LIVE CONCERT SPOTLIGHT: December 10-13

by Maggie Molloy

Ethereal Christmas carols and a sensational clarinetist are just two of the events on this week’s captivating music calendar.

Joshua Roman with the Seattle Symphony

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Cellist Joshua Roman first stole Seattle’s heart when he became the youngest principal player in Seattle Symphony history at age 22. Though he left the position after two years to pursue a remarkably diverse solo career, he still visits Seattle frequently to perform and to serve as the artistic director of the Town Hall TownMusic series.

In his latest musical venture, Roman is heading back to Benaroya Hall to perform the world premiere of symphonic composer Mason Bates’ Cello Concerto. The piece, which was written for Roman, combines melodic lyricism with elements of modernism and jazz. The concerto has a distinctly American character, and its pulsing rhythms are suggestive of Bates’ experiments in electronic music.

The concert will also feature Prokofiev’s Suite from “Lieutenant Kijé” and selections from Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty.”

The performances are at Benaroya Hall this Thursday, Dec. 11 at 7:30 p.m., Friday, Dec. 12 at 12 p.m., and Saturday, Dec. 13 at 8 p.m. A pre-concert talk will be presented one hour prior to each performance.

 

Sean Osborn

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The clarinet has the largest pitch range of all common woodwind instruments—and Seattle clarinetist and composer Sean Osborn is proving that it might also be one of the most musically versatile.

Osborn is a critically acclaimed clarinetist whose music combines extended clarinet techniques with rock music energy for a sound that incorporates post-minimalism, New Age, Celtic, folk, and many other musical styles. This Wednesday, he is presenting four new works of chamber music for unusual instrumentation, including a sextet for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion as well as three new pieces for violin, clarinet, cello, and piano. He will also perform one solo clarinet work.

The performance is this Wednesday, Dec. 10 at 7:30 p.m. at the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford.

 

Phil Kline’s “Unsilent Night”

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If you’re sick of classic Christmas carols, perhaps Phil Kline’s “Unsilent Night” might be a little more your style. This contemporary twist on holiday caroling is celebrated annually around the globe. But don’t worry, there’s no singing involved—all you have to do is download an app.

Kline’s “Unsilent Night” is an electronic composition written specifically for outdoor performance in December. Participants each download one of four tracks of music which, when played together, comprise Kline’s ethereal “Unsilent Night.”

Countless participants meet up with boomboxes, speakers, or any other type of portable amplifiers and each hit “play” at the same time. Then they walk through the city streets creating an ambient, aleatoric sound sculpture that is unlike any Christmas carol you have ever heard.

The interweaving of electronic recordings creates an experimental soundscape full of shimmering bells and time-stretched hymnal melodies, capturing the magic and enchantment of the holiday spirit without any of the corny Christmas classics.

Seattle’s rendition of Phil Kline’s “Unsilent Night” will take place this Saturday, Dec. 13. The procession begins at 5 p.m. at On the Boards’ Merrill Wright Mainstage Theater Lobby in Lower Queen Anne.

 

People. Make. Awesome. (Music + Moving Image)

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Why limit yourself to just music when you can combine it with other artistic disciplines? Earlier this season we saw the Frank Agency and Nonsquitur present a series of artistic pairings rooted in music and sound, then music and dance as part of their three-part series “People. Make. Awesome.” Now, for the series’ final installment they are exploring the possibilities of music and moving image.

The featured artists are experimental animator and performance artist Stefan Gruber, composer and videographer Leo Mayberry, video editor and multimedia artist Melissa Parson, composer and trumpeter Samantha Boshnack, guitarist Jason Goessl, and multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Jessica Lurie. With so many diverse artists in one place, it’s sure to be an awe-inspiring performance.

“People. Make. Awesome.” will take place this Thursday, Dec. 11 at 8 p.m. in the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford.

LIVE CONCERT SPOTLIGHT: October 17-18

by Maggie Molloy

Looking to expand your musical horizons? Here are some exciting and experimental Seattle music events taking place this weekend.

Inverted Space Featuring UW Student Compositions

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Young 20-somethings are often at the forefront of new music ventures, constantly pushing the boundaries of familiar music genres and creating new ways of experimenting with sound. Seattle’s vibrant young musician scene is no exception. This Friday, music students from the University of Washington are presenting a colorful concert full of contemporary musical compositions written by their peers.

Inverted Space, UW’s contemporary music ensemble, will be performing small ensemble works written by fellow UW music students. The compositions include a solo work for violin and electronics, a duo for saxophone and cello, and many other unique musical compositions with imaginative instrumentation.

The concert is part of Nonsequitur’s Wayward Music Series, and will take place in the gorgeous Chapel Performance Space at the historic Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford.​ The concert is this Friday, Oct. 17 at 7:30 p.m.

 

Seattle Symphony’s [untitled] Season Opener

SSO Musicians at LPR (c) Brandon Patoc

(photo credit: Brandon Patoc)

This Friday, the Seattle Symphony is taking their music outside of Benaroya Hall and into…the lobby.

That’s right; Seattle Symphony is opening their 2014-2015 [untitled] series with a late-night concert presented in Benaroya Hall’s beautiful Samuel and Althea Stroum Grand Lobby. The performance will feature compositions by the influential 20th century Hungarian composer György Ligeti as well as contemporary composers Djuro Zivkovic and Andrew Norman.

Symphony musicians will perform Gyorgy Ligeti’s String Quartet No. 1, “Métamorphoses nocturnes.” One of his more daring early works, the quartet is written in one continuous movement which can be divided into 17 contrasting sections. The concert program also features Serbian-Swedish composer and violinist Djuro Zivkovic’s “On the Guarding of the Heart” as well as American composer Andrew Norman’s “Try.”

If you’d like to hear some insightful interviews with Andrew Norman, Djuro Zivkovic, and Mikhail Schmidt, one of the violinists, check out this great feature from Seattle Symphony!

The performance will take place in Benaroya Hall’s grand lobby this Friday, Oct. 17 at 10 p.m.  Be sure to stop by the KING FM table and say hi to Second Inversion’s Maggie Stapleton!

 

William O. Smith’s Jazz Clarinet

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This Saturday night, William O. Smith is jazzing up classical clarinet music with a performance of his own imaginative compositions and creative improvisations. The classically-trained jazz clarinetist has devoted much of his career to studying and cataloguing an impressive range of extended clarinet techniques, all of which have informed his own original compositions.

Smith will be joined by trombonist Stuart Dempster and clarinetist Jesse Canterbury. The captivating program includes a piece written for clarinet and improvising computer, a piece written for clarinet and computer-transformed sounds, as well as artful improvisations in duo and trio combinations.

The event, which is co-presented by the Earshot Jazz Festival and Nonsequitur, will take place at the Good Shepherd Center’s Chapel Performance Space in Wallingford this Saturday, Oct. 18 at 8 p.m.