NOTICE OF CONDUCTOR, SOLOIST CHANGE: THOMAS DAUSGAARD FURTHER DELAYED DUE TO PANDEMIC TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS
OCTOBER CONCERTS TO FEATURE SUBSTITUTE CONDUCTORS GIANCARLO GUERRERO AND STEFAN ASBURY
Seattle, WA — Due to continued and unavoidable governmental delays, the Seattle Symphony’s Music Director Thomas Dausgaard is unable to join the orchestra for his originally scheduled Delta Air Lines Masterworks Series concerts in October.
As Dausgaard’s work visa process continues to be severely stalled due to COVID-19-related travel issues, the Seattle Symphony has confirmed two renowned guest conductors as substitutes. Eight-time Grammy winner Giancarlo Guerrero will take to the podium on October 7 and 9 for vibrant concerts that include Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances and Arturo Márquez’s Fandango, a new violin concerto featuring revered soloist Anne Akiko Meyers. Meyers will be performing instead of the previously announced violinist, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, who also encountered pandemic travel restrictions. Music lovers can also stream the October 7 concert on Seattle Symphony Live. Then, on October 14 and 16, Stefan Asbury will make his Seattle Symphony debut for a performance featuring soprano and composer Adeliia Faizullina and her Tatar Folk Songs, which won the Seattle Symphony’s 2020 Celebrate Asia Composition Competition.
The Seattle Symphony is requiring all visitors to provide proof of vaccination (or present a negative COVID-19 test) and wear masks at all times while in Benaroya Hall. This is in addition to numerous safety measures implemented at Benaroya Hall, including a hospital-grade air filtration system, increased cleaning and contactless ticketing systems. Additionally, the Seattle Symphony has a flexible exchange and return policy in place through the end of the year. For more information about ticket flexibility and how the Symphony is working to ensure a safe return to live music, please visit the Safety Page.
ANNE AKIKO MEYERS | VIOLIN
Anne Akiko Meyers has enraptured audiences around the world for decades. Regularly performing on the leading stages, Anne has collaborated with many of today’s most important composers, resulting in significant works for the violin. She has made close to 40 recordings, many of them debuting at #1 on the Billboard charts, which are staples of classical music radio stations and streaming platforms.
Anne is highly acclaimed as a television and recording artist who was the top-selling traditional classical instrumental soloist of the year in 2014 and the only classical artist for NPR’s 100 best song list in 2017. John Williams personally chose Anne to perform Schindler’s List for a Great Performances PBS telecast and Arvo Pärt invited her to perform at the opening ceremony concerts of his new center and concert hall in Estonia. Meyers premiered Samuel Jones’s Violin Concerto with the All-Star Orchestra led by Gerard Schwarz in a nationwide PBS broadcast special and a Naxos DVD release. Her recording of Somei Satoh’s Birds in Warped Time II was used by architect Michael Arad for his award-winning design submission which today has become The World Trade Center Memorial in lower Manhattan.
ADELIIA FAIZULLINA | COMPOSER AND VOCALIST
Uzbekistan-born Tatar composer Adeliia (Adele) Faizullina is a vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and Tatar Quray player. As a composer, she explores cutting-edge vocal colors and paints delicate and vibrant atmospheres inspired by the music and poetry of Tatar folklore. The Washington Post has praised her compositions as "vast and varied, encompassing memory and imagination."
Her recent commissions include works for Jennifer Koh, the Tesla Quartet, Johnny Gandelsman, and the Metropolis Ensemble. Her works have also been performed by cellist Ashley Bathgate, the Del Sol Quartet, and Duo Cortona. She herself performed as soprano soloist with the Seattle Symphony in her own work, Tatar Folk Tales, after she won the Seattle Symphony Celebrate Asia Competition in 2019. Her music has been performed at the Next Festival of Emerging Artists, Chamber Music Society of the Carolinas, and National Sawdust.
Adeliia received her BM in Voice in Kazan, Russia, and BM in Music Composition in Gnessins Russian Academy of Music. She has an MM in Music Composition from the University of Texas at Austin, studying with Yevgeniy Sharlat, and in 2019 started her DMA at the University of Southern California, studying with Nina C. Young. In fall 2021, she will be pursuing her PhD in Music & Multimedia Composition at Brown University.
GIANCARLO GUERRERO | CONDUCTOR
Giancarlo Guerrero is an eight-time GRAMMY® Award-winning conductor, Music Director of the Nashville Symphony and NFM Wrocław Philharmonic, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon. Guerrero has been praised for his “charismatic conducting and attention to detail” (Seattle Times) in “viscerally powerful performances” (Boston Globe) that are “at once vigorous, passionate, and nuanced” (BachTrack).
Through commissions, recordings, and world premieres, Guerrero has championed the works of prominent American composers, presenting 11 world premieres and 15 recordings of American music with the Nashville Symphony, including works by Michael Daugherty, Terry Riley and Jonathan Leshnoff.
Born in Nicaragua, Guerrero immigrated during his childhood to Costa Rica, where he joined the local youth symphony. He studied percussion and conducting at Baylor University in Texas and earned his master’s degree in conducting at Northwestern. Given his beginnings in civic youth orchestras, Guerrero is particularly engaged with conducting training orchestras and has worked with the Curtis School of Music, Colburn School in Los Angeles, National Youth Orchestra (NYO2) and Yale Philharmonia, as well as with the Nashville Symphony’s Accelerando program, which provides an intensive music education to promising young students from diverse ethnic backgrounds.
STEFAN ASBURY | CONDUCTOR
A regular guest with leading orchestras worldwide, Stefan Asbury’s 2021-22 season starts with his debuts with the Seattle Symphony and Ensemble Resonanz (at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie), followed by engagements with the MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, Norrköpings Symfoniorkester, Ensemble Modern, Tokyo New City Orchestra and Szczecin Philharmonic.
Recent seasons saw Stefan returning to and debuting with several orchestras across the world, including the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonia and China National Symphony Orchestra. He conducted the MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig as part of Beethovenfest Bonn and Orquesta Sinfonica de Bilbao during Bilbao’s Musika-Musica 2019 festival.
Stefan has particularly strong relationships with many living composers including Steve Reich, Wolfgang Rihm, Unsuk Chin and Mark-Anthony Turnage. In recent seasons he has conducted the world premiere of Bernd Richard Deutsch’s Organ Concert at the Musikverein in Vienna and the world premiere of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s Piano Concerto with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, including the US premiere with Aimard and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Following the sad passing of Oliver Knussen, a very close mentor, Stefan conducted his last completed composition with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group in November 2018.
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 more than 750,000 people annually through live performances, streamed concerts and radio broadcasts.
###
UPDATED OCTOBER CONCERT SCHEDULE
RACHMANINOV SYMPHONIC DANCES
MASTERWORKS SERIES
Thursday, October 7, at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, October 9, at 8 p.m.
Streaming: Thursday, October 7, at 7:30 p.m
Giancarlo Guerrero conductor
Anne Akiko Meyers violin
Rossini Semiramide Overture
Arturo Márquez Fandango
Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances
Giancarlo Guerrero conducts this lively, dance-infused program. Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances conjure church bells and Russian Orthodox chants but are peppered with Spanish rhythms. Anne Akiko Meyers joins us with a brand-new violin concerto hot off the press: Fandango celebrates the joy and fire of Mexican musical traditions.
RAVEL & STRAVINSKY
MASTERWORKS SERIES
Thursday, October 14, at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, October 16, at 8 p.m.
Stefan Asbury conductor
Adeliia Faizullina soprano
Ravel Le tombeau de Couperin
Brett Dean Carlo
Adeliia Faizullina Tatar Folk Songs
Stravinsky Pulcinella Suite
Composers often look over their shoulders. To memorialize friends who had died in World War I, Ravel took refuge in the airy, graceful forms of the French Baroque. In Pulcinella, Stravinsky melded Classical poise with modern rhythms and harmonies. And in Carlo, Brett Dean elaborates on music of love, death and guilt by the notorious madrigalist (and murderer!), Carlo Gesualdo. Stefan Asbury makes his Seattle Symphony debut with this unique combination of music.
2021–2022 Masterworks Season Sponsor: Delta Air Lines