DYNAMIC PIANIST CONRAD TAO JOINS SEATTLE SYMPHONY ON ANNUAL CELEBRATE ASIA CONCERT

SUNDAY, MARCH 8, 2020

Conrad Tao, Tianyi Lu and Adeliia Faizullina. Photos by Brantley Gutierrez, Antony Potts and courtesy of Adeliia Faizullina.

TIANYI LU CONDUCTS THE SEATTLE PREMIERE OF ADELIIA FAIZULLINA’S TATAR FOLK TALES, WINNER OF THIS YEAR’S CELEBRATE ASIA COMPOSITION COMPETITION

FESTIVITIES INCLUDE PRE- AND POST-CONCERT PERFORMANCES

Seattle, WA - On March 8, the Seattle Symphony presents the twelfth annual Celebrate Asia concert at Benaroya Hall. Conducted by Tianyi Lu, this year’s program features pianist Conrad Tao and the Seattle premiere of a new work by Adeliia Faizullina, winner of this year’s Celebrate Asia Composition Competition.

Hosted by Lori Matsukawa, the concert opens with Huang Ruo's Folk Songs for Orchestra, a suite of pieces that draws its inspiration from various regional folk melodies of China. Then follows the Tatar Folk Tales: "Sak and Sok" and "Arba" by composer and vocalist Adeliia Faizullina, winner of the Seattle Symphony's annual Celebrate Asia Composition Competition. Performing as the soprano for the premiere, Faizullina drew inspiration from folk music and stories from her Tatar heritage; the Tatar people are an ethnic group from Russia who have remained culturally distinct for centuries, sharing traditions with Turkey and East Asia. The concert's first half concludes with pianist and composer Conrad Tao performing his original work The Oneiroi in New York. Tao is a recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and will also be performing a recital in Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center on Friday, March 6.

Seattle Symphony performs Chen Yi's Si Ji ("Four Seasons") at the start of the concert's second half. In Si Ji, which was a 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Music finalist, the composer “creates a third musical world, one that looks neither to Europe nor to Asia and yet is a distant mirror for both” (The New York Times). Conrad Tao returns to the stage to close out this year's Celebrate Asia concert with Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

Celebrate Asia honors Seattle's Asian American community through exploring the rich musical traditions of Asian countries. The annual celebration's concert is presented alongside a host of pre- and post-concert performances that reflect cultures across Asia. For over a decade, people and families of all ethnicities have joined in the annual tradition of Celebrate Asia to immerse themselves in an afternoon of cultural exchange and vibrant celebration.

Pre-concert performances begin in the Samuel & Althea Stroum Grand Lobby at 2:30 p.m. Performers include the Filipino Youth Activities Drill Team, Korean traditional performing arts group Oolleemm, Children’s Choir and the Seattle International Lion Dance Team. The celebration concludes with post-concert activities in the Grand Lobby with a performance of traditional Japanese taiko drumming by CHIKIRI and The School of TAIKO as well as bhangra and Bollywood dance from Rhythms of India.

Admission to pre- and post-concert activities are included with concert tickets.

Complete program information, artist biographies and additional information can be found by visiting
https://www.seattlesymphony.org/concerttickets/calendar/2019-2020/symphony/celebrate-asia.

PROGRAM
Celebrate Asia

Sunday, March 8, 2020
Tianyi Lu, conductor
Lori Matsukawa, host
Adeliia Faizullina, soprano
Conrad Tao, piano
Seattle Symphony

PRE-CONCERT: 2:30-4 p.m.
SAMUEL & ALTHEA STROUM GRAND LOBBY
Aleksa Manila, emcee
Children’s Choir
Filipino Youth Activities Drill Team
Oolleemm
Seattle International Lion Dance Team: Lion Dance

CONCERT: 4 p.m.
S. MARK TAPER FOUNDATION AUDITORIUM
HUANG RUO: Folk Songs for Orchestra
ADELIIA FAIZULLINA: Tatar Folk Tales: “Sak and Sok” and “Arba”
CONRAD TAO: The Oneiroi in New York
CHEN YI: Si Ji (“Four Seasons”)
GEORGE GERSHWIN: Rhapsody in Blue

POST-CONCERT: 6 p.m.
SAMUEL & ALTHEA STROUM GRAND LOBBY
CHIKIRI and The School of TAIKO
Rhythms of India

Conrad Tao’s performance is generously underwritten by Eric and Margaret Rothchild through the Seattle Symphony’s Guest Artists Circle. Additional support for Celebrate Asia is provided by the Atsuhiko and Ina Goodwin Tateuchi Foundation.

Celebrate Asia Composition Competition is generously underwritten by Yoshi and Naomi Minegishi.

VIP Reception Sponsors: Northwest Asian Weekly, Seattle Chinese Post, Wild Ginger.

Celebrate Asia is presented as part of the Seattle Symphony’s New Music WORKS initiative, which is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. New Music WORKS features commissions, concerts and educational activities that use composition as a catalyst for collaboration and engagement in music.

Tickets from $33.

TIANYI LU | CONDUCTOR

Tianyi Lu is the Assistant Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Principal Conductor of the St. Woolos Sinfonia, and the first Conductor in Residence of the Welsh National Opera. Recent highlights include concerts with the Auckland Philharmonia, Bucharest Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony and Hallé Orchestra. This season sees Lu making her debut with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic and Seattle Symphony. Lu was previously a Dudamel Fellow in 2018. In 2016 she was selected to attend the Linda and Mitch Hart Institute for Women Conductors at The Dallas Opera. Lu was subsequently invited back to conduct a mainstage concert of Donizetti in 2017.

Lu is strongly committed to education and outreach projects. She has been involved in the Sistema Aotearoa programme in New Zealand, inspired by the Venezuelan model.

Born in Shanghai, Lu and her family later moved to New Zealand. She completed her Bachelor of Music with First Class Honours at the University of Auckland with Uwe Grodd and Karen Grylls, before studying at the University of Melbourne with John Hopkins. In 2015 Lu completed her Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting with Distinction at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, where she studied with David Jones.

CONRAD TAO | PIANO, COMPOSER

Conrad Tao has appeared worldwide as a pianist and composer and has been dubbed a musician of “probing intellect and open-hearted vision” by The New York Times, a “thoughtful and mature composer” by NPR, and “ferociously talented” by TimeOut New York. In 2011, Tao was named a Gilmore Young Artist, an honor awarded every two years highlighting the most promising American pianists of the new generation. In 2012, he was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant.

A Warner Classics recording artist, Tao’s albums have received critical acclaim. His album Pictures was hailed by The New York Times as “a fascinating album [by] a thoughtful artist and dynamic performer… played with enormous imagination, color and command.”

Tao’s career as composer has garnered eight consecutive ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards and the Carlos Surinach Prize from BMI. In the 2013–14 season, while serving as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s artist-in-residence, Tao premiered his orchestral composition, The world is very different now. His works have been described by The New York Times as “shapely and powerful” and by The Philadelphia Inquirer as “compositional magic.”

Tao was born in Urbana, Illinois, in 1994. He has studied piano with Emilio del Rosario in Chicago and Yoheved Kaplinsky in New York, and composition with Christopher Theofanidis.

ADELIIA FAIZULLINA | COMPOSER, SOPRANO, COMPOSITION COMPETITION WINNER

Adeliia Faizullina is a composer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist from Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia. She has been described as a composer “with a particular ear for cutting-edge vocal colors and an affinity for the music and poetry of Tatar folklore.” Faizullina’s works have been performed in concerts by leading artists such Duo Cortona-mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway and violinist Ari Streisfeld. A new work for wind symphony orchestra with choir was commissioned by Density512 for their 2018-2019 season. She is currently writing for soprano Tony Arnold and guitarist Manuel Barrueco.

Faizullina is a composer fellow and recipient of the Cynthia Jackson Ford Fellowship of Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, and her studies are supported by the Tatarstan Government. She is currently pursuing her Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of Southern California, studying with Nina C. Young. She received her master’s in composition from The University of Texas at Austin Butler School of Music in 2018, where she studied with Yevgeniy Sharlat and Dan Welcher. Faizullina previously completed undergraduate studies in composition and vocal arts in Russia.

Faizullina is committed to sharing her experiences with other visually impaired musicians. She is an active member of the All-Russian-Society-of-The Blind and participates in their public concerts as a composer and vocalist. Faizullina works to encourage families who have children with visual disability.

CELEBRATE ASIA COMPOSITION COMPETITION

The Seattle Symphony’s Celebrate Asia Composition Competition invites submissions from up-and-coming composers who find inspiration and influences in Asian culture, music and traditions. After receiving numerous local, national and international submissions, the reviewing committee selected Adellia Faizullina’s Tatar Folk Tales as the 2020 winner.

CELEBRATE ASIA

In partnership with numerous local community groups, the Seattle Symphony honors and celebrates the city’s Asian community with the twelfth annual Celebrate Asia concert. The concept originated when local Asian leaders from the region’s Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese communities wanted to find a way to strengthen bonds with the broader community through a cultural celebration. Now in its twelfth year, Celebrate Asia has become an annual signature event in Seattle. For more information about Celebrate Asia, visit seattlesymphony.org.

SEATTLE SYMPHONY

Led by Music Director Thomas Dausgaard, the Seattle Symphony unleashes the power of music, brings people together and lifts the human spirit. Recognized as one of the “most vital American orchestras” (NPR), the Seattle Symphony is internationally acclaimed for its inventive programming, community-minded initiatives and superb recordings on the Seattle Symphony Media label. With a strong commitment to new music and a legacy of over 150 recordings, the orchestra has garnered five Grammy Awards, 26 Grammy nominations, two Emmy Awards and was named Gramophone’s 2018 Orchestra of the Year. The Symphony performs in Benaroya Hall in the heart of downtown Seattle from September through July, reaching over 500,000 people annually through live performances and radio broadcasts.

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