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!
Keep an eye out for our flyer in concert programs and coffee shops around town. 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.”
Wayward Music Series
Concerts of contemporary composition, free improvisation, electroacoustic music, and sonic experiments. This month: dynamic collaborations, deep ecology, and sounds from the end of the world.
Various days, 7:30/8pm, Good Shepherd Chapel | $5-$15
Seattle Symphony: Trimpin, Stiefel, & More
Equal parts composer and sound sculptor, Trimpin creates sonic installations at the intersection of music and visual art. Hear his work Solo Flute, Eight Pottery Wheels and Assorted Vinyls alongside music of Andrew Stiefel, Leonardo Gorosito, Rafael Alberto, and Igor Stravinsky.
Tues, 4/2, 7:30pm, Octave 9 | $20
Emerald City Music: Dreamers’ Circus
Classical music meets Nordic folk song in this globe-trotting Scandinavian trio. Comprised of violin, piano/accordion, and cittern (a lute with a flat back), the trio brings together the warmth and nostalgia of acoustic folk music with the subtle complexities of the classical tradition.
Fri, 4/5, 8pm, 415 Westlake | $45
Sat, 4/6, 7:30pm, The Minnaert Center (Olympia) | $20-$25
James Falzone: The Already & The Not Yet
Reflecting on his past three years living in Seattle, composer and clarinetist James Falzone offers a meditation on his long-running solo work, Sighs Too Deep for Words. Plus: new music composed for Tao Trio featuring Falzone alongside pianist Wayne Horvitz and bassist Abbey Blackwell.
Sat, 4/6, 8pm, Good Shepherd Chapel | $5-$15
Third Coast Percussion: ‘Perpetulum’
Philip Glass’s first and only piece for percussion ensemble receives its Pacific Northwest premiere in the capable hands of Third Coast Percussion, who commissioned the piece last year. A handful of the ensemble’s own original Glass-inspired works complete the program.
Sun, 4/7, 6pm, Nordstrom Recital Hall | $22
Harry Partch Ensemble: ‘Daphne of the Dunes’
The ancient Greek myth of Daphne and Apollo is reimagined through the primal rhythms and eerie microtones of Harry Partch’s handmade instruments. His sprawling Daphne of the Dunes (originally composed as a film score) is performed alongside microtonal art songs of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Tues, 4/9, 7:30pm, Meany Studio Theater | $10
Harry Partch Ensemble: ‘The Bewitched’
Music, theatre, and ritual merge in Harry Partch’s radical dance satire The Bewitched. Written as a reaction against the rigidity of modern civilization, the piece explores how we might ultimately find a sense of rebirth through a discovering our ancient past. The tale unfolds across 12 scenes played out on Partch’s collection of handmade microtonal instruments.
Sat, 4/13, 7:30pm, Meany Studio Theater | $10
Music of Today: Performing with the Brain
Performers can create music without movement thanks to a new brain computer music interface developed at the University of Washington. Patients with motor disability improvise with professional musicians in this performance led by composers Juan Pampin and Richard Karpen and neuroscientist Thomas Deuel.
Fri, 4/19, 7:30pm, Meany Studio Theater | FREE
Seattle Symphony: ‘Surrogate Cities’
Man, machine, and the modern metropolis are the major themes behind Heiner Goebbels’ new multimedia work Surrogate Cities. Like the city itself, the music is a sprawling blur of human and machine-made sounds enhanced with striking visual effects. Get a sneak preview of Goebbels’ immersive chamber works performed in Octave 9, and hear Surrogate Cities in the main hall over the weekend.
Mon, 4/22, 7:30pm, Octave 9 | $25
Thurs, 4/25, 7:30pm, Benaroya Hall | $22-$122
Fri, 4/26, 8pm, Benaroya Hall | $22-$122
Philip Glass: ‘Hydrogen Jukebox’
The pulsing minimalism of Philip Glass and the countercultural activism of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg combine in Hydrogen Jukebox, a 1990 chamber opera reflecting on issues of war, peace, social equity, and sustainability. The UW Vocal Theatre Workshop performs the Northwest Premiere under the direction of Cyndia Siden, Dean Williamson, and Deanne Meek.
4/26-4/27, 7:30pm, Meany Studio Theater | $10
Ladies Musical Club: Northwest Composers
Pacific Northwest composers are celebrated in this wide-ranging concert of chamber music featuring works by Karen P. Thomas, Alex Shapiro, Sarah Mattox, and many more.
Sat, 4/27, 7pm, Music Center of the NW | FREE
Seattle Symphony: American Horizons
Composer-in-Residence Derek Bermel curates an evening of music ranging from Steve Reich to Mary Kouyoumdjian, with world premieres by Kaley Lane Eaton and Bermel himself composed specifically for the immersive new Octave 9 space.
Sun, 4/28, 6pm, Octave 9 | $35
Seattle Modern Orchestra: ‘Coming Together’
Frederic Rzewski’s hypnotic classic Coming Together uses text adapted from a prison letter written by Sam Melville, an anarchist bomber who was killed during the Attica Prison uprising in 1971. The harrowing piece is performed here alongside politically-charged works by Christian Wolff.
Sun, 4/28, 7:30pm, The Royal Room | $10-$20
Paul Taub: Landscape with Birds
Flute music from across three continents is presented in this program exploring the instrument’s wide range of techniques and influences. Paul Taub, who recently retired from nearly four decades of teaching at Cornish, performs music of Pēteris Vasks, Toru Takemitsu, Bun-Ching Lam, Robert Aitken, Janice Giteck, and more.
Tues, 4/30, 7pm, Folio | $20