October 2009

  In my “upcoming” post a few days ago I neglected to mention Simple Measures’s performances at Spectrum Dance Theater and the Fremont Abbey.  Simple Measures has built a reputation in Seattle for progressive concert programming that is accessible.  It is a mission that founder Rajan Krishnaswami and all of the musicians associated with the group [...]

On hearing Seattle Baroque Orchestra’s season opening concert at Town Hall Saturday night, my first thought was how well the group sounds in here. Although spotty in places, the acoustics are warm and with a reverberation which enhances but leaves the sound clear. SBO has moved around a bit in its quest for a good [...]

Even given the venerable standards of the German/Austro tradition, the age and history of the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, which appeared in concert Tuesday night at Benaroya Hall, is notable. Its founding in 1841, by itself, gives the orchestra prestige, which it might not have otherwise. Simply to have survived the extraordinary cross-currents of culture and [...]

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago has always been immediately appealing, with very few inaccessible moments. That was true when it was a jazz dance company in its earliest days and of which the company gave ample evidence Friday night at the Paramount Theatre. Spectrum Dance Company followed a similar path — a mixed repertory, concentrating on [...]

The Seattle Symphony Orchestra is now in earnest looking for a music director to replace Gerard Schwarz in 2011. All sorts of conductors are lined up this season and next in a kind of elaborate, public audition for the post. The official line of the symphony, rather witty in fact, is that every guest conductor [...]

Ludovic Morlot is in town this week guest conducting the Seattle Symphony.  It is the first time the young, French conductor has conducted the Seattle Symphony, but not the first time he has conducted a major American orchestra.  In fact, while Morlot may not be on the tip of many Seattleite tongues, Morlot has been [...]

Picture a low platform at the side of the Meany Theater stage with four musicians on sitar—the long-necked Indian lute, tabla—hand drums, an instrument with bellows and keys working the same as an accordion, and voice, plus other small percussion like finger cymbals. A man comes on dancing lightly just with his bare feet, carrying [...]