Jan Vogler was soloist in Schumann’s Cello Concerto with the Seattle Symphony and music direcctor Xian Zhang. (Photos by James Holt/The Seattle Symphony
Xian Zhang with Seattle Symphony musicians; photo by Carlin Ma
Seattle Symphony has just announced its 2026–27 season, the second under music director Xian Zhang.
She describes the year as shaped by “two sources of inspiration… nature and community,” invoking Seattle as “a city embraced by mountains, water and forests.” The rhetoric frames a three-week spring festival devoted to “monumental works” inspired by landscape.
Beyond that framing, the season’s center of gravity lies in the late-Romantic and early 20th-century canon: Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Brahms, Wagner, Shostakovich and Mahler dominate the symphonic offerings, with Yuja Wang opening the season in Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto and appearances by Emanuel Ax, Gil Shaham, and Itzhak Perlman reinforcing a roster built on established appeal.
Zhang herself will lead twelve programs in all – including Tchaikovsky’s less frequently heard Manfred Symphony – and has cited Seattle artist Dale Chihuly as an influence on the season’s visual identity, another signal of her effort to root the orchestra’s presentation in local culture.
As for contemporary composers, the season includes co-commissions from Joe Pereira (a new concerto for timpani) and Steven Mackey – the latter now a recurring presence in the Symphony’s programming – alongside Samuel Adams, whose No Such Spring receives its Seattle premiere under Ludovic Morlot this fall, with soloist Conor Hanick. I’m especially interested to hear it in Benaroya Hall. Having studied the score around its world premiere by the San Francisco Symphony a few years ago, I know it’s a piece of real substance.
Adams’s presence extends into the Octave 9 series, where Conor Hanick joins percussionist Mari Yoshinaga and a quartet of Symphony musicians for Etudes and Devotions, featuring Adams’s Etudes for Piano and the U.S. premiere of his Devotions for String Quartet and Percussion.
The Elwha River project – a collaboration between flutist Claire Chase and composer Annea Lockwood inspired by the restoration of the Olympic Peninsula river – will be featured in April and stands out immediately to me as one of the season’s most compelling offerings. Adam Tendler’s Inheritances, built from commissions by Laurie Anderson, Missy Mazzoli, Nico Muhly, Pamela Z, Sarah Kirkland Snider and Devonté Hynes, also looks promising, and a centenary homage to György Kurtág is most welcome. (Why I’ve listed these in reverse chronological order is anyone’s guess.)
The series ranges further, from Pamela Z’s solo work for voice and electronics to a closing appearance by the Brandee Younger Trio (harp, bass, and drums).
The “community” emphasis also extends beyond the stage. The Symphony is set to reopen Benaroya Hall’s renovated public spaces at the start of the season, marking the completion of its Amplify capital campaign. The upgrades – new gathering areas, expanded concessions, and reconfigured lobby spaces — underscore an effort to position the hall as more than a performance venue at the outset of Zhang’s second year.
Music Director Xian Zhang and the Symphonic Series
Xian and James Ehnes (September 24, 26 & 27), featuring Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique.
Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto and Zarathustra (November 12, 14 & 15), pairing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra.
Mozart’s Requiem with Xian (November 19, 21 & 22), presenting a Seattle Symphony co-commission and World Premiere of Joe Pereira’s Timpani Concerto, followed by Mozart’s Requiem with the Seattle Symphony Chorale.
Xian and Emanuel Ax (January 28 & 30), featuring Haydn symphonies and Mozart favorites, including his Piano Concerto No. 25.
Tchaikovsky’s Manfred with Xian (February 4, 6 & 7), with saxophonist Steven Banks performing a work by Ibert and his own composition, Come As You Are.
Xian Conducts the Sounds of Spain (February 11 & 13), spotlighting Lalo, Ginastera and Rimsky-Korsakov while featuring Concertmaster Noah Geller.
Xian Conducts Scheherazade (March 11 & 13), featuring Smetana’s The Moldau, Steven Mackey’s Concerto for Orchestra(a Seattle Symphony Co-commission and World Premiere) and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade.
Grieg’s Peer Gynt with Xian (April 8 & 10), with music by Vaughan Williams, Webern, Scriabin and Grieg, and featuring Associate Concertmaster Helen Kim.
Beethoven’s Pastoral and Gil Shaham (April 15, 17 & 18), pairing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 with Dvořák’s Violin Concerto.
Pines & Fountains of Rome with Xian (April 22, 24 & 25), featuring Gabriela Montero’s Piano Concerto No. 1, “Latin” and Respighi’s Roman tone poems.
Xian Conducts Brahms (June 17, 18 & 20), encompassing Brahms’ Symphony No. 3 and his Violin Concerto.
Wagner’s The Ring Without Words (June 24 & 26), closing the season with Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Wagner’s purely symphonic Ring cycle.
On Thursday night, for the first time since early October, Seattle Symphony Music Director Xian Zhang returned to the Benaroya Hall podium, this time with a program of striking contrasts. The first half ventured into unfamiliar territory with a contemporary work for which she has been a leading advocate, while the second turned to one of the 20th century’s blockbuster symphonies…. continue
Xian Zhang, Seattle Symphony’s new music director, conducts during a Seattle Symphony rehearsal in September. Next up, Zhang will lead the Symphony in “Iris Unveiled” Feb. 12-15. (Kevin Clark / The Seattle Times, 2025)
For my latest story in The Seattle Times, I spoke with Xian Zhang about this week’s program featuring Iris dévoilé by Qigang Chen:
As her first season at the helm of the Seattle Symphony moves into its second half, what Music Director Xian Zhang is hoping to achieve with the orchestra — and with the local audience — is beginning to crystallize….
Romanticism has proved more adaptable than its obituaries suggested. Across the 20th century, composers continued to return to music grounded in subjective expression, even when critical fashion leaned elsewhere….
Saxophonist Timothy McAllister, composer Steven Mackey, and conductor Lawrence Renes take bows; photo: Jon Pendleton
A wonderful new saxophone concerto by Steven Mackey featuring Timothy McAllister and some classic John Adams from Seattle Symphony – my review for Classical Voice North America:
SEATTLE – Rather than propose a grand narrative of American music, the Seattle Symphony’s all-American program on Nov. 20 with guest conductor Lawrence Renes set three sharply contrasting voices side by side: Copland’s atmospheric Quiet City, Steven Mackey’s brand-new saxophone concerto Anemology, and John Adams’ ever-astonishing Harmonielehre — a lineup that underscored how differently American composers have approached the orchestra over the past century…. continue
Gabriella Smith recording “Lost Coast” with cellist Gabriel Cabezas at Greenhouse Studios in Iceland. (Sandro Manzon)
Here’s my Seattle Timesprofile of the remarkable young composer Gabriella Smith. This week’s Seattle Symphony concerts will feature her innovative cello concerto Lost Coast, with Gabriel Cabezas as the soloist:
Her official bio reads like a manifesto: “Gabriella Smith is a composer whose work invites listeners to find joy in climate action.” The 33-year-old has built a creative world around that idea — one where music and environmentalism are inseparable…
The Seattle Symphony turned agile chamber band for its all-Baroque evening under guest conductor Ivars Taurins, joined by resident organist Joseph Adam. With the Seattle Opera season opening across town – the company orchestra comprises Seattle Symphony musicians – the program made a virtue of proportion and dramatic resourcefulness…. continue
Ludovic Morlot conducts the Seattle Symphony, with soloist Demarre McGill
With Seattle Symphony on the cusp of a new chapter – music director designate Xian Zhang takes the reins in September – this season-closing program offered a vivid snapshot of the ensemble’s artistic breadth. …
Tan Dun conducting Seattle Symphony, with harpist Xavier de Maistre; photo (c) James Holt / The Seattle Symphony.
A concert built around the artistry of composer, conductor, and cultural connector Tan Dun offers no shortage of conceptual fascination. This week’s concerts mark his turn to the Seattle Symphony podium after a memorable debut here two and a half years ago, when he led his monumental Buddha Passion.
Raised in a remote village in China’s Hunan province and shaped equally by Western classical forms and ancient Chinese traditions, Tan – who since 1986 has been based in the US – brings a theatrical imagination and a deep sense of ritual to the concert stage. He framed last night’s program with a pair of short but intensely colorful works by two early 20th-century composers he admires, serving as explosive preludes to two large-scale pieces from his own catalog.
A vivid reading of Manuel de Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance, from his 1915 ballet El amor brujo, crackled with rhythmic energy and flared with instrumental color, setting one element against another as water came into protracted focus in the ensuing Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra, composed by Tan in 1998 and dedicated to Tōru Takemitsu.
Tan draws out music’s ritual origins in intriguing ways. Percussionist Yuri Yamashita not only performed the solo part but dominated much of the piece with an almost shamanistic stage presence – from the way she mindfully released droplets from her fingers to the immersive sound world she conjured using bowls of wood or glass, as well as gongs dipped mesmerically into one of two large water bowls over which she presided.
At some moments she even softly vocalized, as if engaged in a conjuring. Enhancing the theatrical experience were three video screens suspended above the orchestra –- one large at center and two smaller flanking it – which projected close-up footage of the bowls and the rippling water, inviting the audience into the tactile, elemental, organic world of the piece.
The orchestra functioned as a kind of elemental chorus, not so much a counterpart as a kaleidoscopic resonator. Specific voices occasionally emerged from the fabric – most memorably in a luminous duet between Yamashita and principal cellist Efe Baltacıgil, whose tone seemed to bloom out of the water’s surface. A long, improvisatory cadenza captivated with its focus on the physicality of sound.
Still, the Water Concerto’s meditative pacing and episodic structure began to feel diffuse over the span of the piece – though whether this observation reflects a Western bias about form or a real imbalance in proportions is a fair question. In any case, this was a welcome opportunity to hear the work in live performance.
After intermission came a brisk, glittering account of Stravinsky’s Feu d’artifice (Fireworks), a four-minute burst of orchestral color dating from a little before the young Russian’s leap to international fame with The Firebird.
To this taste, the highlight of the program was Nu Shu: The Secret Songs of Women – a 13-part multimedia concerto that unfolded with greater emotional clarity and formal cohesion than the Water Concerto. Nu Shu originated as a commission for a harp concerto from the Philadelphia Orchestra but, inspired by Tan’s immersive research into a little-known linguistic and social tradition from his native Hunan Province, grew into a sui generis fusion of concerto, orchestral narrative, and ethnomusicological-sociological documentary.
The “secret songs” in question have to do with the vanishing Nüshu tradition — a secret, invented language once used by women in rural Hunan to communicate among themselves in calligraphy and through chanting and song. Tan painstakingly researched the small community of remaining Nüshu speakers, capturing their voices and stories in multiple videos.
Nu Shu unfolds in 13 short video portraits created by the composer and his team – shown on the three screens above the stage – each anchored in the landscapes of the women’s daily lives and their stories of isolation and solidarity, which are shared from generation to generation.
For Tan, the harp represents “the most feminine of instruments,” writes Esteban Meneses in his excellent program note, and serves as “an intermediary between what the composer imagines as the future – the Western orchestra – and the past, represented by the microfilms.”
Xavier de Maistre was the eloquent soloist, playing a kind of bard who mediates these stories and showing remarkable dynamic and expressive range. Tan likewise assigns a crucial narrative role to the orchestra, which acted as a bridge translating memory into something shared and immediate.
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 