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.
