I’ve been a fan of Rufus Wainwright’s wonderful songwriting for decades, so it was a special pleasure to have the opportunity to write the program essay for the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s performance of his Dream Requiem – an epic project that is receiving its North American premiere on Sunday evening, 4 May. The amazing Grant Gershon conducts, with Liv Redpath as the soprano soloist and Jane Fonda as the narrator. Rufus Wainwright and Jane Fonda in conversation
“I am a religious Russian Orthodox person and I understand ‘religion’ in the literal meaning of the word, as ‘re-ligio’, that is to say the restoration of connections, the restoration of the ‘legato’ of life. There is no more serious task for music than this.” – Sofia Gubaidulina
The great Sofia Gubaidulina has died at the age of 93. She passed away on 13 March at her home in Appen, Germany.
From her publisher, Boosey & Hawkes: “Sofia Gubaidulina, the grande dame of new music, has passed away on 13 March 2025, aged 93, at her home in Appen, near Hamburg in Germany. She was considered the most important Russian composer of the present day and a person who drew inspiration from a deep faith. Her interest in the world, in people and in the spiritual touched everyone who met and worked with her. In her work, she always focussed on the elementary, on human existence and the transformative power of music.
She is like a ‘flying hermit’, said conductor Simon Rattle, because she is always “in orbit and only occasionally visits terra firma. Now and then she comes to us on the earth and brings us light and then goes back into her orbit.” Conductor Andris Nelsons has noted that “Sofia Gubaidulina’s music – its intellect and its profound spirituality – is deeply touching. It really gets under your skin”.
According to NPR: “In a 2017 interview with the BBVA Foundation, Gubaidulina talked about the power of music in sweeping terms. ‘The art of music is consistent with the task of expanding the higher dimension of our lives,’ she said. A deeply religious artist, she once described her writing process as speaking with God.” She also said: “The art of music is capable of touching and approaching mysteries and laws existing in the cosmos and in the world.”
Here’s my recent interview for The Strad with conductor Matthew Aubin on his mission to reclaim attention for Fernande Decruck’s music:
For decades, French composer Fernande Decruck (1896–1954) was known only for her Sonata in C-sharp for alto saxophone, a staple of the classical saxophone repertoire. Many of her compositions were left unpublished at her untimely death at the age of 57 and sank into oblivion.
This weekend brings another of my picks for the first few months of 2025: Cappella Romana presents the world premiere of the complete Canon for Racial Reconciliation, a collaboration between composers Isaac Cates and Nicholas Reeves that fuses the sound worlds of Orthodox and Gospel church music.
Cates and Reeves have set a remarkable poem in the form of an ancient Byzantine canon written by Dr. Carla Thomas, one of the leaders of the Fellowship of St. Moses the Black, whose mission is “to share the Orthodox Christian faith with African Americans and people of color.”
Combining two choirs – each coming from Orthodox and Gospel traditions, respectively – Canon also calls for violin, trumpet, guitar, piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and pre-recorded sound samples of sermons and related material.
James Bash has written an excellent preview for Oregon.live here, which includes this observation from co-composer Nicholas Reeves: “This piece was not a response to anything specific that is happening at the moment. It touches on issues that have been part of America for a long, long time. There are no political positions in the piece. The Canon of Racial Reconciliation comes from a compassionate and reconciliatory perspective. It recognizes misdeeds and violence and justice and tries to find a way forward that moves everyone ahead. The goal is healing in America. We move ahead even when there is no forgiveness or justice present. The music is an expression of mutual and peaceful co-existence.”
Performances are Friday 28 February at 7.30pm at Town Hall in Seattle and Saturday 1 March at 7.30pm at First United Methodist Church in Portland. Go here for tickets or call 503-236-8202 (use the code CANON for a 20% discount in advance). There will be a conversation with the composers and conductors right before the performances (free with registration).
Today Seattle Opera announced the lineup for the company’s first full season with General and Artistic Director James Robinson at the helm.
I’m especially pleased to see Gregory Spears’s Fellow Travelers – more timely than ever – among the three company premieres. Last summer’s Santa Fe Opera season included The Righteous, a collaboration between Spears and poet Tracey K. Smith, and the production knocked me out. Fellow Travelers is set during the McCarthy era and is based on the Thomas Mallon novel about the “Lavender Scare” that affected workers in the federal government.
Budget tightening obviously plays a big role here, but the rest of the season is quite a mixed bag: Seattle Opera’s first venture into Gilbert & Sullivan territory with The Pirates of Penzance; a Richard Strauss rarity, Daphne, but in concert format, which will star Heidi Stober as the mythic protagonist and with David Afkham conducting; and the perennial Carmen, which will star Sasha Cooke in her role debut (alternating with J’Nai Bridges in one of her signature parts). Another plus: Ludovic Morlot will conduct.
So we’re now done to just four mainstage productions, one of them in concert format, and no more season opener in August – when the Ring used to be the center of attention, so long ago.
Here’s the complete program:
Performance Information (see full cast lists at seattleopera.org)
The Pirates of Penzance Music by Arthur Sullivan
Libretto by W.S. Gilbert Conducted by David Charles Abell Directed and Choreographed by Seán Curran October 18, 19, 24, 26, 28, 29, November 1, 2025 McCaw Hall (321 Mercer St, Seattle, WA 98109) seattleopera.org/pirates
Gay Apparel: A Holiday Show
December 12 & 13, 2025 The Opera Center (363 Mercer St, Seattle, WA 98109) seattleopera.org/gayapparel
Daphne in Concert Music by Richard Strauss Libretto by Joseph Gregor January 16 & 18, 2026 McCaw Hall (321 Mercer St, Seattle, WA 98109) seattleopera.org/daphne
Fellow Travelers
Music by Gregory Spears Libretto by Greg Pierce
Conducted by Patrick Summers Directed by Kevin Newbury
February 21, 22, 25, 27, 28, & March 1, 2026 The Opera Center (363 Mercer St, Seattle, WA 98109) seattleopera.org/fellowtravelers
Carmen Music by George Bizet
Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy Conducted by Ludovic Morlot Directed and Choreographed by Paul Curran May 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 13, 16, & 17, 2026 McCaw Hall (321 Mercer St, Seattle, WA 98109) seattleopera.org/carmen
replica of a Viennese fortepiano built by Rodney Regier that will be used for the Mozart concertos
A week after its sold-out immersion in Winterreise with baritone Charles Robert Stephens (on Schubert’s birthday), Seattle Chamber Orchestra presents a program exploring the fortepiano – the kind of keyboard Mozart knew.
Mozart had to carve out his own path as a freelance artist in Vienna during the final decade of his career. He relied on his reputation as a celebrity virtuoso to cultivate a core audience, largely through his dazzlingly inventive series of piano concertos (as we call them), which he typically premiered in subscription concerts that doubled as crucial fundraising opportunities.
Conductor and pianist Lorenzo Marasso, SCO’s founder and music director, has curated a program around two of these concertos, which will be performed using a fortepiano: K. 449 in E-flat major and K. 488 in A major, with Tamara Friedman and Marasso as the soloists. He will also conduct SCO in Mozart’s Divertimento in D major, K133, and the great G minor Symphony, K. 550.
“A fortepianois an early piano,” Marasso explains. “In principle, the word fortepiano can designate any piano dating from the invention of the instrument by Bartolomeo Cristofori in 1698 up to the early 19th century. Most typically, however, it is used to refer to the mid-18th- to early-19th-century Viennese instruments, for which composers of the Classical era, especially Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, wrote their piano music.”
The concertos will be performed on a replica of just such a Viennese fortepiano, which was built by Rod Regier and is borrowed from the collection of historical keyboards of Prof. George Bozarth and Tamara Friedman.
The concert will be held on 7 February 2025 at Plymouth United Church of Christ in downtown Seattle (1217 6th Ave). A pre-concert talk will take place at 7:15pm; the performance begins at 8pm. Admission includes the pre-concert talk and the performance, accompanied by drinks and appetizers. Tickets here.
The newly formed SCO is rooted in our cherished Pacific Northwest’s casual and open culture and brings together the region’s top instrumentalists to create an all-sensory experience of music where you are invited to be part of the experience rather than merely witnessing it. Founded in 2021, the Seattle Chamber Orchestra seeks to bring music lovers tantalizing combinations of the traditional and contemporary repertoire, performed by world-class professional musicians. Brought to life through thoughtful programming that educates as much as it inspires, SCO seeks to reinvigorate live classical music by providing opportunities for musicians and audiences to explore traditional and new music and challenge established boundaries.
Friday night is the opening concert of Seattle Chamber Music Society‘s Winter Festival 2025 (over this weekend and next). Some wonderful programs to look forward to: Brahms Op. 34; a fecund piano quintet by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, written when he was 18 (SCT is represented on this weekend’s Seattle Symphony program as well); Bartók’s Sonata for 2 Pianos and Percussion; Enescu’s Octet; Rebecca Clarke’s Viola Sonata; Schoenberg’s “Verklärte Nacht” in the original sextet version (with James Ehnes in the ensemble, and more.
Seattle Symphony released a bombshell announcement this afternoon:
The Seattle Symphony and Benaroya Hall today announced that Dr. Krishna Thiagarajan, President & CEO, will resign after six and a half years of dedicated service to the organization. His last day will be April 30, 2025.
“It’s been a deeply fulfilling experience to work with all the talented and dedicated people at the Seattle Symphony, Benaroya Hall and its foundation,” stated Dr. Thiagarajan. “Leading the organization through COVID, the rebuilding of audiences and the historic appointment of Xian Zhang as the first female and woman of color Music Director have been some of the highlights of my time here.”
… The Symphony board of directors is forming a search committee to launch an international search for Dr. Thiagarajan’s successor. While the Seattle Symphony begins its search for its next President & CEO, Maria Yang, Chief Development and Project Officer, will serve as Acting CEO to ensure a smooth transition.
PostClassical Ensemble continues its Amazing Grace New Year’s tradition on Monday, 13 January, with a chamber program saluting the music of Native American composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate. The concert takes place at 7:30 pm ET at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater.
“This annual event celebrates the universal expression of the human spirit through music, inviting a living composer to curate a concert designed to uplift and inspire,” says PCE artistic director Angel Gil-Ordóñez.
The program includes Tate’s Chokfi’ for strings and percussion; selections from his rhapsodic Standing Bear: A Ponca Indian Cantata (performed by baritone Javier Arrey); Hymn and Spider Brings Fire from Lowak Shoppala’ (Fire and Light), a work expressing Tate’s Chickasaw heritage through music, to texts by poet Linda Hogan. The concert will also feature the Larghetto from Prokofiev’s Symphony no. 1 (“Classical”) and Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (performed by Mvskoke soprano Kirsten C. Kunkle). tickets here
From left: Debra Nagy, Tekla Cunningham, Danielle Reutter-Harrah, David Morris, Tyler Duncan and Ross Gilliland perform at the Whidbey Island Music Festival, founded and directed by Cunningham. Cunningham is also founder and director of the new… (Dennis Browne)
The brilliant violinist, artistic director, and educator Tekla Cunningham has been extra-busy of late laying the groundwork for a promising new venture that launches this weekend. I had the privilege to speak with Tekla about the inspiration behind the Seattle Bach Festival:
For Tekla Cunningham, music happens in the connections — not only between the notes but between the humans who produce and experience them. … continue
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 