearsal with the Seattle Symphony Chorale. The experience has continued to be energizing, well worth the commute and homework. Last night was my first performance with this organization. What a privilege to sing to a full house with such accomplished musicians, especially under the direction of Carolyn Kuan. Click More for Melinda Bargreen's Seattle Times review.



Mozart's Requiem: No better salve for soul
By Melinda Bargreen
Seattle Times music critic

An evening of well-played Mozart is like a balm to the soul -- an instant antidote to a world of grim headlines and traffic jams. This doesn't mean that Mozart's music is unremittingly jolly; indeed, his Requiem is as serious as music gets. But there is an incredible rightness about Mozart, a sense of order as beautiful as the perfectly synchronized turns of a school of fish or a flock of birds in flight. This is music that restores your faith and your optimism.

Take the middle Adagio movement of the Clarinet Concerto, for example. It is simplicity itself, especially when it's played as subtly and elegantly as the first-rate soloist Jon Manasse played it in Thursday's all-Mozart Seattle Symphony program. But the simple rise and fall of each phrase in the Adagio is so beautifully crafted that there has really never been anything to surpass it.

All the music on the Symphony's program is very late Mozart, written within months of his death in 1791. Conductor Carolyn Kuan opened with the Overture to "The Magic Flute," continuing with the Clarinet Concerto and finally the Requiem. It also was a program that definitively showed what Kuan, the orchestra's busy associate conductor, can do. She is an adroit leader, a capable and sensitive accompanist (in the concerto), and a multitasking whiz who was completely on top of the Requiem score -- cueing (and singing with) the Seattle Symphony Chorale, and leading the orchestra with taut, punchy gestures that conveyed the music's energy and urgency.

The Chorale, prepared by Joseph Crnko, sang with power, feeling, and accuracy. The four vocal soloists were all well chosen, particularly the seraphic soprano Harolyn Blackwell and the superb tenor Karl Dent. (Blackwell will be replaced in Sunday's performance by Holly Boaz.) The repeat performances are well worth a trip to Benaroya Hall.

Melinda Bargreen: mbargreen@seattletimes.com