Northwest Sinfonietta: French Connections
$20-$50
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Symphony No. 31 in D major, K. 297/300a "Paris"
Gabriel Fauré — Requiem in D minor, Op. 48
David Lockington, principal artistic partner
Freddie Coleman, choral artistic director
Jennifer Bromagen, soprano
Damien Geter, bass-baritone
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Symphony No. 31 in D major, K. 297 "Paris"
Maurice Ravel – Le Tombeau de Couperin
Gabriel Fauré – Requiem in D minor, Op. 48
Join Northwest Sinfonietta in opening the 28th season of music, and welcoming Maestro David Lockington in his first appearance as the orchestra's Principal Artistic Partner.
The Sinfonietta continues its ongoing partnership with the Seattle Choral Company, presenting Faure's heavenly, uplifting Requiem in an intimate setting orchestrated by John Rutter, as originally conceived by the composer. Of his seminal work, Faure wrote that "Everything I managed to entertain by way of religious illusion I put into my Requiem, which moreover is dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest."
The performance opens with Mozart's lively "Paris" Symphony. While his trip to the French capitol at just 22 years old failed to yield new employment for the young composer, it did result in this magnificent work using more instruments than ever before- including Mozart's first symphony to feature the clarinet. It can be heard as a musical bridge from his early symphonic writing to the robust, complex styles of his later works for full orchestra.
To round out this musical Tour de France, Le Tombeau de Couperin pays hommage to the famed Baroque composer Francois Couperin by one of the finest craftsmen of French classical music, Maurice Ravel. Each movement of the tombeau (a musical term from early French music meaning "written as a memorial") is dedicated to one of Ravel's musical colleagues who lost their life fighting in World War I. While the subject may imply a sadness for death and the horrors of war, each movement is light-hearted and ponderous, with Ravel commenting that "The dead are sad enough, in their eternal silence."
This concert takes place as the world approaches the 350th anniversary of Couperin's birth in Paris in 1668, and the hundred year anniversary of the end of World War I in November 2018.
About Seattle Choral Company
Founded in 1982 by Artistic Director Freddie Coleman, the Seattle Choral Company has, over the course of 40 years, become one of the region's most accomplished and respected choral organizations. Maestro Coleman's finely-tuned yet spirited interpretations of the masterworks of classical choral music have been acclaimed by critics and audiences, including Berlioz's Te Deum, Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, Orff's Carmina Burana, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Haydn's Creation, Mozart's C minor Mass, Bach's St. John Passion, and many more. After a recent performance at Benaroya Hall featuring Johannes Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem, The Gathering Note wrote that the performance "was anchored by deep emotions, a strong sense of purpose, and an excellent advocate in Freddie Coleman and the Seattle Choral Company."
Freddie Coleman has also championed America's finest contemporary choral composers, offering area listeners their first live hearing of such works as Arvo Pärt's Te Deum, Philip Glass' Itaipu, Hawley's Songs of Kabir, Roxanna Panufnik's Westminster Mass, and Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna. In 2001, the SCC commissioned a new choral work, Seattle, by New York composer William Hawley, as part of the city of Seattle’s sesquicentennial celebrations. Additionally, the Company has commissioned and premiered new works from gifted Seattle composers, such as Donald Skirvin and Bern Herbolsheimer. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer recently applauded this commitment, stating "it's not surprising that Coleman…would devote an entire program to contemporary music. He has long been an advocate for living composers."
In the 1980s the Seattle Choral Company toured to Australia and the former Soviet Union. (Their work as cultural ambassadors was recognized with a commendation from the Washington State legislature.) The many albums it has recorded, including The Moon Is Silently Singing, When the Morning Stars Sang Together, Carmina Burana, and Unearthed, have been highly praised and received extensive radio exposure. The Company has recorded soundtracks for Public Television (Death: the Trip of a Lifetime) and NBC (Crime and Punishment and Noah's Ark), and its recordings have been used in at least a dozen Hollywood movie trailers.
The Seattle Choral Company has become a valued collaborator with other performing arts organizations in the region. It has appeared on stage with the Pacific Northwest Ballet many times, including several mountings of Kent Stowell's staging of Orff's Carmina Burana, and Hail to the Conquering Hero, featuring choruses by Handel. In 2010, the SCC appeared with the Seattle Youth Symphony in Mahler's Symphony No. 2 ("Resurrection") at Benaroya Hall. The SCC has appeared with the Seattle Symphony on many occasions, including Those Glorious MGM Movie Musicals, Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Holiday Pops with Doc Severinsen, Holiday Pops with Marvin Hamlisch, New Year's Eve with the Seattle Symphony, and most recently The Matrix Live In Concert. On four occasions, they have appeared at the Paramount Theater in the touring production of Video Games Live, and members of the Company sang in both the Seattle and Portland productions of Star Wars In Concert. The SCC is partnered with the Northwest Sinfonietta, and is an artist-in-residence at Saint Mark's Episcopal Cathedral.
http://www.seattlechoralcompany.org