The Best Music Shows in Seattle: Fall 2019

Our Critics' Picks for September 16–December 8

by Charles Mudede, Dave Segal, Kim Selling, Leilani Polk, and Rich Smith

September 11, 2019

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Don't miss Max Richter Performing with American Contemporary Music Ensemble and Grace Davidson (Oct 16 at the Moore Theatre). It's sure to be an intriguing program led by a modern ambient music giant. (Mike Terry)

Below, we've rounded up the biggest and best music events you need to know about this season, like innovative composer and keysman Chick Corea Past Event Like List , the Earshot Jazz Festival 2019 Past Event Like List , and an extravagant operatic production of Cinderella Past Event Like List . You can also find a complete list of music shows in Seattle this fall on our EverOut Things To Do calendar, or check out the rest of our critics' picks from Seattle Art and Performance.

Jump to: Classical | Opera | Jazz | Pop, Rock & Hiphop

Classical

Sept 19–21

Mahler Symphony No. 1 Past Event Like List Thomas Dausgaard officially takes the reins as music director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra with this interpretation of Mahler No. 1. Critics judge symphonies on their ability to handle Mahler's subtleties, grandiosities, and complexities, and Dausgaard knows his Mahler, so this program will be a good indicator of how well the orchestra and their (sort of) new conductor are gelling. Brahms' Second Piano Concerto and Flounce by Finnish composer Lotta Wennäkoski will share the bill with Mahler. Flounce is full of jagged melodies and surprising bursts of brightness, which will start the season off on a lively, optimistic note. RS (Benaroya Hall, $24—$134)

Sat Sept 21

Berta Rojas Past Event Like List Internationally renowned classical guitarist Berta Rojas will show off the chops that led her to be thrice nominated for Latin Grammy Awards in this warm and joyous program. (Benaroya Hall, 7:30 pm, $40)

Sept 26–28

Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition Past Event Like List Can't go wrong with Ravel's arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, a bold and colorful composition based on a number of paintings by Viktor Hartmann, whose sudden death at the age of 39 shocked the Russian art world in the 1870s. Everybody always talks about the piano in this composition, but for me, it's all about the brass. The last four minutes of this thing make you feel like you're a golden eagle soaring through the golden heavens with a golden fish in your golden talons, screaming about the eternal strength and perseverance of the mother country or whatever. Meanwhile, Daniel Müller-Schott, who the New York Times called "a magnetic young German cellist," will stop by to play Dvoák's fantastic Cello Concerto. Not to be missed. RS (Benaroya Hall, $24—$134)

Oct 4–6

Warner Bros. Studios Presents Bugs Bunny at the Symphony 30th Anniversary Edition Past Event Like List If you watched the Looney Tunes cartoons as a child, you probably have their music imprinted on your brain. This 30th anniversary program with Seattle Symphony and guest conductor George Daugherty celebrates the most famous characters (Bugs Bunny, obviously, but also Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Wile E. Coyote, and Road Runner) with screen projections while the symphony plays the series' original scores, which touches on classics like The Rabbit of Seville and Rhapsody Rabbit plus fresh, new Warner Bros. 3D theatrical shorts. Get ready to have your nostalgia tapped. LP (Benaroya Hall, $35—$101)

Wed Oct 9

Bryce Dessner's Triptych (Eyes of One on Another) Past Event Like List Composer Bryce Dessner (one of the twins in indie rock group the National) brings together vocal geniuses Roomful of Teeth, librettist Korde Arrington Tuttle, and a chamber orchestra to interrogate three of Mapplethorpe's portfolios. Those portfolios—X, Y, Z, which take as their subjects gay S&M figures, flowers, and nude black men, respectively—sparked an obscenity trial in Ohio in the early 1990s, because self-delusion in Ohio runs deep. While you could hardly ask for a more fascinating array of talent here, the New York Times could barely hide its disdain for Dessner's "meager" tribute, calling it "a blandly brooding, affectlessly luminous score." The shade is so thick in that review that this thing might be worth a fact check, if not a hate-watch. RS (Moore Theatre, 8 pm, $50—$83)

Lang Lang with the Seattle Symphony Past Event Like List Classical music pianist Lang Lang, heralded by the New York Times as "the hottest artist on the classical music planet," will perform an evening recital of classical masterworks. (Benaroya Hall, 7:30 pm, $82—$167)

Wed Oct 16

Max Richter Performing with American Contemporary Music Ensemble and Grace Davidson Past Event Like List My intro to German-born UK-based avant composer Max Richter came via The Leftovers, that fantastic yet short-lived post-apocalyptic HBO series from Damon Lindelof. Richter scored the show's main theme, and numerous moments throughout the series, to dramatic, exquisite, evocative effect. His Leftovers work made you feel things, deeply. He's also been tapped for loads of other film and TV soundtracks—Arrival, Black Mirror, Mary Queen of Scots—in addition to releasing eight albums that vary between ambient, classical, and post-minimalist sounds. In 2015, he released Sleep, an 8.5-hour-long "listening experience" meant to score a full night's rest. He performed it in its entirety outdoors in Los Angeles's Grand Park. Audience members were spread out on 560 beds and it was timed so that the final movement occurred at dawn. The group he played with included members of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), and singer Grace Davidson, both of whom will be joining Richter for his Seattle date. No idea what's on the program but I bet it will be stunning. LP (Moore Theatre, 7:30 pm, $32—$76)

Oct 17–20

Mozart's Requiem Past Event Like List Mozart's stunning and famously unfinished Requiem presents a musical bridge between life and death. Get ready for the Seattle Choral Company's alternately apocalyptic and angelic "Confutatis," which is one of the most intense passages of music ever written. The symphony is putting two other requiems on the program—Toru Takemitsu's Requiem for String Orchestra and Karl Amadeus Hartmann's Concerto funebre—giving the audience an opportunity to explore Classical-era and contemporary interpretations of death. A natural choice for the middle of October, when Seattle shuffles off the last few rays of autumnal light and grows gloomier. RS (Benaroya Hall, $24—$134)

Fri Oct 18

[untitled] 1 Past Event Like List I love the Seattle Symphony's [untitled] series. The concert happens later in the evening (10 pm) in the lobby of Benaroya Hall. Some dress more casually for the event, others dress to the nines because they're the kind of people who do that. The people-watching is excellent and the music is always contemporary and daring. At this iteration, the symphony presents an evening of sacred music by Venetian composer Gabrieli interwoven with the works of contemporary American composers Schuller, Sampson, and DiLorenzo. RS (Benaroya Hall, 10 pm, $15)

Sat Oct 26

Jeremy Dutcher Past Event Like List Classically trained tenor and composer Dutcher blends his Wolastoq First Nation heritage into his unique, genre-shifting music. (Edmonds Center for the Arts, 7:30 pm, $19—$44)

Mon Oct 28

Vieux Farka Touré & Bombino: Sons of the Sahara Past Event Like List Here's more proof of the strength and popularity of African desert-blues guitarists. Mali's Vieux Farka Touré has been blessed/burdened with the nickname "Hendrix of the Sahara," and he lives up to the hype with fluid, spidery riffs that hypnotize and enchant in equal measure. His songs chime, ramble, and emote in an easygoing manner while still communicating the time-immemorial melancholy of the blues. It's that old uplift-through-downtrodden-ness trope into which many of history's best musicians tap. Originally supported in the U.S. by Seattle label Sublime Frequencies, Niger's Bombino (aka Omara Moctar) plays with a rawer, more caustic approach, both texturally and rhythmically. His piquant, glinting guitar tones and serpentine riffs make for a fresh jam-band gestalt that's packed with virtuosity and the sort of soulfulness that comes from oppressed people—in this case, Tuareg musicians. DS (Benaroya Hall, 7:30 pm, $45—$60)

Fri Nov 1

Emerald City Music: In The Dark Past Event Like List Following the traditions of the season, Emerald City Music will deliver a performance of George Frederick Haas's goosebump-inducing music in complete darkness. (415 Westlake, 8 pm, $45)

Nov 8–10

The Movie Music of John Williams Past Event Like List If you do not know who John Williams is, do not bother reading what I have to say about him in this blurb. John Williams' greatest achievement as a film composer is his love theme "Han Solo and the Princess" for Han and Leia in The Empire Strikes Back. (You, the pop-culture ignoramus, are still reading! Yes, Williams composed the music for the Star Wars series, and also Jaws, Indiana Jones, and so on, and so on.) This love theme has all of the sensitivity and cheap beauty that made "Spartacus: Love Theme" a jazz standard. If the great jazz pianist Bill Evans were alive today (why don't some people live forever?), he would have made pure magic out of Williams's "Love Theme." CM (Benaroya Hall, $35—$101)

Nov 14–16

Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2 Past Event Like List Rachmaninov's music generally causes audiences to melt into sopping puddles of their own feelings, and the Second Symphony is no different. The whole thing is a violet-tinted croon sung in strings and weepy woodwinds, and if you can just allow yourself to sit back in your chair, let your eyes soften for a bit, and think of the one who got away, then the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, conducted in this program by James Feddeck, will lead you down a gentle path of watercolor memories. The stirring finale, however, will jolt you back to the present, feeling fully refreshed. Alongside this emotional reverie, one of the symphony's bass clarinet players, Angelique Poteat, will present a new cello concerto inspired by the environs of the Pacific Northwest. RS (Benaroya Hall, $24—$134)

Nov 21 & 23

Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring Past Event Like List Igor Stravinsky's symphony caused everybody in the audience to flip out and pour into the streets of Paris when it first debuted in 1913, not only because Sergei Diaghilev's very weird accompanying ballet depicted a young girl dancing herself to death (an alarmingly common COD in Russian and German folklore), but because no one had ever heard music like that before. Tonally ambitious, inquisitive, impressionistic, and challenging. RS (Benaroya Hall, $39—$134)

Fri Nov 22

Orfeo ed Euridice Past Event Like List Recall the romantic tragedy of Orfeo and Euridice with this operatic performance of their tale of woe, as countertenor Philippe Jaroussky takes us through Orfeo's journey into the underworld to bring his lady back to life. (Benaroya Hall, 8 pm, $32—$112)

Nov 30–Dec 1 & Dec 8

Seattle Men's Chorus: 'Tis The Season Past Event Like List In a landmark holiday event, the Seattle Men's Chorus will perform dazzling tracks of the season, like their own revamped takes on "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," "Festival Gloria," "Here We Come A-Caroling," and many more. (Benaroya Hall)

Dec 6–8

Holiday Pops Past Event Like List Acclaimed conductor Jacomo Bairos and the University of Washington Chorale will headline a program of holiday favorites with the Seattle Symphony. (Benaroya Hall, $30—$96)

Opera

Oct 19–Nov 1

Cinderella Past Event Like List If you think opera is all bombast and tragic onstage death, the music of Gioachino Rossini will reveal the genre's capacity for outright bubbliness. Seattle Opera's Lindy Hume will take inspiration from English music hall comedy and Victorian decor for this extravagant-sounding production. (McCaw Hall, $35—$342)

Sat Nov 2

Three Singing Sisters Past Event Like List In this family affair, three Salt Lake City sisters will perform a program of Broadway classics, Neapolitan songs, opera arias, and popular music for solos, duets, and trios. (McCaw Hall, 7:30 pm, $50—$75)

Nov 15–24

The Falling & The Rising: A Soldier's Operatic Odyssey Past Event Like List Expanding far past their traditional offerings, Seattle Opera will present this production originally created from a compilation of interviews with veterans and active-duty servicepeople at three different military facilities. The piece illustrates one soldier's journey as she navigates a coma-induced dreamscape after a violent roadside attack, all set to original music composed by Zach Redler. (McCaw Hall, $45)

Jazz

Sept 17–18

Sara Gazarek Past Event Like List Last time I caught Sara Gazarek here in town, she was all about warm, elegant jazz vocals caught up in ever-novel and stimulating arrangements. She sang high, she sang low, she sang heartbreak, she held notes for mystifying lifetimes. She dropped beats, added intros, swirled songs into medleys, blew notes out like candles, and let them die away like sustain-pedaled tones from Josh Nelson's piano. Her last album with Nelson, Dream in the Blue, was 2016's best album. Gazarek is already the best, and she just keeps getting better. ANDREW HAMLIN (Jazz Alley, 7:30 pm, $31)

Mon Sept 30

An Intimate Evening with Bettye LaVette Past Event Like List Like Mavis Staples and the late Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley, Bettye LaVette proves that advanced age—she's been in the music biz for 56 years—is no barrier to maintaining quality control in the vocal-performance department. Her Tina Turner-esque rasp serves as a vibrant conduit for soul and slow-burning passion. She has a penchant for covering classic-rock artists (Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, the Who), ingeniously rearranging these familiar tunes and imbuing them with a hard-won soulfulness. What LaVette does isn't exactly jazz, but it is very classy and enjoyable. DS (Benaroya Hall, 7:30 pm, $40—$55)

Wed Oct 2

Al Di Meola Past Event Like List A guitarist operating at the highest level of technical proficiency for decades, Al Di Meola will dig into his obsession with Argentinian tango composer Astor Piazzolla and a little Liverpool combo by the name of the Beatles for this date, as well as presenting choice cuts from his 40-plus years in the biz. In 1990, this former member of fusion gods Return to Forever cut an entire album of Piazzolla compositions, and it's as floridly and nimbly gorgeous as you could imagine. With the Beatles, ADM inventively embellishes the ultra-familiar melodies with fleet-fingered filigrees, buffing these old warhorses into something fresh. You've never heard "I Am the Walrus" like this... DS (Benaroya Hall, 7:30 pm, $50—$170)

Oct 3–6

Billy Cobham Crosswinds Project Past Event Like List Billy Cobham may be 75, but the jazz-fusion drummer who kept mind-boggling time for Mahavishnu Orchestra and Miles Davis during the latter's most turbulent period of innovation (circa Bitches Brew, A Tribute to Jack Johnson, and Get Up with It) is still going strong. Cobham's Crosswinds Project focuses on the 1974 LP Crosswinds, a much mellower record than his phenomenal solo debut, Spectrum; for example, the Souls of Mischief sampled the ultra-chill "Heather" for their classic "93 'Til Infinity." But "The Pleasant Pheasant" rolls out action-packed, Latinate funk (which Eric B. & Rakim sampled for "Juice [Know the Ledge]"), and much of the album occupies a rarefied space where virtuosity intersects with dramatic dynamics and sophisticated emotion. The great Randy Brecker joins Cobham on trumpet for this tour. DS (Jazz Alley, $35)

Oct 4–Nov 6

Earshot Jazz Festival 2019 Past Event Like List Earshot Jazz Festival, an annual month-long examination and celebration of the art form, includes over 50 concerts featuring acts both local and (inter)national, old and young. This year's docket includes big names like Cécile McLorin Salvant, Chucho Valdés, Chick Corea Trio with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Kiki Valera, Tyshawn Sorey, Makaya McCraven, and many more. (Various locations, $0—$500)

Oct 5–6

SRJO: Count Basie Meets Duke Ellington Past Event Like List Revisit the legendary collabs of the genre as the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra performs pieces from the first meeting of the two greatest big bands in jazz history—the Count Basie and Duke Ellington orchestras. (Oct 5: Benaroya Hall, 7:30 pm; Oct 6: Kirkland Performance Center, 2 pm)

Mon Oct 7

Tinariwen Past Event Like List Tinariwen have been instrumental in bringing the soulful, trance-inducing sound of the Tuaregs—who hail from the Sahara Desert in northern Mali—to the West. On albums like Aman Iman: Water Is Life, Imidiwan: Companions, Tassili, and Elwan, Tinariwen infuse the blues with rigorous, uplifting rhythms and mesmerizing, cyclical guitar motifs over which Ibrahim Ag Alhabib's spirited vocals (often shadowed by massed chants) flow like medicine for the heart. The music's essential timeless poignancy remains the engine behind Tinariwen's caravan of moving, dusty jams. It's a tribute to Seattle that a group this sublime can play a venue as large as Benaroya Hall. DS (Benaroya Hall, 7:30 pm, $42—$62)

Oct 8–9

Jimmy Webb Past Event Like List Jimmy Webb weaves miracles of emotion out of melodies. It's doubtful any American pop composer's inspired more throat lumps per song than the author of "Wichita Lineman" and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," perhaps his greatest compositions. During his '60s and '70s prime, Webb had his songs covered by legions of legends and stars, including Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Isaac Hayes, Glen Campbell, Dennis Brown, and Nick Cave. Despite the ubiquity of these hits, they endure in the memory without annoyance. All that being said, this masterly melody maker is not usually the best person to execute his creations, as his voice lacks the range and soul power to convey their widescreen magnificence. Still, Webb can play a mean piano, and those indelible, heart-shattering ballads should be experienced in the flesh at least once in a lifetime. DS (Jazz Alley, 7:30 pm, $37)

Thurs Oct 10

Earshot Jazz Presents: Wally Shoup Past Event Like List Shoup is the most impressive free-jazz saxophonist to call this town home. He never stops thundering and squeaking and shrieking, which free-jazz musicians do as a matter of course—but he also never stops listening, responding, and including, which the very-good-to-great free jazzers must learn. ANDREW HAMLIN (The Royal Room)

Oct 10–13

The Manhattan Transfer Past Event Like List Vocal Group The first group to win Grammy Awards in both pop and jazz categories in the same year, Manhattan Transfer went on to receive an additional 12 Grammy noms for their album Vocalese in 1985, which made it second only to Michael Jackson's Thriller as most nominated album in one year, and cemented the group's status as an essential and innovative vocal group in popular music history. (Jazz Alley, $51)

Fri Oct 11

Earshot Jazz and The Royal Room Present: 50th! Great Records of 1969 Past Event Like List This edition pays tribute to Miles Davis Quintet member and essential modern jazz drummer Tony Williams will showcase his massive contributions to the genre with a performance of his jazz fusion album Emergency! by D'Vonne Lewis, Cole Schuster, and Joe Doria. (The Royal Room, 6:30 pm)

Sun Oct 13

Postmodern Jukebox Past Event Like List Scott Bradlee's reimagining of contemporary pop hits in the styles of jazz, ragtime, and swing classics of the '20s through the '50s busts genres with a rotating collective of musicians and vocalists. (Paramount Theatre, 8 pm, $26—$201)

Oct 17–20

Madeleine Peyroux Past Event Like List Peyroux, an American-born jazz singer/songwriter and guitarist who's been compared to Billie Holiday and was discovered busking on the streets of Paris, is touring in support of her last album, Anthem. (Jazz Alley, 7:30 pm, $65)

Oct 22–23

Leo Kottke Past Event Like List Leo Kottke isn't as guts-crazy as his sometimes mentor, the late John Fahey. But who would want to be? Fahey first rewrote the book, and then wrote his own book when it came to six-string steel-string guitar on planet Earth, but didn't seem to like Earth much. Kottke could outpace Fahey by a few decisive concert moves: (a) showing up, (b) showing up on time, and (c) not spending most of the gig talking and giggling with people who are not there. On the positivity flip, though, Kottke's got pep, verve, nerve, and a dry sense of humor when he decides to sing. And he can get to the darkness inside of happiness. Even without words, he can evoke the void behind joy. ANDREW HAMLIN (Jazz Alley, 7:30 pm, $41)

Sat Nov 2

The Duke Ellington Orchestra Past Event Like List Ellington has been dead for decades but his musical legacy lives on through his still-active big band, which is currently led by Tommy Jones. (Pantages Theater, 7:30 pm, $29—$85)

Nov 2–3 & Nov 22

SRJO: Jazz of the Harlem Renaissance Past Event Like List Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra takes you all the way back to the musical core of the Harlem Renaissance with performances of music by the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra, Fletcher Henderson, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, and many other genre titans, with guest vocalists Reggie Goings and Jacqueline Tabor. (Nov 2: Benaroya Hall, 7:30 pm; Nov 3: Kirkland Performance Center, 2 pm; Nov 22: Edmonds Center for the Arts, 8 pm, $36)

Mon Nov 4

The Midnight Hour Past Event Like List Hip-hop, soul, and jazz composers Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge will perform their ode to the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance in this live Midnight Hour set with a rhythm section and full orchestra. (Nectar, 7 pm, $25—$50)

Wed Nov 6

Chick Corea: 'Rhapsody in Blue' Past Event Like List Chick Corea is the innovative composer and keysman who spent the early part of his career—beginning in 1968—playing sideman to Miles Davis, and then through much of the '70s exploring his own avant interests with jazz fusion/prog rock innovators Return to Forever (bandmate Al Di Meola lands in town Oct. 2). He's enjoyed a prolific (70 -plus albums released as band leader), venerable career, with more than 60 Grammy noms and 22 wins. For this date, he joins Seattle Symphony for a presentation of George Gershwin's most famous orchestral jazz opus, Rhapsody in Blue. The program will also touch on solo piano selections by Gershwin, Mozart's Overture to Don Giovanni, and Chick Corea's own Piano Concerto No. 1. LP (Benaroya Hall, 7:30 pm, $67—$127)

Thurs Nov 21

Blue Note Records 80th Anniversary Tour with Kandace Springs, James Carter Organ Trio, and James Francies Past Event Like List Celebrate 80 years of genre excellence harnessed by American jazz label Blue Note Records as these four performers explore pieces by Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Fats Navarro, Bud Powell, and more. (Moore Theatre, 7:30 pm, $25—$53)

Sun Dec 8

Jose Gonzales Trio Plays 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' Past Event Like List This is the eighth year that the Jose Gonzalez trio is performing the whole of jazz's greatest contribution to the Holiday Season: Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas. And we must love this work because it expresses Christmas feelings in a very urban way. It is indeed the sound of the Holiday Season in a big city and not that no-place out there in the country. In this jazz classic, the snow falls on apartment buildings and not on a forest. CM (Cornish Playhouse at Seattle Center, 1 pm, 7 pm, $0—$79)