THE SEATTLE SYMPHONY PRESENTS ITS NEW MUSIC SUMMER SERIES ON SEATTLE SYMPHONY LIVE
SERIES TO INCLUDE FIVE PROGRAMS AVAILABLE ON DEMAND, ALL FEATURING COMMISSIONS AND PREMIERES OF NEW WORKS FROM THE 2021/2022 SEASON
Seattle, WA – Building upon its longstanding commitment to new music and supporting diverse musical perspectives from living composers, the Seattle Symphony is thrilled to present the New Music Summer Series on Seattle Symphony Live. The New Music Summer Series features five programs with new content released on the streaming service every two weeks. The Series showcases some of the biggest commissions and premieres of new works by acclaimed contemporary composers from the Symphony’s bold 2021/2022 season, giving audiences the coveted opportunity to experience these cutting-edge works again — but this time with additional content such as interviews and stories from the artists, offering an exclusive look at the stories behind the music.
The New Music Summer Series kicks off with the Reena Esmail Retrospective on Thursday, July 21, 2022, giving viewers a chance to hear the complete suite of incredible works conceived over the course of Esmail’s time as the Seattle Symphony’s Composer in Residence. The Reena Esmail Retrospective will be available for two weeks until the next program debuts and will include two new works premiered by the Symphony at the 2021/2022 Opening Night and the annual Celebrate Asia concert. The latter was a concerto for Hindustani violin co-composed by Esmail and violin virtuoso Kala Ramnath. The Violin Concerto received its world premiere with Ramnath herself performing on Hindustani violin. Esmail speaks to the story behind the Violin Concerto in the program’s bonus content, sharing that the pair wrote this work after Ramnath’s pandemic reflections on an environmental emergency urged her to reach out to Esmail to co-create a multi-stylistic commentary on humanity, nature and climate change.
On Thursday, August 4, 2022, The Peril of Dreams becomes available to stream, giving viewers another chance to witness the world premiere performance of American composer Han Lash’s rare work for double harp, which was commissioned by the Seattle Symphony. Lash takes the stage alongside the Symphony’s Principal Harp Valerie Muzzolini to bring this new work to life.
Then Sibelius Companions premieres on Thursday, August 18, 2022, and viewers will be able to experience exceptional world premieres from Angélica Negrón and Ellen Reid. Sibelius Companions features the work Negrón wrote to complement Sibelius Symphony No. 2, Color Shape Transmission; the composer shared that she aimed to “resist virtuosity and traditional embellishment,” creating a new work that counters the inspiration from which she initially drew. Sibelius Companions also showcases another new work by Negrón, Think of a Sound, a piece born after Seattle Symphony Clarinet Eric Jacobs commissioned Negrón to compose new music for voice, clarinet and electronics; Think of a Sound premiered in Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center. The program also includes Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Reid’s new work, TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY, which was written as a companion to Sibelius’ First Symphony, often regarded as one of his most impressive symphonies.
Following Sibelius Companions is To Awaken the Sleeper, which begins streaming on Thursday, September 1, 2022. This program features rising star composer Joel Thompson’s stunning new work To Awaken the Sleeper, based on the writings of legendary Black writer and activist, James Baldwin. The piece brings the recent poignant conversations around racial equity to the orchestral stage and includes narration of Baldwin’s own words by local composer, conductor, pianist and gospel/jazz vocalist, Stephen Newby.
The series finishes with HOCKET, a program starring the dynamic piano duo that spent 2020 commissioning composers nationwide to write music about their pandemic experiences. The results were later condensed and presented during the astounding #What2022SoundsLike concert, which encompassed several composers and was dedicated to a hopeful future emerging from the pandemic. The new works were originally performed in Octave 9, Benaroya Hall’s immersive venue, inviting viewers to see and hear how the innovative space expands the possibilities for artists’ creativity and performance. This final program in the series curates seven stunning modern works by Sarah Gibson, Jonathan Richards, Jane Meenaghan, Jen Shyu, Sakari Dixon Vanderveer, Hitomi Oba and Thomas Kotcheff.
REENA ESMAIL | COMPOSER
Indian American composer Reena Esmail works between the worlds of Indian and Western classical music, and brings communities together through the creation of equitable musical spaces. Esmail’s work has been commissioned by ensembles including the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Kronos Quartet, Imani Winds, Richmond Symphony, Town Music Seattle, Albany Symphony, Chicago Sinfonietta, River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, San Francisco Girls Chorus, The Elora Festival, Juilliard415 and Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Esmail is the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s 2020–2023 Swan Family Artist in Residence, and was Seattle Symphony’s 2020/2021 season Composer in Residence. She received a Fulbright-Nehru grant to study Hindustani music in India. Previously, she was named a 2019 United States Artist Fellow in Music, and the 2019 Grand Prize Winner of the S & R Foundation’s Washington Award. Esmail was also a 2017/2018 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow. She was the 2012 Walter Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (and subsequent publication of a work by C.F. Peters).
KALA RAMNATH | COMPOSER
Maestro Kala Ramnath with her “singing violin” stands among the world’s finest, most inspirational instrumentalists. Her playing has been featured on the Grammy-nominated Miles from India project, and her compositions have appeared on the Grammy-winning album In 27 Pieces and the Kronos Quartet’s 50 For The Future. Ramnath was the first Indian violinist ever to be featured The Strad and she was the subject of a solo essay in the third edition to The Rough Guide to World Music. Ramnath comfortably forges musical alliances with artists of renown from different genres around the globe, incorporating elements of Western classical, jazz, flamenco and traditional African music into her rich and varied repertoire.
HAN LASH | COMPOSER & HARP
Hailed by The New York Times as “striking and resourceful … handsomely brooding,” Han Lash’s music has been performed at such major venues as Carnegie Hall, Los Angeles Walt Disney Concert Hall, Lincoln Center, the Times Center in Manhattan, the Chicago Art Institute, Tanglewood Music Center and The Aspen Music Festival and School, among others. In 2016, Lash was honored with a Composer Portrait Concert at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, which included commissioned works for pianist Lisa Moore and loadbang. In the 2017/2018 season, Lash’s Piano Concerto No. 1, “In Pursuit of Flying,” was given its premiere performances by Jeremy Denk and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; the Atlantic Classical Orchestra debuted Facets of Motion for orchestra; and Music for Nine, Ringing was performed at the Music Academy of the West School and Festival. Lash’s Double Concerto for piano and harp was premiered by the Naples Philharmonic, and Forestallings, a musical response to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D major, was premiered in January by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.
VALERIE MUZZOLINI | HARP
Valerie Muzzolini is Principal Harp of the Seattle Symphony, a position she has held since the age of 23. In demand both nationally and internationally, she has performed as guest principal harp of both the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Nice Philharmonic, and has appeared with The Philadelphia Orchestra. As soloist, she has performed with the Seattle Symphony, Nice Philharmonic and Vancouver Symphony. An active chamber musician and proponent of new music, she performs regularly with the Seattle Chamber Players and Music of Remembrance. Muzzolini began her musical education in Nice, France, and continued her studies at the Curtis Institute of Music, followed by graduate work at Yale University.
ANGÉLICA NEGRÓN | COMPOSER
Puerto Rican-born composer and multi-instrumentalist Angélica Negrón writes music for accordions, robotic instruments, toys and electronics as well as for chamber ensembles, orchestras, choir and film. Her music has been described as “wistfully idiosyncratic and contemplative” (WQXR/Q2) while The New York Times noted her “capacity to surprise.” Negrón has been commissioned by the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Kronos Quartet, loadbang, Prototype Festival, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Sō Percussion, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Opera Philadelphia, the Louisville Orchestra and the New York Botanical Garden, among others. She has collaborated with artists like Sō Percussion, Lido Pimienta, Mathew Placek, Sasha Velour, Cecilia Aldarondo, Mariela Pabón & Adrienne Westwood, among others and is a founding member of the tropical electronic band Balún. She was recently an Artist-in-Residence at WNYC’s The Greene Space working on El Living Room, a four-part offbeat variety show and playful multimedia exploration of sound and story, of personal history and belonging. She was the recipient of the 2022 Hermitage Greenfield Prize.
ELLEN REID | COMPOSER
Ellen Reid is one of the most innovative artists of her generation. A composer and sound artist whose breadth of work spans opera, sound design, film scoring, ensemble and choral writing, she was awarded the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her opera, p r i s m. Along with composer Missy Mazzoli, Reid co-founded the Luna Composition Lab. Luna Lab is a mentorship program for young female, nonbinary and gender non-conforming composers. Since 2019, she has served as Creative Advisor and Composer-in-Residence for Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. In 2020, she created Ellen Reid SOUNDWALK, a work of public art that reimagines city parks as interactive soundscapes. SOUNDWALK premiered in New York’s Central Park, featuring the New York Philharmonic, and continues to expand to parks around the world, fostering collaborations with ensembles such as Kronos Quartet and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
JOEL THOMPSON | COMPOSER
Emmy Award-winning Joel Thompson is a composer, pianist, conductor and educator from Atlanta. His largest work, Seven Last Words of the Unarmed for TTBB chorus, strings and piano, was premiered in November 2015 by the University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club under the direction of Dr. Eugene Rogers. Recently, Thompson was a composition fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and School, where he worked with composers Stephen Hartke and Christopher Theofanidis. Thompson taught at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School in Atlanta 2015–2017, and also served as Director of Choral Studies and Assistant Professor of Music at Andrew College 2013–2015. Thompson is a proud Emory alum, graduating with a B.A. in Music in 2010, and an M.M. in Choral Conducting in 2013. Thompson is currently pursuing his D.M.A. in composition at the Yale School of Music.
STEPHEN NEWBY | NARRATOR
Dr. Stephen Newby is a composer, conductor, gospel/jazz vocalist and pianist. He is originally from Detroit, and received his Bachelor of Arts in Vocal Music Education and Flute Performance from Madonna College in Livonia, Michigan. He received a Master of Music in Jazz Composition and Arranging from the University of Massachusetts. There, his studies in composition were under the supervision of Robert Sutton, Frederick Tillis, Jeff Holmes and Robert Stern. He returned to Michigan to complete his Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition degree at the University of Michigan. There, he studied with William Albright, Michael Daugherty, George Wilson, Fred Lerdahl and Pulitzer Prize-winners William Bolcom and Leslie Bassett. In addition to directing the Center for Worship, Dr. Newby serves as director for the SPU Gospel Choir and the Worship Arts Ensemble. He has served as a worship pastor for more than 25 years in Michigan, Massachusetts, Washington and California.
HOCKET | PIANO DUO
HOCKET is a cutting-edge piano duo based in Los Angeles. Lauded as “brilliant” (Los Angeles Times) and an "adventurous young ensemble" (The New Yorker), members Sarah Gibson and Thomas Kotcheff are both pianist-composers dedicated to commissioning and performing contemporary music. They have performed in some of the most exciting festivals and venues across the country, including The Bang on Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA, MATA Festival in New York City, The Center for New Music in San Francisco, the Carlsbad Music Festival, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s “Noon to Midnight” Festival. Together, they have premiered over 100 chamber and solo works, and have collaborated with the premier, new music ensembles Eighth Blackbird and the Bang on a Can All-Stars. HOCKET has received grants from the Presser Foundation and The Earle Brown Music Foundation, and has been a selected artist in Firebird Ensemble's Outstanding Young Artists Initiative and Eighth Blackbird’s Blackbird Creative Lab.
SEATTLE SYMPHONY LIVE
Seattle Symphony Live brings the Seattle Symphony’s dynamic performances to audiences anywhere in the world. Launched in 2020 to offer musical comfort despite the pandemic, the digital streaming service reached a global audience of more than 750,000 viewers with its live concerts, behind the scenes interviews, educational videos and more. With subscriptions starting at $12.99 per month, Seattle Symphony Live makes engaging with the orchestra’s exceptional musical content more possible than ever before.
SEATTLE SYMPHONY
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, 27 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 750,000 people annually through live performances and radio broadcasts, and through the Seattle Symphony Live streaming service, the orchestra’s concerts reach audiences at home and around the world.
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NEW MUSIC SUMMER SERIES SCHEDULE
REENA ESMAIL RETROSPECTIVE
Streaming: Thursday, July 21 through Wednesday, August 4
Kahchun Wong conductor
Kala Ramnath Hindustani violin & composer
Reena Esmail/Kala Ramnath Violin Concerto (Seattle Symphony Commission & World Premiere)
Reena Esmail RE|Member (Seattle Symphony Co-commission & World Premiere)
THE PERIL OF DREAMS
Streaming: Thursday, August 4 through Wednesday, August 17
Lee Mills conductor
Han Lash composer & harp
Valerie Muzzolini harp
Han Lash The Peril of Dreams (Seattle Symphony Commission & World Premiere)
SIBELIUS COMPANIONS
Streaming: Thursday, August 18 through Wednesday, August 31
Ruth Reinhardt conductor
Ludovic Morlot conductor
Eric Jacobs clarinet
Angélica Negrón Color Shape Transmission (Seattle Symphony Commission & World Premiere)
Angélica Negrón Think of a Sound
Ellen Reid TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY (Seattle Symphony Commission & World Premiere)
TO AWAKEN THE SLEEPER
Streaming: Thursday, September 1 through Wednesday, September 14
Peter Oundjian conductor
Stephen Newby narrator
Joel Thompson To Awaken the Sleeper (Seattle Symphony Co-commission & World Premiere)
HOCKET
Streaming: Thursday, September 15 through Wednesday, September 28
HOCKET piano duo
Michael Werner percussion
Walter Gray cello
Sarah Gibson the line of your trajectory (Seattle Symphony Commission & World Premiere)
Jonathan Richards Resilience (Seattle Symphony Commission & World Premiere)
Jane Meenaghan First Word (Seattle Symphony Commission & World Premiere)
Jen Shyu Requiem for Her Voice (Seattle Symphony Commission & World Premiere)
Sakari Dixon Vanderveer Tides (Seattle Symphony Commission & World Premiere)
Hitomi Oba Color Me Dancing (Seattle Symphony Commission & World Premiere)
Thomsa Kotcheff INCANDESCENT (Seattle Symphony Commission & World Premiere)
Sponsorships:
2021–2022 Masterworks Season Sponsor: Delta Air Lines
Octave 9: Emerging Artists is supported by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation
Lee Mills' position is generously underwritten as the Douglas F. King Associate Conductor.
Principal Oboe Mary Lynch’s position is generously supported by Anonymous donors.
Han Lash's performance and commission were generously underwritten by The Richard E. Lang and Jane Lang Davis Living Music Program.
Reena Esmail’s residency was generously supported by Parul and Gary Houlahan.
Han Lash's performances were generously sponsored by an anonymous donor.
Han Lash's The Peril of Dreams was commissioned by the Seattle Symphony with the support of Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting.
Joel Thompson's To Awaken the Sleeper was commissioned by the Seattle Symphony with the support of Betty Graham.
Angélica Negrón's Color Shape Transmission was commissioned by the Seattle Symphony with the support of Richard Meyer and Susan Harmon.
Celebrate Asia was generously sponsored by Naomi and Yoshi Minegishi.
Celebrate Asia was generously sponsored by Perkins Coie.
Evolution of Voices was generously sponsored by Matt Brannock and Claire Taylor..
Reena Esmail as composer in Residence, Reena Esmail’s RE|Member, Han Lash’s The Peril of Dreams, Joel Thompson’s To Awaken the Sleeper and Celebrate Asia were 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.