Classical Music
Musical treats on Halloween weekend

By Melinda Bargreen
Seattle Times music critic

BOB PETERSON Clockwise from front, Jens Peterson, Tenaya Lamon-Anderson, Caroline Judd, conductor Huw Edwards and Sarah Koo are ready for the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra's Halloween Special Sunday.

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You might think that classical music types are too stuffy to revel in Halloween. You'd be wrong. Everybody from the student musicians to the early-music community — yes, the early-music folks! — is gearing up for spooky events this weekend.

The most surprising entry is the Halloween Costume Early Music Cabaret, set for tonight as the opener for the Gallery Concerts 2004-05 chamber music series. You'll find the revelers (Halloween costumes are encouraged) downstairs at Town Hall, starting at 8 p.m.

Some of the region's top period-instruments performers will assemble for the evening: oboist/instrument maker Sand Dalton, cellists Claire Garabedian and Meg Brennand, violinist Cecilia Archuleta, percussionist Peggy Monroe, and keyboardists Jillon Stoppels Dupree and Tamara Friedman.

They'll play music of the Classical era (such as Mozart and Haydn) on period instruments in a cabaret atmosphere, with the audience seated at round tables with hors d'oeuvres, champagne, wine and desserts. There will also be a silent auction, a "Name That Classical Tune" contest and other audience-participation events.

The program offers several musical "masquerades," in which composers have dressed up their music in foreign styles (such as Mozart's "Rondo alla Turca" and Haydn's "Gypsy Rondo"). During pauses in the program, the artists will be seated at the tables of patron-level ticketholders.

Concert previews Gallery Concerts, 8 p.m. today, Town Hall, Eighth at Seneca, Seattle; $30-$50 (206-726-6088 or www.galleryconcerts.org). Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra, 3 p.m. Sunday, Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., Seattle; $8-$35 (206-362-2300 or www.seattlesymphony.org). Saint Helens String Quartet, 8 p.m. today, Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall; $7-$15 (206-292-ARTS or www.sainthelensquartet.com).

Renowned oboe maker Dalton will demonstrate all the types of early oboes that he handcrafts in his Orcas Island workshop, including oboes d'amore and oboes da caccia. The Halloween-themed title of his presentation: "Meet Your Maker." George Bozarth, better known as a University of Washington music-history professor and a Brahms expert, is making a career leap here, as master of ceremonies (in a Dave Letterman mask). It should be an event of considerable hilarity.

Members of the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra are gearing up for Sunday's Halloween Special, following season-opening auditions in which 670 young musicians vied for coveted chairs in the orchestra. This season is a big one, offering a Music Alive Residency with composer John Mackey (three of his works to be performed this season) and a concert on the Seattle Symphony's "Made in America" Festival next spring.

On Sunday at 3 p.m. in the Benaroya Hall Taper mainstage, conductor Huw Edwards leads the young musicians in a Halloween-themed program that will include the usual spooky suspects: Dukas' "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," Saint-Saëns' "Danse macabre," Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain" and the "March to the Scaffold" of Berlioz (from his "Symphonie Fantastique"), as well as the 1994 "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" of John Mackey. The concert also has appearances by two of the organization's "feeder" ensembles, the Classical Orchestra, led by David Upham, and the Junior Orchestra, conducted by Marcus Tsutakawa.

Ready to rumble: Mount Saint Helens' namesake, the Saint Helens String Quartet, is getting ready for an evening of seismic musical activity, tonight at 8 p.m. in the Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall. The venturesome program includes two works that should have plenty of bounce: Ken Benshoof's new "Swing Low" (commissioned for the quartet by 4-Culture), and Sean Osborn's Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet, "The Beatles." (Osborn himself will be the clarinetist.) They'll also play Partch's "Variations on an Ancient Greek Scale," the Shostakovich Quartet No. 4, and three selections from Peter Schickele's "American Dreams."

Melinda Bargreen: mbargreen@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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