“Voices of Strength” from the Santa Monica Symphony

Music Director Pola Benke recognizing the Santa Monica Symphony's long-serving members.

REVIEW

Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra, JAMS Performing Arts Center, Santa Monica

DAVID J BROWN

Pola Benke.

Having missed Pola Benke’s first season as the Santa Monica Symphony’s new Music Director (“Scenes from Life,” 2025-2026), it was more than time to head north for the opening concert of her second, at the comfortable, attractive, and acoustically fine 750-seat auditorium of the John Adams Middle School Performing Arts Center. This season’s theme is “Voices” and the “Voices of Strength” on the bill were Nordic, Slavic, and Bohemian in turn, in a program that almost, but not quite, adhered to the time-honored overture/concerto/symphony layout.

The almost-overture was one of Sibelius’s many small-scale celebratory pieces, his Andante festivo JS34b, commissioned in 1922 by the management of the Finnish Säynätsalo sawmill to mark its 25th anniversary. In 1929 he expanded the string quartet original for performance at a niece’s wedding, and nine years later—acceding to a proposal that he conduct one of his own works for a live transatlantic broadcast to the New York World’s Fair—directed the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in the piece, newly rescored for string orchestra and timpani. This was Sibelius’s last appearance on an orchestra podium and the only performance by him that seems to have survived.

Jean Sibelius in 1939.

To judge by her account—paced judiciously between spaciousness and onward flow—the Andante festivo is close to Pola Benke’s heart, and her rapport with the SMSO strings showed in their unanimity throughout and careful observance of the work’s slow dynamic shifts. As ever, Sibelius’s genius withholding of the timpani until the final four measures imparted its thrilling frisson of unanticipated extra sonority.

The evening’s concerto was no over-played Romantic warhorse. If—to quote Ms. Benke’s own eloquent program note—the Andante festivo’s “strength comes from simplicity, dignity, and calm,” that of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 107 (1959) lay in his resilience and “remarkable ability to preserve his own artistic voice.” Though written well into the post-Stalin “Khrushchev thaw” the concerto is a haunted, emotionally ambivalent work, pivoting between teeth-clenched jauntiness in its outer movements and stillness in the Moderato second movement.

Dmitri Shostakovich in 1959.

In the more than capable hands of Polish-born cellist Marek Szpakiewicz, the obsessive repetition of the opening four-note motif (a kind of variant on Shostakovich’s personal DSCH motto) felt emblematic of constraint or even entrapment, with the astringent rhythmic responses crisply cued by Ms. Benke’s baton and punched out by the SMSO winds—the piccolo’s upward skirls especially prominent—taking that motif by the scruff of the neck and relentlessly propelling it onward (for anyone regarding Shostakovich as a prolix composer the snappy brevity of this first movement is the perfect corrective!).

Marek Szpakiewicz.

Mr. Szpakiewicz’s almost-continuous cello line in the slow movement had all the espressivo that the composer repeatedly demands, and the numerous duets between soloist and other players were immaculately cued and executed. Almost uniquely, this concerto’s cadenza comprises an entire, independent movement, exploratory rather than virtuosic, and here Mr. Szpakiewicz sounded all its emotional resonances before the increasingly animated solo line triggered the finale.

The Allegro con moto finale revisits the first movement’s agitated substance, with in this performance particularly arresting contributions from shrill clarinet and clamant single horn (another aspect of Shostakovich’s economy in this concerto is its modest forces). Though the finale effectively ties thematic knots back to the first movement, it offers no real catharsis, which can make Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto a difficult work to bring off successfully in concert. Here, however, the wholehearted applause signalled the fine achievement of soloist, conductor, and orchestra alike.

Mr. Szpakiewicz returned for an encore, a rapt account of Ennio Morricone’s main theme from Once Upon a Time in the West that towards the end included a pause so daringly protracted that some may have wondered whether he had in fact finished.

Pola Benke opened the second half with tributes to and acknowledgments of the SMSO’s most long-serving members, and then proceeded to its one work, the Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70, B. 141 (1884-85) by Antonin Dvořák. Though by measure count it’s the shortest of his nine, as well as the most economically scored, the Seventh is—as host Rich Capparela noted in some introductory remarks—generally held by Dvořák aficionados to be the greatest of them, and Ms. Benke’s powerfully integrated performance certainly underlined the claim.

Antonin Dvořák in 1882.

The first movement marking, Allegro maestoso, is an immediate conductorial challenge—too fast, and you compromise the majesty; too slow, and momentum is lost—but to these ears Ms. Benke got it just right, with the opening theme on violas and cellos, rising and falling back on itself within its limited pitch range, purposeful yet imbued with foreboding. The movement proceeded with authority and surety of aim towards the tragic power of the recapitulation’s climax and then its dramatic collapse back into the dark mood of the opening, and the drawn-out pianissimo conclusion.

The Poco adagio slow movement unfolded just as coherently, with some noble solo horn contributions, and if the Scherzo could have benefited from just a little more driven inexorability, the finale didn’t drop a stitch. It accumulated expressive weight and intensity so that the overwhelmingly tragic coda felt fully earned, Ms. Benke and her fine orchestra drawing on yet more reserves of power to deliver it as molto maestoso as Dvořák could have desired. Bravo!

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Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra, JAMS Performing Arts Center, 1630 Pearl St, Santa Monica, Saturday, September 19, 2026, 7.00 p.m.

Images: The performance: author; Pola Benke: Courtesy Long Beach Symphony; Sibelius, Shostakovich, Dvořák: Wikimedia Commons; Marek Szpakiewicz: Azusa Pacific University; Once Upon a Time in the West poster: www.themagnificent60s.com.

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Seattle’s Shining Stars Open New Symphony Season

Pianist Yefim Bronfman with the Seattle Symphony under Music Director Xian Zhang perform Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto in the opening night of the SSO's 2026-2027 season.

REVIEW

Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Benaroya Hall, Seattle

ERICA MINER

Maestra Xian Zhang,

Music Director Xian Zhang and piano phenomenon Yefim Bronfman took center stage for Seattle Symphony’s glittering season opener on Saturday, September 19. The evening featured two 20th century Russian works: Prokofiev’s symphonic suite version of Lieutenant Kijé Op. 60, originally written for the film of the same name; and Rachmaninoff’s famously challenging Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30. Both works displayed the conductor and soloist’s star qualities to the maximum.

Sergei Prokofiev: portrait by
 Pyotr Konchalovsky, 1934.

Now in her second season as SSO Music Director, Xian Zhang starts off buoyed by a hugely successful first season. Having fostered a close and mutually respectful relationship with the orchestra’s musicians since she first started working with them in 2008, she created an atmosphere of both ease and excitement from the opening downbeat throughout the entire program. Her high energy and enthusiasm, combined with the comfort of a maestro well-established in her role, greatly enhanced the enjoyment of the audience.

Poster for the Soviet film
comedy, Lieutenant Kijé.

Prokofiev was commissioned to write Lieutenant Kijé for the 1934 Leningrad-produced film version of the story. The five-movement Suite premiered the same year. As the composer sought to revamp his often dissonant and experimental style into something more accessible in keeping with the official Soviet concept of art, he believed the sharp but gentle satire of Kijé written in his own classical style to be the perfect solution. Its charm and ingenuousness proved to have wide and immediate appeal, influencing films as far away as Hollywood, e.g., Woody Allen’s 1975 Love and Death.

Zhang brought out both the composer’s melodiousness and engaging simplicity. The pompousness woven into the piece, such as in Kijé's Wedding, came off as spirited but also elegant. The cornet solos, which virtually amounted to a concerto in their prominence throughout the piece, were well played. Solos by the tenor saxophone (inspired by Prokofiev’s admiration of Ravel’s use of the instrument), flute, and a string trio of double bass, viola and cello, were tastefully done. The Troika was pensive then lively, moving along at an exhilarating pace. The nostalgia and charm of Romance and the sweet and poignant final movement, The Burial of Kijé, primed the audience for the monumental solo work that followed.

Yefim Bronfman in action.

2010 Avery Fisher Prize winner Yefim Bronfman, whose name is instantly recognizable among the world’s foremost piano virtuosi, was an ideal last-minute replacement for the ailing Yuja Wang. Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, with its supremely challenging technical demands, served as the perfect showcase for Bronfman’s abundant musical talents. From the outset, the pianist displayed a winning combination of the crisp precision and abundant lyricism that makes him one of today’s most sought-after soloists on the concert stage. He performed the piece with the reverence and expertise of an artist in whom the music has lived for many years.

At the beginning of the first movement, Allegro ma non troppo, Bronfman kept his finger movements minimal and close to the keys, leaving room for the immense buildup to follow. He showed evidence of his extraordinary versatility in melodic passages that were crisp and even, and paved the way for the more expansive, inspired lyricism of the second theme. As the relentless intricacies of the first movement progressed through the infamously difficult development, Bronfman was unstoppable, gaining momentum in the execution of the passagework requiring the technical mastery and power for which he is famous.

Rachmaninoff in 1909,
by Robert Sterl.

The second movement, Intermezzo: Adagio, gave Bronfman the opportunity to combine his astonishingly light touch with effortless dexterity in the melancholic passages and to emote to the max in the appassionato sections. He languished indulgently and played up the sheer romanticism while delighting in the rapid, spirited passages.

In the ensuing Finale: Alla breve, Bronfman took off like a rocket and never stopped, escalating the excitement all the way to the end. The sheer immensity of his massive strength and astonishing command of the cascades of notes, which must number in the tens of thousands, led to a climax that was received with such fervor from the audience that the only possible remedy was an encore. He delivered one that delighted the crowd: Franz Liszt’s transcription of the Violin Caprice No. 17 in E-flat major by Nicolò Paganini, the second of Liszt's six Grandes Études de Paganini, S 141 (1838, rev 1851).

Daguerreotype of Liszt, 1843.

Though it hardly seems possible, the Liszt was in some ways even more impressive in its technical scope than the Rachmaninoff, alternating between a light touch and a huge demonstration of a sheer virtuosity that was transformative. Known as one of the most demanding works in the piano repertoire, the piece features interlocking octaves and requires nearly impossible stretches and precise hand-crossing. Bronfman delivered all of these, seemingly effortlessly. Also interesting were the knowing looks of the orchestra’s violinists as they watched and listened to a piece with which they perhaps were all too familiar. All in all, Bronfman is a technical wizard and mesmerizing performer.

In the Rachmaninoff accompaniment, the musicians responded beautifully to Zhang’s urgings to let loose in the tutti passages, producing a jubilant, uninhibited sound. In the solo sections, she kept the orchestra well-controlled but not to the point of being restrictive. The orchestra’s wind section, highlighted prominently in the score, delivered impressively. Zhang exercised her usual excellent control throughout each movement, handling the highly detailed score and interplay between soloist and orchestra with a deftness and skill characteristic of the most admired and respected music directors. This dazzling expertly executed program with its magnificent scores provided an intriguing foretaste of what is sure to be an exhilarating season to come.

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Benaroya Hall, 200 University St, Seattle, WA 98101, Saturday, September 19, 7.30 p. m. 

Images: The performance: James Holt; Prokofiev, Lieutenant Kijé poster, Rachmaninoff, Liszt: Wikimedia Commons.

Partchworld: The Life, Music, and Legacy of Harry Partch: Part Two

REDISCOVERY AND RENEWAL

1. The Bewitched • REDCAT, 27 June 2026 (Photo: Felix Salazar).

JOHN SCHNEIDER

John Schneider is a Grammy® Award winning and four-time Grammy® nominated guitarist, composer, author and broadcaster. He holds a Ph.D. in Physics & Music from U.C. Cardiff (UK), music degrees from the University of California and the Royal College of Music (London), and is past-President of the Guitar Foundation of America. Schneider is a specialist in contemporary music, and his The Contemporary Guitar has become the standard text in the field. He hosts Global Village on Thursdays, 11am-1pm (Pacific Time), on KPFK FM, Los Angeles.

2. Harry Partch with Adapted Guitar I, 1941.

In Part One of this article I outlined the unique career of California-born Harry Partch (1901-1974): composer, deviser of a new personal musical syntax, and inventor of an extraordinary array of instruments without which it is impossible to play his equally remarkable works.

I also discussed my own growing fascination with and exploration of the full range of his creative output, which brought me to the point in 1999—after hearing his own ensemble in San Francisco—of needing to perform his works myself.

3. Author's copy of Adapted Guitar II.

This meant one thing: I had to recreate the instruments. With that in mind, I and an extraordinary team of various artisans have spent the last 25 years doing exactly that.

Thus LA’s PARTCH Ensemble began in the 1990s as the trio “Just Strings” (4. below) playing guitar, harp, and percussion in the pure-intervals just intonation favored by Partch and his colleagues Lou Harrison (1917-2003) and James Tenney (1934-2006). The only authentic instrument we possessed was a copy of Partch's Adapted Guitar I (2. above right), though I arranged some of his music for retuned harps to mimic his Harmonic Canons.

4. "Just Strings", 2001 (Photo: Robert Hale).

By 2001, with the addition of my new Adapted Guitar II (3. above left) and a copy of Partch's Diamond Marimba, together with the gracious loan of his Kithara I from the Harry Partch Foundation, we were finally able to perform a concert consisting entirely of the composer’s early works. That program concluded the 12-hour Harry Partch Centennial Celebration that I produced at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall, which featured scholarly presentations, panel discussions, the composer’s own films, and even an instrument “petting zoo.”

5. © Los Angeles Times.

For the next two decades, we produced new replicas of these marvelous musical machines almost one per year, as evidenced by our annual performances at the REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater) contemporary performing arts center inside downtown LA's Walt Disney Hall complex:

6. REDCAT 2005 (Photo: John Schneider).

7. REDCAT 2013 (Photo: Erin Schneider).

8. REDCAT 2025 (Photo: Felix Salazar).

We have had the great pleasure of sharing Partch’s music with audiences on both coasts of the US, in Mexico, and even gave the first Asian performances at South Korea’s Tongyeong International Music Festival (2023). We have also commissioned new works, either for the instruments themselves or in collaboration with other ensembles (Del Sol String Quartet, the Prism Saxophone Quartet, and The Hutchins Consort), including the new chamber opera LSD: Huxley’s Last Trip by Anne LeBaron (b.1953).

In 2011, Bridge Records began to release our recordings in their Music of Harry Partch series (9-12. below) which have so far garnered a Grammy® Award and three Grammy® nominations, and we have also made videos of our yearly REDCAT concerts that can be found here.

9.-12. The Music of Harry Partch, Vols. 1-4 (© copyright Bridge Records).

In 2023, the California Festival commissioned a two-hour audio portrait of Partch for its Excursions series: “A journey through California’s innovative sonic landscape. Discover the visionary figures and hidden pathways that have helped shape the Golden State’s storied continuum of contemporary music.” This takes you on a chronological survey of this unforgettable repertoire, where you can hear Partch himself both playing and talking about his music.

However, as we all know, music is always best served LIVE—so come say hello to LA’s very own PARTCH Ensemble every June at REDCAT. After all, where else can you pet a Zymo-Xyl or a Cloud Chamber Bowl?

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Partchworld: The Life, Music, and Legacy of Harry Partch: Part One

CREATOR OF SOUNDWORLDS

1. Harry Partch in 1972. (Image from Harry Beglan papers, 1926-1997 (series 12/9/25), Sousa Archives and Center for American Music, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.)

JOHN SCHNEIDER

John Schneider is a Grammy® Award winning and four-time Grammy® nominated guitarist, composer, author and broadcaster. He holds a Ph.D. in Physics & Music from U.C. Cardiff (UK), music degrees from the University of California and the Royal College of Music (London), and is past-President of the Guitar Foundation of America. Schneider is a specialist in contemporary music, and his The Contemporary Guitar has become the standard text in the field. He hosts Global Village on Thursdays, 11am-1pm (Pacific Time), on KPFK FM, Los Angeles.

1. BloBoy.

California’s Harry Partch (1901-1974) was surely one of America's most colorful composers. Though trained as a concert pianist, his dissatisfaction with the scales and instruments of Western music inspired him to design and build, between 1929 and 1970, an orchestra of over two dozen handcrafted “microtonal” instruments that were tuned to a scale of 43 pitches per octave. With names like Cloud Chamber Bowls, Chromelodeon, Zymo-Xyl (Zi-mock-sil), Gourd Tree and BloBoy (1. right), these fantastic musical creations would not be out of place in a Dr. Seuss book.

From 1931 to 1972, he created one of the most amazing bodies of sensually alluring and emotionally powerful music of the 20th century, writing music drama, dance theater, and multi-media extravaganzas, as well as intimate vocal and chamber music. In today's parlance, Harry Partch is known as an “American Maverick,” a loner whose itinerant wanderings as a hobo and “railroad bum” during the Great Depression are the stuff of legend. His wildly original scores influenced several generations of composers from Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) and György Ligeti (1923-2006) to Tom Waits, David Bowie, and Paul Simon, and still manages to shock, amuse, and amaze.

3. University of Wisconsin
Press, 1949.

He was also a great innovator, being one of the first concert composers to use overdubbing as a composition tool, as well as creating his own indie label in the 1950s, and training his own eponymous ensemble decades before Steve Reich and Philip Glass. He was also the first to use the electric guitar in concert music, and the first to use a fretless instrument.

4. Da Capo Press, 1974.

It long seemed that once Partch died, so would his music. After all, what better way to absolutely guarantee a music’s obsolescence than to compose for a single set of entirely unique instruments in an opaque notation—mostly tablatures—that takes ages to learn, and has no precedence? And yet, against all odds, quite the opposite has happened: Partch’s reputation has only grown since his passing in 1974, becoming what could only be termed as legendary. His work is consistently listed as inspiration for ensuing generations of musicians of all styles, from rock and roll, to punk, to classical.

Luckily, he also painstakingly documented his musical development in recordings, films, writings, and a volume called Genesis of a Music, initially in 1949 then in an expanded and enlarged edition in 1974 (3. & 4. above). During his lifetime, the composer felt compelled to convince other musicians that his vision of a music that was emotionally compelling and acoustically in tune, would offer new sounds, new means of expression, and new possibilities for the future, but to his bitter disappointment, most couldn’t care less.

In the end, it was his performances, films, and the handful of recordings that he so carefully produced and distributed in his own lifetime that won the case for Partch. What a surprise! In what was an era of increasingly abstract music, here was modern music that was corporeal, and actually spoke to people! With rare exceptions, the audiences were far more receptive to the music than the professional musicians of his time. Luckily, those films and recordings are now almost completely available, only increasing the hunger for this unusual music.

5. Harry Partch, 1952.
(Wikimedia Commons). 

But what of performances? Live performances? Nothing, I repeat, nothing replaces being in the room with these wonderful instruments. The music is meant to be experienced, and not just by the ears: “In the right room acoustically, the Marimba Eroica is felt through the feet, against the belly, and, if one sits on the floor, it ripples through his bottom. H. P.” But with only one set of instruments, then residing on the east coast of North America, the chances of having one’s bottom rippled were rather remote.

To fall in love with a piece of music is to want to possess it—to feel it under one’s fingers, to breathe life into it with one’s own breath, or bow, or mallet… that is the musician’s way. I made the mistake of falling in love with Partch’s music with no possible way of consummating my affection. There was nowhere to go to rent or buy the appropriate instruments, no available music, no teachers from whom to learn the scales, techniques and repertoire, nowhere to touch and feel the music except through the loudspeakers of my stereo. 

6. The World of Harry Partch,
Columbia LP album cover.  

It was as if I had heard a recording of J. S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations and—having sworn to learn it—had to build my own harpsichord, teach myself how to read music and the keyboard technique to perform it, let alone the interpretational skills to bring it to life. So I turned to what you might call the “book of Genesis." Partch’s only published volume is not only a history book (telling of the development of intonation and scales since the times of the ancient Greeks), a music theory book (explaining the notation and structure of finely tuned intervals), and an autobiography… it is also a cookbook!

When read closely, Partch’s descriptions of his wonderful instruments include dimensions, materials, and tunings, almost enough information to reproduce them exactly. And so I began with the piece I loved most, on the instrument I knew best: Barstow: Eight Hitchhikers’ Inscriptions (1941) for baritone voice and Adapted Guitar. I had the great fortune to meet Danlee Mitchell, Partch’s longtime assistant and keeper of the instruments at San Diego State University. He gave me a copy of the unpublished manuscript of the piece which I had only known in its last 1968 incarnation for full ensemble, as found on the 1969 Columbia LP album The World of Harry Partch. 

 The music, however, looked like an algebra problem filled with fractions:

It turns out that the composer used the exact ratios of what is known as just intonation to tune pitches exactly. That phrase translates to this (6):

And down the rabbit hole I went. The crazy thing was that back in the early 1990s, no one really knew what the fingerboard of his guitar looked like, and he had never recorded this version of the piece, so I really had no choice but to reverse engineer the fretting using only the notes found in the piece and no others. Years later, it turned out I was right:

7. (above) Adapted Guitar I, 1941 (Barstow, Carmel Pine Cone, Sept 26, 1941, photographer unknown). 8. (above right) Author's copy (photo: Felix Salazar).

He eventually gave up on frets and created his Adapted Guitar II from a Hawaiian style slide guitar, adding four strings, with pitches determined by a lead-weighted plastic rod guided by color-coded triangles painted on the neck:

9. (above) Adapted Guitar II, 1945 (photographer unknown, private collection).
10. (above right) Author’s copy, 2000 (photo: Cat Beers).

By 1941, Partch had also created his own version of the ancient Greek kithara though his was harmonic instead of melodic. Like the modern harp, the original handheld kithara (11. below left) featured a row of single strings tuned from low to high, but Partch’s much larger instrument used 72 strings configured in 12 parallel sets of six strings, each “hexad” tuned to an open chord, almost like a dozen guitars standing in a row, but without their necks.

11-13. The Kithara, Carmel Pine Cone, Sept 19, 1941. (11. Source unknown; 12. Photographer unknown, private collection, 13. Photo: Fred Lyon, used by permission).

15. New Kithara I (1972).

14. Kithara II (1954)
(Photographer unknown,
private collection).

The two hexads at either end rested on thin Pyrex rods that could slide up and down to play chords between the other 10 permanently tuned hexads (13. above right). 

This was the first of the three kitharas that Partch designed, with the later models featuring two more sliding rods either on the outside of the instrument (Kithara II, 1954) or on the middle two sets (New Kithara I, 1972).

Partch retuned many old-fashioned reed organs to his 43-notes-to-the-octave scale, and called these Chromelodeons. The keys were also color-coded to make the fractions (ratios) more immediately recognizable, the final two having 159 pitches (Chromelodeon I, 1949 (16. below left)) while the largest was an 88-key piano case instrument with 244 and three banks of reeds (Chromelodeon II, 1959 (17. below right).

16. Chromelodeon I, 1949.                                           17. Chromelodeon II, 1959.

He also created a new family of marimbas. Two were terraced and chordal (Diamond Marimba (1946 (18. below left)), and Quadrangularis (1965 (19. below right)), while the two Bass Marimbas (1950 (20. bottom left)) and 1954 (21. bottom right)) used single notes from low to high, the latter with resonators so tall that the player must perch on a special stand to reach the gigantic keys.

18. Diamond Marimba.                                           19. Quadrangularis Reversum.

20. Bass Marimba.                                                                21. Marimba Eroica.

22. Zymo-Xyl.

He eventually made six 44-string box zithers called canons, two more guitars, and an amazing array of percussion instruments constructed from bamboo, light bulbs, oversize Pyrex bottles, liquor bottles, hubcaps, artillery shells, with some mixing those elements on a single instrument (Zymo-Xyl (1963 (22. right)) and Spoils of War (1950-65 (23. below left).

23. Spoils of War.

But make no mistake: yes, these are exquisite objets d’art meant to treat both eyes and ears, but most importantly they are the essential tools to create Partch's exquisitely singular music. You simply cannot reproduce his revolutionary vision without them, their inimitable “klang” being the very bedrock of his magnificent musical creations.

After finally hearing the ensemble in San Francisco in 1999, I was hooked—I just had to be able to play this music. Part Two of this article will outline my 25-year odyssey and what became LA's PARTCH Ensemble to achieve just that.

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Seattle Symphony’s Season Finale is Transcendent

The Seattle Symphony Orchestra and Chorale perform Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony under the
baton of Music Director Xian Zhang.

REVIEW

Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Benaroya Hall, Seattle

ERICA MINER

Xian Zhang.

New Seattle Symphony music director Xian Zhang closed her extraordinarily successful inaugural season with a program coupling the very archetype of a traditional finale—Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, the “Choral”—with a performance of a decidedly non-traditional work, Steven Mackey’s RIOT for chorus, vocalist, and the composer himself on electric guitar, as the opening work.

It’s clear that during this momentous season Xian has cemented her already genial relationship with the orchestra into one of close, mutual understanding and trust in creating meaningful music together. The performance was transcendent in every way. Before taking the reins in September 2025, Xian expressed her deeply felt commitment to bring new sounds to Seattle.

Steven Mackey.

She originally commissioned RIOT as music director of the New Jersey Symphony. Mackey, a Seattle Symphony Artist in Focus for the 2025/2026 season and a prime example of one of the current generation’s key composers, aspires to generate a musical language that crosses platforms while enhancing melody as an all-important focus. His Anemology: Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra was performed by Timothy McAllister and the Seattle Symphony in November 2025.

A rock guitarist who became involved in instrumental composition through the influence of the Downtown New York improv scene and the broader international avant-garde, Mackey’s music is engaging in its unexpected juxtapositions of styles. 

 “I want my music to be human and connected to the core motivations of music—to sing, to dance and to have transcendent experience,” says the GRAMMY-winning composer of works for chamber ensemble, orchestra, dance, and opera, who credits one single “psychedelic blue note” in Beethoven’s final String Quartet No. 16 in F major, op.135 for opening his eyes and ears to the rock music elements of the classical genre.

The text for RIOT was penned by poet Tracy K. Smith, Mackey’s colleague at Princeton University who, Mackey has said, “knows how to make words sing.” Initially inspired by the death of George Floyd, Smith intended the piece as one that “foregrounds race and resilience,” with six texts that bring together the ideals of hope, commitment, and community. Mackey describes the work as “a RIOT of color and texture." His music is free-spirited, inventive and lively, while also being profound and dramatically coherent. The piece displayed breadth and commitment to the meaning of the text, which was a very dark, somber commentary on the world situation... 

    Sometimes I feel

    the Black in my heart 

    like a map

    made of tar.

 …Yet ending with undertones of hope. For in the end: 

    We live—

Alicia Olatuja.

The performance featured mezzo-soprano and St. Louis native Alicia Olatuja as vocalist. Also known as a composer in her own right as well as an educator whose wide repertoire ranges from jazz to classical, Olatuja sang the work’s world premiere with the New Jersey Symphony led by Xian and was perfectly comfortable in her role. Her voice is a major one: lush, uniquely beautiful. She dominated the Benaroya stage whenever she was singing and portrayed the deeper significance of the text both in her sumptuous sound and her engaging eye movements.

Mackey’s contribution on guitar was heartfelt and played with great tenderness, though one would have liked to have heard more from him in this piece. Xian maintained extraordinary control over the difficult score, the massive forces of the huge orchestration, and the enormous Seattle Symphony Chorale, whose performance was stirring. The conductor’s beats were assured, crystal clear, and technically proficient.

Beethoven claimed that marrying music to poetry was too much of a challenge and that setting words to music caused him “more pain than pleasure,” especially in the writing of his only opera, Fidelio, which was so frustrating for him that he vowed never to write another. He stayed true to his word. Yet two decades later, having survived composing his Choral Fantasy and Missa Solemnis, he managed to write his “Choral” Symphony, but struggled with fitting the strophic text of Schiller's “Ode to Joy” into such a monumental instrumental form. Nonetheless, his Ninth Symphony was an overwhelming success at its premiere in 1824, greeted by cheers from the adoring crowd, and after 200+ years is considered by many the greatest symphonic masterpiece of all time.

One of the last known portraits of Beethoven:
by Johann Stephen Decker, 1824.

Xian’s version of the piece mined its brilliance and popularity by exploiting all the finest possibilities of the orchestra teamed with a top-notch quartet of singers and a vigorous Seattle Symphony Chorale. Her magnanimous gestures dominated the performance and brought to her rendition the enthusiasm, the high level of energy, and the absolute control that this colossal work demands.

She maintained a steady dramatic tension throughout the first movement, Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso, driving the music forward with weight and intensity. In moments both aggressive and intimate, her beat remained consistent in its clarity and precision. In the lyrical sections, the orchestra responded to her expressivity with tender elegance. The subtle rallentando toward the end gave extra emphasis to the urgency of the Coda and the dynamism of the final, emphatic beat.

Given Xian’s high energy approach, the Scherzo second movement (Molto vivace—Presto) was as lively as expected. In her spirited dancing on the podium, she seemed about to levitate at times, but she also knew how to whip the orchestra into a frenzy when called for. The third movement, Adagio molto e cantabile, reflected the deep sensitivity, care and thoughtfulness that went into Xian’s interpretation, motioning on high with her expressive left hand at the most passionate moments and providing a gentle caress at the poignant ones. She sustained the flow throughout each of the movement's extensive variations, allowing the piece to sigh and breathe.

The Finale, which the American musicologist Charles Rosen described as "a symphony within a symphony," was the crowning glory of the evening. Among the vocal soloists, soprano Toni Marie Palmertree stood out by virtue of her golden tones, especially her upper notes, supple and perfect for the demands of the vocal range and the text. Despite her role being understated, Jennifer Johnson Cano’s lavish mezzo sounded lovely.

Tenor Issachah Savage, replacing the originally scheduled SeokJong Baek, impressed with the power and scope of his voice and negotiated the challenging tessitura admirably, though his acting gestures were a bit overdone in the context of the piece. Robert Pomakov was up to the challenge of the iconic bass role in the strength of his operatic voice, but the quality of the tone was harsh at times. The immense sound of the Seattle Symphony Chorale added much to the overall effect of grandeur.

Xian’s performance was a joyful representation of Schiller’s text, ending the rousing evening with an affirmation of much-needed hope for us all.

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Benaroya Hall, 200 University St, Seattle, WA 98101, Saturday, June 20, 

7.30 p. m.

Images: The performance: James Holt; Xian Zhang, Steven Mackey: artists' websites; Beethoven: Wikimedia Commons.