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Arts & Entertainment, Music

2012-13 Season Preview: The Year Ahead in Seattle Classical Music

Fall has arrived. Summer vacations are coming to an end, and it’s time to head back to school and work. For classical musicians, it’s back to the concert hall for the start of a new season. Now that autumn’s here, Seattle’s classical music ensembles have been announcing their performance schedules for the upcoming year. It looks like we have a fantastic season of concerts in store!

Here are few highlights from the major local ensembles, a list of notable events, and tips on groups to watch in the coming year.

Seattle Symphony Music Director Ludovic Morlot (Photo: Michael DiVito)

Seattle Symphony

  • The usual roster of visiting luminaries returns to Benaroya Hall this year, including Joshua Bell, Itzhak Perlman, Andras Schiff, Hilary Hahn, Emanuel Ax, Garrick Ohlsson, Gil Shaham, Yefim Bronfman, and Anne-Sophie Mutter.
  • (Untitled), the Symphony’s exciting new concert series, provides a much-needed space for 20th century and contemporary classical music at Benaroya Hall.
  • Sonic Evolution returns for a second year. This popular fall concert features new symphonic works inspired by icons of the Seattle pop and rock scenes. This year’s Sonic Evolution includes local alt-country favorites Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs.
  • Hear all four of Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos at Rach Fest, in early January. Four up-and-coming young pianists will perform the concertos in two concerts with the Symphony.
  • The Symphony presents their premiere performance of Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony in January. This important 20th century work features the ondes Martenot, an electronic musical instrument similar to the theremin.

Seattle Opera

  • Seattle Opera‘s season began last month with a gorgeous production of Turandot and continues with Beethoven’s Fidelio in October. Other upcoming productions include Rossini’s Cinderella, Puccini’s La Boheme, and a double-bill featuring Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine and Puccini’s Suor Angelica.

Pacific Northwest Ballet

  • PNB has a fantastic collection of audience favorites in store this season. Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake is likely to draw crowds, as well as productions of two Prokofiev ballets: Romeo & Juliet and Cinderella.

    Pianist Hélène Grimaud (Photo: Mat Hennek / DG)

UW World Series

  • The President’s Piano Series brings another crop of all-star pianists to UW’s Meany Theater, including Hélène Grimaud, Christopher O’Riley (host of NPR’s From the Top radio program), and Jon Kimura Parker, who will perform his own transcription of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.
  • Prepare for an impressive line-up of chamber music concerts this season with the International Chamber Music Series. Seattle audiences will be treated to performances by the Emerson String Quartet, Juilliard String Quartet, Tafelmusik, Tokyo String Quartet, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
  • This season’s World Dance Series includes two exciting collaborations between international dance companies and local classical music ensembles. In November, the Paul Taylor Dance Company will team up with Seattle Modern Orchestra for a piece featuring music by Arvo Pärt. Then, in January, Compagnie Marie Chouinard will be joined by the UW Symphony Orchestra for a performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

Early Music Guild & Seattle Baroque Orchestra

  • The Early Music Guild’s International Series presents a prestigious list of visiting ensembles this season, including Musica Ficta, Hesperion XXI, the Baltimore Consort, the King’s Singers, and Tafelmusik. Also on the calendar is a special performance of the epic poem Beowulf by harpist and bard Benjamin Bagby.
  • Bach fans will be pleased to hear that the Seattle Baroque Orchestra is planning two concerts of Johann Sebastian’s music this season. In addition, soprano Ellen Hargis returns to Seattle for a program of arias from Italian Baroque operas.

TownMusic

  • TownMusic artistic director Joshua Roman kicked off Town Hall’s classical music series this week with a concert of piano trios. The series continues with performances from the musical comedy duo Ingudesman & Joo (of “Rachmaninoff Had Big Hands” fame), the Talea Ensemble, JACK Quartet, and violinist Jennifer Koh.

    Portland Cello Project (Photo: Jason Quigley)

Ensembles to Watch

  • The Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra may be a new orchestra on the block, but they have an exciting fourth season in store. Their season opener features Vaughan Williams’ beloved Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis.
  • Lutenist Stephen Stubbs’ early music ensemble Pacific Musicworks is back with another season of ambitious programming, including Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, a collaboration with the Seattle Dance Project, and a performance of Handel’s newly-discovered cantata Gloria.
  • Tacoma’s Broadway Center for the Performing Arts get my vote for “venue to watch” this year. This season they’ll present the Fireworks Ensemble, experimental cellist Zoe Keating, the Portland Cello Project, and violinist Mark O’Connor.

Exciting Events

  • Philip Glass shuns Seattle in favor of the Eastside for the second year in a row. The renowned composer returns to Kirkland Performance Center in late October for a performance with Foday Musa Suso, a master of the African Kora.
  • Celebrate the John Cage centennial with the Seattle Modern Orchestra. Their John Cage Festival in early November features a documentary about the composer’s life as well as performances of some of his most famous works.
  • Known for their orchestral arrangements of Radiohead, Queen, and the Arcade Fire, the ever-popular Seattle Rock Orchestra rings in the new year with a concert of new works for orchestra.
  • Chicago-based contemporary music ensemble eighth blackbird pays a visit to Kirkland Performance Center in January. This GRAMMY-winning ensemble is a must-see for new music fans.
  • Choreographer Donald Byrd and the edgy, experimental dancers of Spectrum Dance Theater present their take on Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana in April.
Arts & Entertainment, Music

Exploring Outer Space with the Seattle Symphony

The Seattle Symphony presents “The Planets — An HD Odyssey”, featuring music inspired by outer space, including works by Ligeti, R. Strauss, and Holst and images from NASA. The performance is on Saturday, July 14 at 8 p.m. at Benaroya Hall.

Despite the lure of a bright, balmy summer evening, Benaroya Hall was packed to the brim on Thursday night. A diverse crowd turned out for the Seattle Symphony‘s program of music inspired by outer space. The concert featured a performance of Holst’s beloved suite The Planets accompanied by HD images of the solar system projected on a large screen above the orchestra. Also on the program were two works from the soundtrack to the cinematic classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ligeti’s Atmosphères and Strauss’ dramatic Also sprach Zarathustra. After two nearly sold-out shows on Thursday and Friday, tickets are scarce for the remaining performance tonight.

The otherworldly sounds of Ligeti’s Atmosphères provided a fitting start to the evening’s program. This short, groundbreaking work, composed in 1961, focuses on sound and musical color — rather than melody and rhythm — to create a mood of quiet mystery. Soft, high notes from the strings blend with bubbles of sound from brass and woodwinds, generating a musical landscape evocative of today’s ambient and electronic music. At times, the score calls for two percussionists to move brushes across the strings of a grand piano, creating an eerie effect that was fascinating to see and hear.

Clouds of gas swirl over surface of Jupiter (Photo: NASA / Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

After Atmosphères, conductor Ludovic Morlot launched straight into Zarathustra without a pause between the two works. What a dramatic effect! Ligeti’s piece faded away into nothing, and Strauss’ work launches from that silence into a bold, earthshaking fanfare, one of the grandest in the history of classical music. Though the rest of the work is not as well known as the introduction, it’s still full of exciting moments. The low brass section shone in the “Von der Wissenschaft” (“Of Science and Learning”) movement, introducing a dramatic motive that was passed around the orchestra.

The drama continued with The Planets, one of the most famous works by British composer Gustav Holst. Completed in 1916, this beloved piece continues to inspire composers today, especially those who write music for film. Although The Planets was composed just as modern cinema was beginning to take off, Holst’s colorful, vibrant melodies beg to be enhanced by equally rich visuals and storylines, whether on-screen or simply in one’s imagination.

NASA’s stunning images, video, and animations of the solar system provided an ideal accompaniment to the performance. It was a treat to see video footage taken from cameras on the Mars Rover as it traversed the arid surface of the Red Planet. The dark, brooding strains of the “Mars, The Bringer of War” movement matched the action perfectly as a computer-generated animation showed the Mars Rover being deployed and landing on the planet’s surface. Mesmerizing footage of the swirling clouds of gas surrounding Jupiter’s surface was made even more captivating by hearty folk-based melodies of “Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity”.

Like Zarathustra, The Planets is an action-packed work full of orchestral color and memorable melodies. Outstanding playing from Assistant Concertmaster Emma McGrath and principal cellist Efe Baltacigil made for a poignant and touching duet in the “Venus, The Bringer of Peace” movement. “Neptune, The Mystic”, the haunting final movement, ends with the voices of a women’s choir fading away into the distance. The symphony’s treatment of this was particularly effective. The women of the Seattle Symphony Chorale stood out of sight at the back of the auditorium. When they began to sing, it felt like voices were rising up out of nowhere and then fading away again.

Though “light summer fare” like this may seem hokey to stalwart concertgoers, there’s a simple reason that performances like this attract near-capacity crowds away from the sunny skies: they’re downright fun. Why? First and foremost, the music is spectacular. These works are shining stars in the classical repertoire for a good reason. This is the music that makes us gasp, that gives us chills, that tugs at our heartstrings. Though music like this readily stirs the imagination, beautiful visuals like the NASA images enhance the experience of live performance and help audiences appreciate this great music from a new perspective. As the Seattle Symphony continues to grow in stature and reach out to new audiences, it’ll be interesting to see what sort of innovative programming arises from this winning concert formula.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Stephen Hough “Shines” in Rach 3 with Seattle Symphony

Stephen Hough, pianist

If notes were steps, Stephen Hough would have run—and won—a full marathon playing Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Hall Thursday night. He’ll do it again three more times this weekend. From the look of Thursday evening’s almost-full hall, tickets are selling briskly.

Made even more famous than it was already by its use in the movie Shine (about the Australian pianist David Helfgott), this concerto is an Everest for performers, loaded with notes to be played at warp speed. Where Hough is unusual is in his ability to add phrasing even when his hands are a blur on the keys.

In the few slower moments, including the lovely theme at the start, he gave an expressive nuance hardly possible the rest of the time. Hough’s playing is extraordinarily clean for such a work, with never a misplaced note, and while his playing is decisive, he never bangs on the keyboard.  In the few moments when he was not playing he mopped the sweat from his brow and wiped the keys with his black handkerchief.

The orchestra under Ludovic Morlot kept pace with him, with fine solos from principals Seth Krimsky, bassoon, and Ben Hausmann, oboe.

Exciting as this performance was, the highlight of the concert came earlier with a superb performance by the orchestra and Morlot of Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 2. We are so used to thinking of Ives as an iconoclast whose music is quirky to a degree, fascinating and challenging to play and to hear, that this symphony written in his mid-to-late 20s comes as a surprise. It is in straightforward symphonic mode, showing the composer’s thorough grasp of European compositional style and of inspired orchestration.

Yes, there are many instances where he has incorporated snatches of popular songs, most familiarly Camptown Races and Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, but this is a time-honored choice of many composers. Only at the very last does Ives present us with a sudden surprise, departing from conventional harmonies to end on a clashingly dissonant chord.

The orchestra played it with freshness and verve under Morlot’s firm but easy guiding hand, bringing out a myriad little details and with notable solos from the horns and principal cello Efe Baltacigil.

The concert began with another, quintessentially American work, Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide. Quite short, it received a vibrant, scintillating performance from Morlot and the orchestra, the conductor almost dancing on the podium and conveying his exuberance to the musicians.

Before the concert bagan, three musicians were honored on their departure from the orchestra. Violinist Jun Liang Du, in the orchestra since 1986, has already left, but second violinist Virginia Hunt Luce, who has played in the orchestra 46 years, received a warm tribute from colleague Sande Gillette, and cellist Susan Williams with 35 years under her belt, was lauded by violist Vincent Comer.

 

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Seattle Symphony Presents Keyboard Fireworks, a Beloved Classic, and a World Premiere

The Seattle Symphony performs works by Franz Schubert, Frédéric Chopin, and Nico Muhly tonight, January 28, at 8 p.m. at Benaroya Hall. More details and tickets are available at the Seattle Symphony website.

Ludovic Morlot’s been hard at work. Although it’s only been a few months into his first season as music director of the Seattle Symphony, Morlot has already made waves with his adventurous programming and fresh approach to the symphonic repertoire. Thursday night’s concert was no exception, sandwiching Schubert’s beloved “Unfinished” Symphony No. 8 between a world premiere by Nico Muhly and a performance of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 by Marc-André Hamelin. The Symphony will perform the same program again tonight.

In many ways, these works are worlds apart. However, when they’re performed together as part of a unified program, listeners are invited to draw parallels between the pieces. In this way, a program that initially seems like a musical grab-bag is be transformed into an insightful exploration of a single musical concept. At Thursday’s concert, the theme of the night seemed to be musical texture. All three pieces on the program cycle through a wide variety of orchestral textures in a short amount of time, creating a musical landscape full of changing moods and colors.

Nico Muhly

The concert opened with Nico Muhly’s world premiere, a one-movement work playfully titled So Far So Good. Born in Vermont and currently based in New York City, Muhly is a young composer whose star is on the rise. Only thirty years old, he’s already racked up an impressive list of accomplishments, including an upcoming opera premiere at the Met, an ongoing gig as assistant to eminent composer Philip Glass, and collaborations with Björk.

In So Far So Good, Muhly uses repeating melodic themes and ever-shifting textures to create a work that is atmospheric and sonically rich. Contrasting textures in different sections of the orchestra are often combined and overlapped. For example, at the beginning of the work, Muhly juxtaposes a smooth, legato string part with short, staccato bursts from the brass and percussion. Morlot managed the flowing textures well, guiding the ensemble through sudden transitions and mood changes.

So Far So Good paired surprisingly well with the second piece on the program, Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony, another work that features dramatic shifts in mood and texture. Although Schubert was only able to complete the first two movements of the symphony before his death in 1828, the “Unfinished” is one of his most popular works. The piece flows rapidly through a huge spectrum of orchestral colors, ranging from a sweet, tender cello melody to grand gestures that utilize a full orchestral sound. The woodwind section sounded fantastic in the handful of solos and duets throughout the work, particularly Ben Hausmann on oboe, Christopher Sereque on clarinet, and Demarre McGill on flute.

The evening concluded with a performance of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2, featuring Marc-André Hamelin as the soloist. Although Schubert and Chopin both heralded from the Romantic tradition of classical composition, the “Unfinished” Symphony is miles away from Chopin’s concerto in terms of tone and texture. Schubert’s Symphony focuses on a full range of orchestral sound, while Chopin’s work utilizes the orchestra to accentuate the expressive power of the piano.

One of the most technically skilled pianists alive today, Hamelin is known for pushing the limits of what is physically possible on the piano. In addition to his international acclaim as a concert pianist, he is well-known as the composer of “Circus Galop”, a work for player piano that many consider to be the world’s most difficult piano piece.

The Chopin piano concerto was an excellent choice to showcase a different side of Hamelin’s artistry. Although Chopin’s compositions call for a virtuosic technique, his music is full of tender moments in which a simple melodic passage is imbued with great emotional intensity. Hamelin struck a harmonious balance between flashy technique and musical expression, sailing through difficult fast passages without batting an eye, but bringing out a delicate singing tone in sections that were slower and more melodic.

Morlot’s conducting talent and leadership abilities earned Seattle Symphony a recent mention in the New York Times. NYT music critic Zachary Woolfe reviewed Thursday night’s concert and commented favorably on Morlot’s accomplishments and vision for the orchestra: “Watching Seattle in the coming years will be fun”. If the excitement of Thursday night’s performance is any indication, Seattle’s new maestro’s on the right track.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Morlot’s Seattle Symphony Celebrates Rhythms of Stravinsky, Gershwin, Varèse

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Ludovic Morlot at Opening Night at Seattle Symphony, 2011 (Photo: Ben VanHouten)

This program plays at Benaroya Hall tonight, September 29, at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, October 1, at 8 p.m. Tickets here.

It’s a delight to see fresh winds blowing at Seattle Symphony, courtesy of its new young music director, Ludovic Morlot.

For this week’s concerts, he announced he was celebrating rhythm, but as well as pulsing with rhythm, the Benaroya Hall stage exploded with musical excitement, flavors and colors on Thursday night, and the audience responded with enthusiasm.

Morlot programmed two very familiar works, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, and Gershwin’s An American in Paris, but then he added a composer who is not nearly as familiar, Edgard Varèse, and his work Amériques. This last choice is in accord with another statement of Morlot’s that he wants to introduce less familiar works to the audience, expanding our horizons.

Many of us are dubious about having our musical horizons widened. “We never heard of this composer. What if we don’t like it? I don’t want to pay money to go to hear somethiing I won’t enjoy.”

Never fear. So far Morlot may be bringing on music less familiar to us, but he is doing it with a discriminating hand, and a good understanding of what the audience will embrace. I heard from one concertgoer last week who had been to the concert including music by Dutilleux and Frank Zappa. She had enjoyed it so much she went out and bought a ticket to hear it again the next day.

Thursday night, Morlot created the same enjoyment. The three works were all written within a span of about 15 years, Rite in 1913, Paris in 1928 and Amériques between 1918 and 1922. It was a time of artistic ferment in Paris, even during WWI, beginning the same kind of musical upheaval which had occurred in Italy at the very end of the 16th and early 17th centuries when the Florentine Camerata and composers like Monteverdi realized that one could express all kinds of emotions dramatically in music, culminating in the birth of opera.

This time the innovation which redirected musical directions for the future was spearheaded by the Rite, the premiere of which produced near pandemonium in the theater. It’s not so far out for us today, but its onslaught of vitality, excitement and tension, its shrill discordance, unusual—to them—harmonies and sawtoothed rhythms, the seemingly disorderly cacophony, was a shocker.

All of these were present in Morlot’s performance Thursday. He brought out the musical colors and the unexpected instrumental combinations, used the sudden quieter moods and the silent pauses as clear contrasts to the relentless clangor, and he shaped the whole so that it hung together as a work. It is easy in this work to have the orchestra playing at full volume almost throughout. He never did. There was plenty of volume, but it never reached a fullscale assault on the eardrums.

Gershwin’s An American in Paris is much less wild, more urbane, and great fun. Morlot chose to perform it two weeks ago at the SSO’s opening gala, and I reviewed it then in this space. Suffice it to say I enjoyed it as much Thursday. In Morlot’s hands, this is a piece with a grin on its face, exuberance in its heart, and wings on its feet.

Varèse was born only a year after Stravinsky, in 1883, and many of the same world influences worked on him. Well before he wrote Amériques he began to look for different sounds, different instruments he could use, and was not thinking along the lines of the romantic composers he grew up hearing. Amériques which he wrote after he arrived in New York is like Gershwin’s Paris in that the sounds and ambience of the city captured him, but it is much harder to distinguish them in the music. If you listen very carefully you can maybe hear the clopping of horses’ hooves, the foghorn, or the cries of vendors, but the only unmistakable city sound is the siren which he brings in often.

Morlot said from the stage that he deliberately put this on the same program as the Rite, as the influence of the 1913 work on the 1918-22 one is obvious. Varèse uses winds similarly, and, importantly, the music has the same flavor, often even similar harmonies, and has a similar impact on the hearer. But his ideas on melody—he called it “organizational sound”—and his huge use of percussion, eleven of them and two timpanists, are all his own, as is his imagination.

However, it does feel closely akin to the Rite in every way, and that leaves one wondering why the Rite caught on and is heard everywhere, and Amériques much less so. It was fascinating to hear the two in juxtaposition. Both are noisy works, and no one could call the Gershwin a quiet dreamy piece, but the effect of all this loud exuberance did not leave this audience member with ears ringing from the blast. Rather, Morlot kept the volume at just under that point, until the last measure of the Varèse when, having thought before the orchestra was playing at full, it suddenly became an amzing blast of sound.

As Gershwin would have said: Fascinating rhythm.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

The Morlot Era at Seattle Symphony Has Now Begun

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Morlot_Opening Night
©2010 Darin Fong Photography
Efe Baltacıgil_Credit Christian Steiner
Roman, Joshua1(c)Jeremy Sawatzky

Ludovic Morlot at Opening Night at Seattle Symphony, 2011 (Photo: Ben VanHouten)

Demarre McGill (Photo: ©2010 Darin Fong Photography)

Efe Baltacigil (Photo: Christian Steiner)

Joshua Roman (Photo: Jeremy Sawatzky)

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©2010 Darin Fong Photography thumbnail
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Saturday night at Benaroya Hall saw the dressiest Seattle crowd since the opening of McCaw Hall, with silks, satins, sparkles and high fashion abounding. The occasion? Ludovic Morlot’s debut as music director of the Seattle Symphony. The auditorium was packed, following a pre-concert cocktail party and preceding a gala dinner.

Proceedings on stage began with a brief, graceful welcome by board chair Leslie Jackson Chihuly, who mentioned also that conductor, now laureate, Gerard Schwarz and his wife Jody were present, as were Morlot’s wife Chizlane and two children.

And then the concert began.

As well as Morlot, two more musicians made their orchestra debuts at this concert: principal cello Efe Baltacigil and principal flute Demarre McGill, both experienced performers who seemed very much at home in the repertoire. Two positions remain open, that of concertmaster, and unexpectedly and to our loss, principal horn, as John Cerminaro has quietly retired.

Morlot chose wisely for his gala program. All four works were immediately accessible to the audience, two of them familiar favorites, one being French, as is Morlot. The third was an appropriately classical opener stylishly played, Beethoven’s Overture to The Consecration of the House, and the fourth showcased Morlot’s adventurous musical spirit and that of solo cellist Joshua Roman, who has had his own following here ever since his two years as principal cellist with the Seattle Symphony.

So often people turn away from concert programs which include a composer name they don’t know–particularly if it is from the 20th, or heaven forbid, the 21st century. Morlot is determined to undo that prejudice and at the same time encourage the performing of music from genres which have rarely been welcome on a symphony stage. Yet many well-known performers from other genres have written in a symphonic vein, though that may not be where their fame lies. Take Frank Zappa, whose “Dupree’s Paradise” comes up in next week’s symphony concerts.

In this gala, it was a concerto for cello and wind orchestra by 20th century classical and jazz pianist Friedrich Gulda. He frequently mixed both genres on the concert stage and he does in this 1980 work.

While the stage was being reset, Morlot took the microphone to say a few words, including his thanks to the community and the orchestra for making him and his family welcome, and he also took time to thank the stagehands, by name, for the work they do. Talking about the outreach he hopes to do, bringing music to people, and people to Benaroya, he mentioned that school children will be able to come free to Masterpiece series concerts on a companion ticket. He talked a bit about Gulda, and his passion for jazz and improvisation as well as his ability to play and record impeccable classical performances.

The cello role in the Gulda is nonstop for the entire 30 minutes of this five-movement work. The mood swings from folk type melodies to jazzy sections and back without a hitch, the jazzy parts backed by a couple of electric guitars and drumset. Much of the music is recognizable dance rhythms such as a German laendler going oom-pah-pah to a lullaby to a Sousa-type march with the tuba belting it out. The third movement is an extended unaccompanied cadenza for the cello, with brief snatches from the Marseillaise, Reveille and more, each of which brought appreciative laughs from the attentive audience.

It isn’t a profound work, but it is great fun and musically solid, just right for a concert such as this. Roman did it proud, his technique as unerring as ever, his tone singing, his musicianship making the most of the work’s arches and shape. Morlot too made the most of it, keeping the balance and the vigor going throughout.

Morlot’s own abilities showed up best in Gershwin’s An American in Paris. In his hands it became a joyous, exuberant performance, yet with seamless connections between sections, and nuance which left one hearing it fresh.

Bolero, by his compatriot Ravel, is a crowd-pleaser, not for any exciting musical content, but for the way its constant repetition grows from soft to huge, and by the contrast in different instruments playing that melody. Morlot brought snare drummer Michael Werner, who repeats the same brief phrase from start to finish, to perform at the front of the stage. I’ve never heard this piece begun so softly. It seemed no one was playing at all, but the cellists’ hands were moving, as were Werner’s, and only gradually, as one listened harder, did the sound begin to emerge and grow.

In the middle, Morlot, a violinist, put down his baton and joined the first violins for a spell, while around him the musicians continued as closeknit as before. Towards the end, he took up his baton again, but it showed, which perhaps he intended, the coherence and professionalism of the orchestra, that, where necessary, it can play without leadership.

All in all, this was an auspicious beginning to Morlot’s tenure here. Let’s hope that packed audience repeats at many more concerts. Preview the many, varied programs to come here.