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Arts writing by Thomas May

October 1, 2026 • 10:55 am 0

Huang Ruo Named Seattle Opera’s Composer-in-Residence

Major announcement from Seattle Opera:

Internationally renowned composer Huang Ruo will serve as the company’s first-ever composer-in-residence beginning in 2027. Lasting three years, the residency launches with the Seattle premiere of M. Butterfly and will culminate in the world premiere of The Wedding Banquet, a comic opera inspired by Ang Lee’s 1993 film as well as Andrew Ahn’s re-imagined version from 2025, with a libretto by screenwriter James Schamus.

“Huang Ruo is one of the foremost composers of opera in the United States, and I couldn’t be prouder to
announce his residency with Seattle Opera,” said general director James Robinson, who has directed several of Huang Ruo’s
operas, beginning with the North American premiere of Dr. Sun Yat-sen at Santa Fe Opera in 2014.

“Beyond his accomplished record as a composer, Huang Ruo is also a compelling advocate for opera who believes deeply in the art form’s power to bring people together. He’s one of the most engaging and enthusiastic people I know, and I think Seattle Opera audiences will be fascinated by his perspectives.”


“I’m deeply humbled and honored by this invitation to serve as Composer-in-Residence for Seattle Opera,” said Huang Ruo, who conducted his chamber opera Bound at Seattle Opera in 2023. “It is rare for opera companies to engage Composers-in-Residence, so I think this partnership demonstrates both Seattle Opera’s bold vision for the future of the art form and an exciting model for how opera companies can work with living creators to create, present, and engage the community around new opera. I am excited for this new adventure and I feel a sincere responsibility as an artist and educator to help people better understand both ourselves and our world through opera.”

I wrote about for The New York Times here.

complete press release

Filed under: music news, new music, new opera, Seattle Opera

September 28, 2026 • 7:43 pm 0

From Chamber Intimacy to the Edge of Chaos: Ehnes and Zhang in Seattle

James Ehnes, Xian Zhang and the Seattle Symphony; © Seattle Symphony | James Holt

For Seattle audiences, James Ehnes is more than another internationally celebrated soloist dropping in for a guest appearance. He has described both the city and Benaroya Hall as places he thinks of as home….

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Filed under: Berlioz, James Ehnes, Max Bruch, review, Seattle Symphony, Xian Zhang

September 26, 2026 • 9:45 am 0

From Bachian Buoyancy to Ravelian Vertigo: Yulianna Avdeeva in Seattle

Yulianna Avdeeva; © Jorge Gustavo Elias

Some thoughts on Yulianna Avdeeva’s recent recital presented by Seattle Chamber Music Society – reviewed for Bachtrack:

Yulianna Avdeeva opened Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Signature Series at the Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall in notably changed surroundings. Over the summer, Benaroya Hall underwent an extensive renovation of its public spaces, leaving both performance venues untouched while transforming their surrounding lobbies. The recital hall’s newly redesigned, mid-century-modern-inflected foyer is now dominated by Robert Rauschenberg’s Echo…

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Filed under: Bach, Beethoven, Maurice Ravel, pianists, review, Seattle Chamber Music Society

September 21, 2026 • 8:42 am 0

Seattle Symphony Debuts Renovated Benaroya Hall, Opens 2026-27 Season

Seattle Symphony Music Director Xian Zhang conducts the Symphony musicians during opening night of the 2026-27 season. (James Holt / Seattle Symphony)

My report for The Seattle Times on Seattle Symphony’s opening night:

Seattle Symphony’s opening-night concert Saturday included an unusual extra audition: Benaroya Hall’s newly renovated public spaces met their first concert audience. A $20 million overhaul — the hall’s first major renovation since it opened in 1998 — has given the lobbies serving both auditoriums a striking makeover.

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Seattle Symphony debuts its recent renovations during opening night of its 2026-27 season. (Jorge Gustavo Elias)

Filed under: music news, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Seattle Symphony, Seattle Times, Xian Zhang

September 20, 2026 • 7:10 am 0

Evergreen Ensemble Presents Joby Talbot’s ‘Path of Miracles’

Evergreen Ensemble impressed me when I heard them last spring in the premiere of Connor Koppin’s To Look West for choir, string quartet, and piano, and I’m looking forward to their participation in the Seattle Bach Festival’s upcoming performances of Bach’s Mass in B minor.

This afternoon, the Edmonds-based choir, led by David Hendrix, is presenting English composer Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles, an cappella work inspired by the ancient pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela and evoking its spiritual and emotional dimensions.

Written for Tenebrae and premiered in 2005, Path traces the journey in four movements, setting a libretto by poet Robert Dickinson reflecting on the pilgrimage, with mediaeval texts interspersed.

Sunday, September 20, at 3 pm

Holy Rosary Catholic Church (West Seattle) 4210 SW Genesee St Seattle, WA 98116

Students and children under 18 free.

👉Details and tickets here

Filed under: choral music, new music

September 19, 2026 • 11:48 am 0

‘A new chapter unfolding’: Poiesis Quartet on its evolving identity

Poiesis Quartet in their Lucerne Festival debut: Sarah Ying Ma, Coco Mi, Drew Dansby and Jasper de Boor; photo © Manuela Jans / Lucerne Festival

It was such a pleasure meeting and hearing the Banff-winning, innovative Poiesis Quartet at Lucerne Festival, where they played in the prestigious Debut series. Here’s my interview with violinist Sarah Ying Ma and cellist Drew Dansby for The Strad:

On the eve of their Lucerne Festival debut, Sarah Ying Ma and Drew Dansby of the Banff-winning American Poiesis Quartet talk about a changing line-up, an expanding repertoire and the ideas shaping the ensemble’s next chapter….

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Filed under: Lucerne Festival, string quartet, The Strad

September 9, 2026 • 4:05 am 0

Augustin Hadelich in Lucerne

Augustin Hadelich is of course a familiar and well-loved figure in Seattle, where I last heard him in March in a memorable, thoughtfully programmed recital with Francesco Piemontesi at Meany Center for the Performing Arts. What a pleasure to encounter him in varied contexts at this summer’s Lucerne Festival as ‘artiste étoile.’

The first concert of my visit here brought the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Kirill Petrenko – a kind of anti-concerto in its resistance to conventional virtuoso display that, paradoxically, became one of the great models for the Romantic violin concerto and that is also extraordinarily difficult to play convincingly.

I was blown away by Hadelich’s signature blend of warmth and poetry, and also by the natural give-and-take between him and this collective of world-class musicians, each with such a strong musical personality. As an encore, he offered his own touching arrangement of Schumann’s Träumerei.

Over the weekend, Hadelich joined with Mark O’Connor and Maggie O’Connor (all pictured here together) for ‘Fiddle Night’ in the smaller venue that is used for many of the Lucerne Festival Academy concerts. The program opened with a set by the O’Connors, charmingly introduced from the stage and including ‘Wildflowers’ as a tribute to Dolly Parton. (Mark O’Connor also played on the original 1987 recording with Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris.)

Hadelich then took the stage alone for his arrangement of Howdy Forrester’s ‘Wild Fiddler’s Rag’ – also included on his American Road Trip album – and O’Connor’s ‘Menuhin Caprice,’ written for the Menuhin Competition, a witty take on virtuosity that fuses American fiddling with the classical caprice tradition.

The high point was O’Connor’s calling-card tune, ‘Appalachia Waltz’ – played by all three violinists together as an unhurried, shared meditation that seemed to reflect on Lucerne Festival’s ‘American Dreams’ theme with a certain ache – looking back at what the American dream once promised, and asking whether it still has a future.

Filed under: American music, Beethoven, Lucerne Festival, violinists, , , , ,

September 2, 2026 • 6:14 am 0

Postcard from Port Angeles: Music on the Strait

Mezzo-soprano Abigail Nims with James Garlick and Kristin Lee, violins; Maiya Papach, viola; Silver Ainomäe, cello – photo: Dewi Sprague

I ecently paid a visit to Port Angeles for the opening of Music on the Strait‘s 2026 Festival. My report for The Strad:

Music on the Strait (MOTS) has always been a festival shaped by string players. Founded in 2018 by violinist James Garlick and Takács Quartet violist Richard O’Neill – longtime friends both raised on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula – MOTS brings chamber musicians from the international circuit to the Peninsula’s largest population centre, overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca towards Vancouver Island….

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Filed under: Music on the Strait, review, Strad, violinists

August 30, 2026 • 8:39 am Comments Off on Liza Lim and ‘Tongue of the Land’

Liza Lim and ‘Tongue of the Land’

Happy birthday to Liza Lim – the day after an extraordinary world premiere at Lucerne Festival by the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra of her Roche Commissions composition Tongue of the Land. It’s a thrillingly original and powerful new work that brings a reconstructed 2,000-year-old Celtic bronze trumpet – aka the carnyx – into a modern orchestra. Lim wrote it for the trailblazing Dutch trumpeter Marco Blaauw as soloist.

Tonight – Sunday 30 August at 10pm–Midnight PDT (UTC−7) – Seattle-based composer, writer, and broadcaster Michael Schell will broadcast a new interview with Liza on Flotation Device on 91.3 KBCS, a long-running program devoted to contemporary, experimental, and improvised music. It will be available afterwards in podcast format at https://www.mixcloud.com/flotationdevice/

SRF 2 Kultur Swiss Radio has made last night’s complete Lucerne Festival concert available to listen to on demand here. The program also features Jörg Widmann as soloist in Mark Andre’s über for clarinet, orchestra, and live electronics, as well as John Adams’s Doctor Atomic Symphony. Peter Rundel’s conducting was superb – precise but passionate while navigating three entirely different sound worlds. Tongue of the Land comes at the beginning of the second half, starting just after 1:11:00. (A VPN is required to listen from outside Switzerland.)

I also had the privilege of editing the accompanying book published by Roche, which commissioned Tongue of the Land through the biennial Roche Commissions series. Brilliantly designed by award-winning designer Alexey Murashko, it traces Liza’s creative process and the remarkable journey of the carnyx into this new work. I’ll share a link as soon as it becomes available:

Filed under: Liza Lim, Lucerne Festival, Lucerne Festival Academy, new music, Roche Commissions

August 19, 2026 • 4:44 pm Comments Off on Music on the Strait 2026

Music on the Strait 2026

Music on the Strait, the Port Angeles-based chamber music festival that brings leading musicians from around the country to the Olympic Peninsula near the end of each summer, launches its 2026 season on Saturday, August 22, at the Field Arts & Events Hall in Port Angeles, located right on the waterfront.

The festival runs August 22–30, with a total of four concerts, two each at Field Arts & Events Hall and Maier Hall. This year’s roster includes mezzo-soprano Abigail Nims, flutist Demarre McGill, pianist Jeremy Denk, the Takács Quartet, and composer-in-residence Gabriela Lena Frank, alongside MOTS co-founder and artistic director and violinist James Garlick and other returning artists.

The opening night concert, “A Night at the Opera,” marks MOTS’s first venture into the operatic world. Nims joins violinists Kristin Lee and Garlick, violist Maiya Papach, cellist Silver Ainomäe, and pianist August Baik for an adventurous program featuring Respighi’s rarely performed Il Tramonto and the world premiere of El Mundo by Gabriela Lena Frank. Baik plays Frederic Rzewski’s Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues, from Four North American Ballads, and the musicians will join together at the conclusion for Ernő Dohnányi’s Piano Quintet No. 1 in C minor.

The concert begins at 7:00pm PT on Saturday, August 22. Those attending in person can arrive early for Olympic Strings students at 5:45pm and a pre-concert talk by Lisa Bergman at 6:15pm Music on the Strait is also offering pay-what-makes-you-happy tickets starting at $5.

The concert will also be livestreamed free of charge for those who can’t make it to Port Angeles.

OPENING-NIGHT PROGRAM

Come early for food, drink, and pre-concert programming in the Sunset Lounge

5:45pm – Olympic Strings students

6:15pm – Lisa Bergman pre-concert talk

7:00pm concert:

Ottorino Respighi | Il Tramonto for mezzo soprano and string quartet (1914)
Frederic Rzewski | Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues from Four North American Ballads for Piano (1979)
Gabriela Lena Frank | El Mundo for mezzo soprano and string quartet (World Premiere)
Erno Dohnanyi | Piano Quintet No 1 in C minor, Op 1 (1902)

Abigail Nims, mezzo-soprano
Kristin Lee, violin
James Garlick, violin
Maiya Papach, viola
Silver Ainomäe, cello
August Baik, piano

Sunday afternoon, August 23, at 3:00pm, MOTS continues with a concert at Maier Hall featuring this progam:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | Flute Quartet in D Major, K 285 (1777)
Ernest Bloch | Violin Sonata No.2, B.58 “Poeme Mystique” (1924)           
Antonin Dvořák | Viola Quintet in F major, Op 97 “American” (1893)

Demarre McGill, flute
Kristin Lee, violin
James Garlick, violin
Maiya Papach, viola
Rebecca Albers, viola
Silver Ainomäe, cello

The Maier Hall performance is now sold out, but there is a wait list here.

The second weekend (August 29-30) features a sold-out special evening with the Takács Quartet at Maier Hall on Saturday August 29 at 7:00pm:

Ludwig Van Beethoven | String Quartet in B-flat, Op 18 No 6 (1801)    
Felix Mendelssohn | String Quartet in F minor, Op 80 (1847)
Franz Schubert  | String Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, D.810, “Death and the Maiden” (1824)

The festival finale takes place at Field Arts & Events Hall on Sunday August 30 at 3:00pm and features special guest Jeremy Denk joining the Takács Quartet

Gabriela Lena Frank | Quijotadas (2007)*
Ludwig Van Beethoven | Piano Sonata in D minor, Op 31 No 2 “The Tempest” (1802)
César Franck | Piano Quintet in F minor (1879)

Details, tickets, and the free livestream are available through Music on the Strait.

Filed under: chamber music, music news, Music on the Strait, new music, , , ,

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