United States Nabors, Mozart, Stravinsky: Jan Lisiecki (piano), Seattle Symphony Orchestra / Peter Oundjian (conductor). Benaroya Hall, Seattle, 14.3.2025. (ZC)
Brian Raphael Nabors – Upon Daybreak
Mozart – Piano Concerto No.22 in E-flat major
Stravinsky – The Rite of Spring
I have heard the Seattle Symphony perform Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring countless times. This includes at least one performance each under the baton of its permanent music directors over the past two decades – from Gerard Schwarz’s unrelenting drive to Ludovic Morlot’s textural brilliance and Thomas Dausgaard’s focus on the Rite’s folk influences. This week, guest conductor Peter Oundjian brought his own vision of the work to Benaroya Hall, offering an interpretation that braided Morlot’s detailed approach with Dausgaard’s emphasis on shape.
But before diving into Stravinsky’s primordial masterpiece, the matinee concert opened with a much more contemporary voice: the Seattle premiere of Upon Daybreak by Brian Raphael Nabors, a Seattle Symphony co-commission as part of its New Music WORKS initiative. According to the program notes, Nabors drew inspiration from Maya Angelou’s poem ‘A Brave and Startling Truth’, infusing the work with the poem’s hopeful and forward-looking spirit.
Nabors crafts a sonic landscape that pulses with life. The music charges forward with a delicious ‘chugga-chugga’ momentum that is impossible to resist. Just when you think you know where it is headed, Nabors pulls back. The piece’s middle section provided a brief pastoral respite featuring Seattle’s string principals: Helen Kim (associate concertmaster), Elisa Barton (principal second violin), Sayaka Kokubo (principal viola) and Efe Baltacigil (principal cello).
While Oundjian sometimes traded precision for pure energy, this gamble paid off. The piece felt like a fresh take on the post-minimalist idiom made popular by composers like John Adams and Mason Bates but with Nabors’s own distinct musical personality. The audience’s enthusiastic response said it all: This is accessible new music that doesn’t sacrifice sophistication.
Following that vibrant opener, the orchestra scaled down for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.22 in E-flat major, with Jan Lisiecki as the soloist. A rising star in the piano world, Lisiecki is known for his introspective and lyrical playing rather than showy virtuosity. Here, his performance was luminous and refined, drawing attention to Mozart’s subtleties rather than overwhelming the music with excessive bravura.
Oundjian and the orchestra provided a finely balanced accompaniment for the second movement Andante, allowing Lisiecki’s delicate touch to shine. This was one of the most impressive Mozart performances I have heard at Benaroya Hall in recent years. At times, however, Lisiecki’s approach felt overly cautious, particularly in the outer movements where the concerto’s turbulent undercurrents were somewhat understated.
The concert concluded with a powerful rendition of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. A piece that has long resonated with Seattle audiences, Rite seems to tap into the city’s countercultural sensibilities, frequently drawing newcomers to classical music into the concert hall. Each of the Seattle Symphony’s recent music directors has approached the work differently. Schwarz gave us thrilling but sometimes one-dimensional readings, and Morlot dove deep into the work’s rich textures. Dausgaard, in his lone crack at the piece with the Seattle Symphony, emphasized its folk roots and sonic shape. With Xian Zhang set to take the helm as the next music director, it will be fascinating to see how the orchestra’s interpretation of this work evolves.
For his part, Oundjian treated The Rite of Spring almost as a symphonic poem, emphasizing its sweeping, primitive energy while bringing out the orchestra’s robust brass and winds. The performance had moments of brilliance, particularly in the visceral intensity of the Sacrificial Dance. However, occasional lapses in cohesion and some sluggish passages highlighted the limitations of what a guest conductor can achieve, especially as the orchestra finds itself nearing the end of a long transitional period that began almost five years ago.
Overall, this concert offered a snapshot of the Seattle Symphony’s range, from the vibrant energy of Nabors’s Upon Daybreak to Mozart’s refinement and the primal force of The Rite of Spring. As the Seattle Symphony prepares for its next chapter, performances like this serve as a reminder of the orchestra’s versatility and artistic ambition.
Zach Carstensen
Featured Image: Peter Oundjian conducts the Seattle Symphony © Jim Holt