Welcome to the Family, Angelique Poteat!

With the launch of a fresh season comes the introduction of a new artist to the Seattle Symphony family. She's actually a local and familiar face at Benaroya Hall: Acclaimed composer and clarinetist Angelique Poteat, who is the Symphony’s 2022/2023 Artist in Residence and Director of the Merriman-Ross Family Young Composers Workshop, celebrating 30 years this season.

A workshop alumna who participated in her first Young Composers Workshop two decades ago, Poteat has continued to produce works performed by the Symphony in the years since and will be presenting more new commissions this season as its Artist in Residence. As the workshop director, she will help develop the talents of its students (ages 18 years and younger), overseeing their instruction from guest composers and artists, and facilitating collaborations with Seattle Symphony musicians, who will perform the students’ completed works live at Benaroya Hall during the Young Composers Workshop Concert (May 18, 2023).

Her work as Artist in Residence this season includes a new work for large orchestra, Breathe, Come Together, Embrace, premiering at the Symphony’s Opening Night Concert (September 17), then presented again at the first Family Concert of the season, Nature Resounds (November 5). She also completed a new clarinet quintet for Seattle Symphony’s Dr. Robert Wallace Clarinet Laura DeLuca, Six Seasons, which will have its debut in Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center a few weeks after Opening Night during Visions of the Season (September 30). Coming up this spring is her piece scored for youth chorus and orchestra, Dear Humanity (April 21, 2023).

Poteat is originally from the Pacific Northwest. Her music has been recorded and performed in Australia, Germany, Lithuania, Hungary, Japan, Italy, Norway and all over the U.S. Some notable performances include Beyond Much Difference (2014), a piece commissioned and performed by the Seattle Symphony at its January 2015 Sonic Evolution concert featuring members of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and others (like Mike McCready, Chris Cornell and Duff McKagan). She later earned the 2015 American Prize in Composition for Beyond Much Difference.

Poteat earned a Bachelor of Music from Rice University and Master of Music from the College-Conservatory of Music. She is a hiker, cyclist, DIYer and an overall lover of nature. In fact, many of her works are influenced by the natural world around her; they often return to the ocean and Puget Sound.

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

The Merriman-Ross Family Young Composers Workshop concert is presented as part of the Seattle Symphony’s New Music WORKS initiative, which is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. New Music WORKS features commissions, concerts and educational activities that use composition as a catalyst for collaboration and engagement in music.

The Seattle Symphony’s Family, School & Community programs are supported by 4Culture, Marco Argenti, ArtsFund, D.A. Davidson, Delta Air Lines, J.P. Morgan Private Bank, the Klorfine Foundation, the 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.