Acclaimed conductor Christopher Seaman will the lead the orchestra in Handel's Water Music and Royal Fireworks Music, Vivaldi's Flute Concerto in G major and J.C. Bach's Viola Concerto in C minor. Seattle Symphony Principal Violist Susan Gulkis Assadi will be the featured soloist on the Bach Viola Concerto and flutist Alexander Lipay will lend his talent to the Vivaldi Flute Concerto. Performances will take place on Friday, October 19, at 8 p.m., and Saturday, October 20, at 8 p.m.
Christopher Seaman is in his seventh season as Music Director of the Rochester Philharmonic. Having recently completed a ten-year tenure as Music Director of the Naples Philharmonic in Florida, he previously served as Conductor-in-Residence of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (1987–98). He holds the posts of Chief Guest Conductor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and Conducting Course Director with Symphony Australia. Seaman also has had a long association with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. He has appeared with orchestras in North America, Israel, Eastern Europe, the Far East, Australia and New Zealand, as well as in his native Great Britain, where he has served as Principal Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony and the Northern Sinfonia. He has conducted the symphony orchestras of Houston, San Antonio, San Francisco and Seattle; the orchestras of Atlanta, Cincinnati, Colorado, Columbus, Detroit, Minnesota, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Toronto and Utah; the Czech, Bergen, Netherlands Radio and Rotterdam philharmonics; the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra; the Melbourne and Sydney symphony orchestras; all of the London orchestras; the City of Birmingham and Bournemouth symphonies, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic; the Royal Scottish National and Ulster orchestras; and the various BBC orchestras.
Susan Gulkis Assadi has been Principal Violist of Seattle Symphony since the 1992–1993 season, and enjoys a varied career as an orchestral player, chamber musician, soloist and teacher. Hailed by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for her "uncommon warmth and beauty of timbre," Gulkis Assadi has appeared often as a soloist with Seattle Symphony. In 1998, she helped inaugurate Seattle's Benaroya Hall with Yo-Yo Ma in the Orchestra's performance of R. Strauss' Don Quixote. David Stock's Violin Concerto, written for her to perform with Seattle Symphony, was released in spring 2004 on Innova Records to critical acclaim. In June 2006, Gulkis Assadi played the west coast premiere of Paul Schoenfield's Viola Concerto. She also performs regularly with the Seattle Opera, Seattle-based Music of Remembrance and The Governor's Chamber Music Series, and was a founding member of the Bridge Ensemble. She has spent the last ten summers performing at the Grand Teton Music Festival and has coached and given master classes at the New World Symphony in Miami, Florida. Gulkis Assadi received a Bachelor of Music degree from The Curtis Institute of Music. After playing in numerous chamber orchestras, including The Brandenburg Ensemble, Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia and the European-based New American Chamber Orchestra, she began her orchestral career as the Principal Violist of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra before coming to Seattle.
Alexander Lipay is the Principal Flutist of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. Prior to this appointment, Lipay was Assistant Principal Flutist of the Debut Symphony Orchestra in Los Angeles, Principal Flutist of the Cascade Symphony Orchestra in Seattle, and Principal Flutist of the University of Southern California and University of California Santa Barbara symphony orchestras. He has performed extensively as a soloist and as a chamber musician, playing various recitals with woodwind quartets, quintets and other ensembles. He has played as a soloist at many music festivals, including the prestigious International Festival "Musical Olympus" in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the International Music Festival in Moulin d'Ande, France. He performed as a soloist with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra in 2005 and 2006. Lipay was the first prize winner of several competitions held in the U.S., including the MTNA Young Artist National Woodwind Competition in 2004. Lipay holds a Master of Music degree from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he graduated with majors in flute and piano.
George Frideric Handel's Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks, dating from 1717 and 1749 respectively, remain among his best-known orchestral works. They were written during his long tenure in England and brim with jaunty melodies, catchy rhythms and a breadth of mood that have assured their endless popularity. Antonio Vivaldi's energetic Flute Concerto in G major, Op. 10, No. 6, dates from shortly after his supremely popular Four Seasons and sounds as fresh today as it must have when it was published in 1728. Johann Christian Bach, youngest composing son of Johann Sebastian, left the German-based fold for "merrie olde England" at age 27, where he thrived in the fevered musical atmosphere of late-18th-century London. The appealing Viola Concerto in C minor is a fanciful concoction, heavily edited and editorialized by 20th-century musician Henri Casadesus, who wrote a number of works in the style of Baroque composers. -- www.seattlesymphony.org
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