This year’s edition of the Celebrate Asia concert presented by Seattle Symphony marks the 16th season of this annual tradition. Associate Conductor Sunny Xia will helm the orchestra in a program of works by two very special composers with Seattle connections, as well as classics by Beethoven and Grieg. The concert takes place on Sunday 28 January 2024 at 4pm at Benaroya Hall. Tickets are available to purchase here. There will also be a Celebrate Asia Market starting at 3pm before the concert and after the performance, featuring the Seattle International Lion Dance Team (at 3pm) and CHIKIRI and The School of TAIKO (post-concert).
The extraordinarily precocious Korean American composer August Baik is a graduate of the 2022-2023 SSO Young Composers Workshop, where his Chuseok Overture for Orchestra was first introduced. The Young Composers Workshop is a unique program that give students the opportunity to workshop compositions with an experienced local composer and Symphony musicians.
The wonderful Paul Chihara‘s new Piano Concerto-Fantasy will receive its US premiere, with Vietnamese American pianist Quynh Nguyen as the soloist. Chihara was born in 1938 in Seattle (and was forced with his family to live in an internment camp in Minidoka, Idaho, during the Second World War as a result of Executive Order 9066). Chihara wrote Piano Concerto-Fantasy for Quynh Nguyen as part of an intensive recent collaboration involving her recording of his complete piano works on the Naxos label. She gave the world premiere in October 2022 with the Vietnamese National Symphony at the Hanoi Opera House as part of a concert commemorating normalization of US-Vietnam diplomatic relations.
Chihara found inspiration for Piano Concerto-Fantasy “in traditional Vietnamese melodies and modes, as well as his own experiences composing scores for television and film about the Vietnam War,” according to Quynh Nguyen. The music, she adds, “embodies a sense of longing for the peaceful past and for the future and its possibilities. The piece is virtuosic and intensely melodic with French and Eastern harmonies and jazz-tinged sections, and phrases reminiscent of Russian classical works. These elements are juxtaposed within the story, reflecting my personal journey of studying music in Vietnam, Russia, France, and the United States, and how their diverse cultures have shaped my life. The concerto reinforces how music transcends politics, language and culture.”
The program will also include Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3 and Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite.
Filed under: music news, new music, Seattle Symphony
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 