Music: The Strongest Form of Magic
Our season finale is a celebration of music’s power to enchant. Three shimmering scenes from Wagner — the noble Entry of the Guests from Tannhäuser, the luminous Lohengrin Prelude, and the thunderous Ride of the Valkyries — open a program devoted to wonder. We continue our relationship with Greek–New Zealander Briar Prastiti in the U. S. premiere of Pegasus, a soaring myth of the winged horse turned constellation, and present Peggy Glanville-Hicks’s jewel-like Etruscan Concerto. After the serene glow of Dvořák’s Nocturne, Benjamin Britten reveals the ultimate sorcery — the orchestra itself — in The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, a tour of the magician’s every instrument.
WAGNER | Selections from Opera
“Entry of the Guests” from Tannhäuser
Prelude to Act I of Lohengrin
“Ride of the Valkyries” from Die Walküre
PRASTITI | Pegasus (U. S. premiere)
DVOŘÁK | Nocturne (Op. 40)
BRITTEN | The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (Op. 34)
June 5th
2 pm
Benaroya Hall
Tickets for this event are not yet on sale.
Upcoming
Demons, Vampires, Witches ....A Philharmonic Halloween
The Seattle Philharmonic has earned singular renown for Halloween concerts like no other orchestra’s, and our 2026/27 season opens by throwing the doors wide to every creature of the night. Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre evokes a midnight jamboree at the local cemetery, and Liadov’s cackling Baba Yaga summons the legendary Russian hag; Marschner’s Der Vampyr and Schubert’s spectral Der Doppelgänger raise the undead; and Offenbach, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Mozart lend the evening a glint of dark enchantment.
Joining this ghoulish company are two exciting premieres. In the first-ever performance since the recording session for the film itself, our program also crosses into the flicker of the movie house with music from Arch Oboler’s atomic-age film Five. The second half of the concert will open with the U. S. premiere of New Zealand composer Maria Grenfell’s Stealing Tutunui, a vividly told orchestral retelling of a Māori legend of the sea.
Come in costume — stay for music magic!
"The Mountains and the Sea, Gnomes and Giants" Grieg's Peer Gynt
Journey into the fjords, forests, and folklore of the North. Edvard Grieg’s beloved Peer Gynt music is the heart of this program — from the hushed dawn of “Morning Mood” and the tender “Solveig’s Song” to the stampeding trolls of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” — a world of gnomes, giants, mountains, and sea. Grieg’s masterpiece is ushered in by two elegies of rare beauty: Fine’s Elegiac Song and Alban Berg’s radiant Violin Concerto, performed by Seattle Phil Concertmaster Luke Fitzpatrick and dedicated “to the memory of an angel.”
Join us for unforgettable evening of music that gazes from the earthly toward the eternal.
Capriccio!
Capriccio — a caprice, a flight of fancy — and an evening of pure orchestral high spirits. Tchaikovsky’s sun-drenched Capriccio italien and Rimsky-Korsakov’s dazzling Capriccio espagnol bookend the program with two of the repertoire’s most exuberant showpieces, brimming with song, dance, and color. Between them, Seattle Phil will perform Molly Luther’s inventive Variants for orchestra and spotlight Leyan Gao, the winner of Seattle Phil’s 2026 Bushell Concerto Competition in a performance of Tchaikovsky’s timeless Violin Concerto. Whimsical, virtuosic, and irrepressibly fun.