2022/2023 Fall Newsletter

2022/2023 Fall Donor Newsletter

YOUR IMPACT IN FOCUS You are increasing musical opportunities for youth!

Through your support the orchestra is expanding partnerships in our community.

With the new 2022/2023 season underway, the orchestra is once again sharing live music with enthusiastic audiences at Benaroya Hall. Through the support of caring donors like you, the Seattle Symphony is also expanding our connections in the community to support young musicians.

New this season, the Symphony is thrilled to be partnering with three music education organizations that share our commitment to serving youth in our community. The orchestra’s expanded partnerships with Key to Change, Kids In Concert, and the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra will be centered around enhancing musical education for racially and economically diverse young people, particularly in the South Seattle area. Together we will build a solid foundation for ongoing collaboration, increasing opportunities for historically underserved youth and broadening music education access.

Your support makes this impactful work possible.

These enhanced partnerships build upon established programs that have long been a part of the Symphony’s mission.

Each season, we present Side-by-Side Concerts with youth orchestras and schools, including the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra, giving young musicians the chance to share the stage and work closely with our musicians. This new partnership supports the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra’s MY Southeast ensemble, which focuses on the Rainier Valley neighborhood.

Kids In Concert is another valued partner deepening their collaboration with the Symphony. They have taken part in the

Symphony’s Community Connections program and previously co-hosted a community event. The Symphony’s collaboration with Key to Change has also created successful moments of musical exploration for students.

As part of these ongoing partnerships, the Symphony is hosting panel discussions with musicians, staff, board and crew members about careers in the arts, and offering sectional rehearsals and masterclasses with Symphony musicians and visiting artists. In September, guest conductor Jonathon Heyward took part in the first masterclass of the season with Key to Change. Students will also have access to Open Rehearsals, free concert tickets, and opportunities to perform with the orchestra.

“The Seattle Symphony is thrilled to partner with these three wonderful organizations working hard to improve music education for youth in underserved areas of Seattle,” says President & CEO Krishna Thiagarajan. “At the Symphony, we believe that we’re stronger when we work together. We are excited to see how these partnerships lead to more and better musical training for young musicians in our community, and we’re grateful to the generous donors who join the orchestra in these initiatives.”

Thank you for supporting your Seattle Symphony and the music, programs and partnerships that make a real difference in the lives of youth in our community.

PHOTO: Guest conductor Jonathon Heyward works with students during a masterclass presented in partnership with the Seattle Symphony and Key to Change.

Delta Air Lines proudly supports the Seattle Symphony’s Community Partnerships for Youth and Education.

The Seattle Symphony’s Family, School & Community programs are supported by 4Culture, Marco Argenti, ArtsFund, The Klorfine Foundation, Merriman-Ross Family, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, and individual contributions to the Seattle Symphony Annual Fund.

Krishna Thiagarajan’s position is generously underwritten as the Leslie Jackson Chihuly President & CEO.

You help fill the orchestra with gifted musicians!

Please join us in welcoming these new musicians to our Symphony family.

An orchestra is nothing without talented musicians. Through your support, you helped the Seattle Symphony welcome four new artists this season. Associate Concertmaster Helen Kim joins the Symphony after serving as the Associate Principal Second Violin of the San Francisco Symphony, and Second Assistant Concertmaster Emerson Millar was previously the Co-Concertmaster of the Naples Philharmonic in Naples, Florida. Seattle’s own Kipras Mazeika joins the orchestra playing bassoon and contrabassoon after graduating from Rice University, and joining on bass trombone is Eden Garza, who recently earned his master’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Below, each of our new musicians shares a little about themselves to help you get to know these newest orchestra members.

Emerson Millar Helen Kim

Second Assistant Concertmaster

“As a new member of the Symphony, it’s been inspiring to play with a group of such dedicated and energetic musicians, and I’m enjoying getting to know my colleagues on and off the stage. And, as a new resident of this beautiful city, I’ve had plenty to keep me busy! My husband and I live with our 14-month-old son a stone’s throw from Discovery Park. One of the main attractions of Seattle for us was the availability of outdoor activities, and we’re so excited to start exploring the myriad possibilities around us.”

“I was lucky to have the support of my mom and incredible teachers very early on. When I was around 10, I remember I got to learn my first piece by J.S. Bach, and I became entranced by his music. It was around that time that I decided I wanted to be a professional violinist. One of my favorite parts about being a musician is that I get to perform with other people.

I love that there’s a bit of mind reading involved on stage.

To play together, we are all constantly communicating with each other. It’s very fun to listen to a colleague play a beautiful phrase and then try to respond creatively.”

Clowes Family Associate Concertmaster

Kipras Mazeika Contrabassoon

“Having grown up listening to the Seattle Symphony, I admired it greatly and I was beyond thrilled when I heard that I won the audition to be a part of this amazing group of musicians. Being a professional musician is hard work, but what we do is so unique and necessary.

I love my job because music is a method of expressing myself and responding to the world around me. It’s a life-long learning process.

I can’t imagine a world without music.”

Eden Garza

Bass Trombone “Joining the Seattle Symphony has been an absolute dream come true. Playing with great musicians and being around such amazing people is something I feel very fortunate to be doing as a career. When I first got the news that I had won the audition, I was shocked. I was waiting for someone to pinch me, but luckily, it wasn’t a dream, it was real life. Everyone immediately made me feel so welcomed and a part of the Seattle Symphony family.”

It’s through your generosity that the orchestra is able to attract outstanding musicians like Helen, Emerson, Kipras and Eden.

Thank you for supporting all the musicians of your Seattle Symphony!

Your donations at work.

The Symphony’s 2022/2023 budget invests in the people who bring the music to life.

The Seattle Symphony’s mission to unleash the power of music has a big impact in our community and significant resources are required to make that possible. Thanks to your generosity, the Symphony is able to meet the needs of the organization and our musicians. With your support, we can bring our community together to enjoy the experience of live music and lift the human spirit.

During the 2022/2023 season, the Seattle Symphony is budgeted to spend $35.1 million. These expenses are overwhelmingly directed towards providing a livelihood for the people who make each musical moment possible.

Through your generosity, the Symphony is able to maintain a world-class orchestra of over 80 musicians and attract amazing new talent (thanks to you we welcomed four new musicians this season). Competitive compensation at all levels of the orchestra is vital to retaining the level of excellence on stage that you have21% come to expect at every Seattle Symphony performance.

Your donations also support dozens of additional full and parttime positions across the organization, from the Ticket Office to less visible roles that keep the orchestra’s daily operations running smoothly. Your support of these jobs contributes to the vibrancy of our downtown economy and the longterm sustainability of the Seattle Symphony.

Concert and program production command large investments as well. The results of these expenses are an exceptional concert experience at Benaroya Hall and growing education and community engagement programs that share the joy

and inspiration of music in innovative and impactful ways, reaching people throughout our community. Expenditures for infrastructure, our streaming platform and other administrative areas round out the annual budget.

Your gifts allow the orchestra to create music and share it with as many people as possible. Currently, ticket sales and donation projections account for revenue totaling $31.4 million this season.

Additional fundraising is still needed to sustain the organization.

2022/2023 Season Budgeted Expenses: $35.1 Million 2022/2023 Season Budgeted Expenses: 1% $35.1 Million 11%

Seattle Symphony Live Streaming Service (1%) Mu sicians & Staff

Administrative Concert & Program Expenses Production (11%) Musicians & Staff (67%)

67%

Administrative Expenses

Concert & Program ProductionSeattle (21%) Symphony Live: Streaming

Every gift you make has a direct impact on the musicians and the music you love. Thank you for ensuring that the orchestra is able to perform at the highest level through your steadfast support!

Shop @

Holiday Pops

Join us for our first-ever, holiday pop-up market! This new festive tradition is open to the public on all three days of our Holiday Pops concerts. Find unique treasures for everyone on your shopping list, enjoy some holiday cheer in our supporters lounge, and celebrate the holidays with your Seattle Symphony!

Proceeds benefit the Seattle Symphony musicians, with opportunities to support our community partners, Mary’s Place and Northwest Harvest.

Benaroya Hall

Friday, December 9, from 5–8pm Saturday, December 10, from 12–8pm Sunday, December 11, from 12–5pm 2022/2023 Pops Series Sponsor: The John & Ginny Meisenbach Foundation

206.215.4832 | SEATTLESYMPHONY.ORG/HOLIDAYSHOPS

You are bringing new music to life!

World premieres and new commissions by today’s composers rely on your support.

In the 2022/2023 season, the Symphony continues to share new works and feature contemporary voices. “In Seattle, people have open ears and are interested in hearing new music,” says Vice President of Artistic Planning Raff Wilson. “There’s this spirit of being on the frontier, of being on the edge of possibility.” Included this season are works by 25 living composers, five commissions, four world premieres and two U.S. premieres. The next time you’re at Benaroya Hall, you may just be hearing a brand-new symphonic work for the very first time.

Among the works being premiered this season is Dai Fujikura’s Wavering World, a long-awaited Symphony commission delayed due to the pandemic that will be performed in February 2023. This coming April, South African cellist Abel Selaocoe solos in his forthcoming work paired with the thrilling and hallucinatory Symphonie fantastique of Hector Berlioz.

Han Lash, whose beguiling concerto for two harps was unveiled by the Symphony in 2021, returns with an expanded version of their song cycle Notes from Exile. Rechristened The Art of Leaving, the piece will be performed on May 19 in Benaroya Hall’s immersive venue, Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center.

Angelique Poteat, the Symphony’s 2022/2023 Artist in Residence and this

season’s director of the Merriman-Ross Family Young Composers Workshop, brings the orchestra’s championing of living composers full circle. Angelique is herself an alumna of the Young Composers Workshop that she is leading this season. Angelique vividly remembers working with then Composer in Residence, Samuel Jones. “He stressed the importance of who I am writing for and how they are producing sound,” Angelique recalls. “Every note on the page is meant to be performed by human beings. This is very important to me when I am creating my music.”

Angelique’s Breathe, Come Together, Embrace was premiered at the 2022/2023 Opening Night Concert and presented again at the first Family Concert of the season. If you missed those performances, be sure to catch her Dear Humanity on April 21, scored for youth chorus and orchestra. This piece was created through a series of workshops with chorale students, ages 14 to 18, prior to the pandemic.

Abel Selaocoe

From classical favorites to world premiere performances, the 2022/2023 season has something for everyone. Through your generosity, the future of symphonic music and our orchestra is bright!

Abel Selaocoe’s performances and commission are generously underwritten by The Richard E. Lang and Jane Lang Davis Living Music Program.

The Merriman-Ross Family Young Composers Workshop is generously underwritten by Pamela Merriman, Sonja Ross, and Kelley Ross, with additional support provided by Patricia M. Davis, Ann Holbrook, and Michel and Christine Suignard.

The Seattle Symphony’s Family, School & Community programs are supported by 4Culture, Marco Argenti, ArtsFund, Delta Air Lines, The Klorfine Foundation, Merriman-Ross Family, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, and individual contributions to the Seattle Symphony Annual Fund.

Octave 9: Emerging Artists is supported by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.

Angelique Poteat

Support your Seattle Symphony before December 31!

Gifts from caring people like you keep the music playing. Please consider joining the orchestra with a year-end donation today. We need your support now for a bright and musical new year!

206.215.4832 | seattlesymphony.org/donate