ALEXANDER RASKATOV: Piano Concerto, “Night Butterflies”
IGOR STRAVINSKY: The Rite of Spring
Ludovic Morlot, conductor
Tomoko Mukaiyama, piano
Seattle Symphony
Alexander Raskatov is gathering an increasingly impressive international reputation, with performances of his opera A Dog’s Heart at English National Opera, Netherlands Opera and Milan’s La Scala. His new Piano Concerto, written for pianist and performance artist Tomoko Mukaiyama and commissioned by the Seattle Symphony, is a major addition to the repertoire. By turns dramatic, poetic, startling and tender, it’s a journey into new sound-worlds, inspired by a childhood walk in the forest surrounded by butterflies. The work is appropriately coupled with innovative music from a previous Russian generation — Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring— captured live in an electrifying performance in June 2014 in Seattle’s Benaroya Hall.