Saturday, February 8, 2025 • 7:30 p.m.
Northshore Concert Hall (15500 Simonds Rd NE, Kenmore)
Harmonia Orchestra
William White, conductor
Hsing-Hui Hsu, conductor
Katherine Goforth, tenor
Program
Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826)
Overture to Oberon
Gustav Mahler (1860–1911)
selections from Des Knaben Wunderhorn:
Revelge
Rheinlegendchen
Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen
Lob des hohen Verstandes
Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt
Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht?
— intermission —
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975)
Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 26
About the Concert
Gustav Mahler was so enchanted by The Boy’s Magic Horn, a collection of Romantic German folk poems, that he set 14 of them for voice and orchestra , incorporating some into his early symphonies. The innocence of childhood in these songs stands in contrast to the innocence of a guileless artist, Dmitri Shostakovich, whose symphonies were deeply influenced by those of Mahler. Shostakovich’s multi-layered fifth symphony publicly served as a form of atonement to the Soviet government, which had found him guilty of artistic sins.
This performance will last approximately two hours, including one intermission.
Maestro’s Prelude
Welcome to this concert and, even more to the point, welcome to the Northshore Concert Hall! If you’re a member of the local community, we’re very glad you have joined us, and if you traveled far afield to be here, thanks for making the extra effort. The Harmonia Orchestra is among the first non-scholastic groups to perform in this space, and I’m very excited about the program we’ve prepared for the occasion.
I am equally excited about the guests on our stage tonight. This is a return appearance for our tenor soloist, Katherine Goforth, but if you’ll indulge me, I really must tell you about her Harmonia début last season, because it was one of the truly unforgettable moments in my life as a musician.
It was November 2023 and Harmonia was gearing up for Haydn’s oratorio The Seasons by pulling out all the stops: chorus, orchestra and soloists were bedecked in 19th-century costume, there were puppets and props, and we were in essence making it a semi-staged opera.
Two days before the concert, our tenor soloist fell ill. An artist dropping out of a concert is never good, but this was a real gut punch — The Seasons is not a piece most singers have in their repertoire, and I had no idea how we’d find a replacement on such short notice.
Frantic phone calls resulted in one rejection after another. Finally, through the recommendation of our baritone soloist, I found a tenor brave enough to step up to the plate. I was operating under the presumption that we’d need to fly someone in from New York or London to make this concert happen, but the muses were smiling on us, and the person who agreed to sing this concert on (essentially) zero notice was in Portland, Oregon. And not only had she accepted the engagement, but she was willing to get into her car that very second to drive up to Seattle.
It was now Friday at 3:30 and our dress rehearsal started at 7:30. Katherine walked into the hall as we were playing the overture. Her first aria started just minutes later; she walked onstage and sang it perfectly. The energy in the room was electric. And here’s the thing — Katherine had never sung this piece before. She read the entire 2.5-hour- long oratorio singing at sight.
The concert was a triumph. Katherine did more than just sing the notes — she gave the sort of committed performance you’d expect from someone who’d known the piece for years. Her German was flawless (she’s fluent), her intonation perfect, her every musical intention executed to the height of excellence. It was a feat of musical virtuosity unlike I have ever witnessed before or since. Right then and there I told Katherine that she had her pick of repertoire for a future program, and I have awaited her return ever since. She’s chosen another folk-inflected German masterpiece, Gustav Mahler’s Wunderhorn Lieder (a piece she’s actually sung before!) and I know that we’re all in for something very special indeed.
— William White
Guest Artists
American vocalist Katherine Goforth shares the “thrilling tenor power” (Opera News) of her “noble, colorful and iridescent vocal sound” (Magazin Klassik) in vivid character portraits and heartfelt performances that “[do] not hold back” (The New York Times). Katherine is the recipient of Washington National Opera’s inaugural True Voice Award for transgender and non-binary singers and the Career Advancement Award from the fourth Dallas Symphony Orchestra Women in Classical Music Symposium. Based in Portland, she has appeared extensively as a soloist with Pacific Northwest-based arts organizations, including Portland Opera, Bozeman Symphony, Walla Walla Symphony, Yakima Symphony, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Opera Bend, Opera Theater Oregon, Sound Salon, Artists Repertory Theatre, Fuse Theatre Ensemble and Pink Martini. Katherine was a member of the International Opera Studio of Oper Köln, received her Bachelor’s degree from St. Olaf College, her Master’s degree from the Juilliard School, and attended the Franz-Schubert-Institut, Britten Pears Young Artist Programme, Heidelberger Frühling Liedakademie, Georg Solti Accademia, and Boston Wagner Institute. She returns to Harmonia after a thrilling last-minute debut in Haydn’s The Seasons.
- Learn more: katherinegoforth.com
Conductor Hsing-Hui Hsu is the founding music director of the Emerald City Chamber Orchestra. She received her Bachelor of Music in clarinet performance from Rice University, where she was music director of the Rice Light Opera Society. While working as a software engineer at Amazon, she became a founding member of the Amazon Symphony Orchestra and served as its music director. She has guest-conducted the Seattle Collaborative Orchestra, Puget Sound Symphony Orchestra and Seattle Festival Orchestra, and she joins Harmonia for the 2024–2025 season as assistant conductor. Ms. Hsu is also an active clarinetist. Last season she performed Copland’s clarinet concerto with the Puget Sound Symphony Orchestra, where she serves as principal clarinet. She is currently bass clarinetist and acting principal clarinetist for the Yakima Symphony Orchestra, and has also performed with the Seattle Philharmonic, Pacific Northwest Opera, Sustain Music Project, Tacoma Opera and Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra.
Program Notes
Dmitri Shostakovich
Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 26
Shostakovich was born September 25, 1906 in St. Petersburg, and died in Moscow on August 9, 1975. He composed his fifth symphony between April 18 and July 20, 1937, in St. Petersburg (then called Leningrad), where the first performance was given on November 21 of the same year under the direction of Yevgeni Mravinsky. The work is scored for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, E♭ clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani; snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tam-tam, glockenspiel, xylophone, piano (doubling celesta) harp and strings.
Shostakovich was forced to “voluntarily” withdraw his fourth symphony by the Soviet authorities after a single rehearsal; the fifth symphony is the composer’s response to that act, a work that — on the surface — told the authorities what they wanted to hear. It opens with an arresting dotted rhythm that will pervade the first movement, which unfolds as a series of interrelated episodes that alternate tragedy and anguish with moments of serene beauty. The third movement will have a similar plan, so between the two Shostakovich inserts a scherzo that is equal parts Cossack dance and Mahlerian ländler, with biting harmonies and grotesque humor emphasized by the occasional insertion of an extra beat into the 3/4 meter. After the slow third movement dispenses with the brass entirely, emphasizing strings (the violins divided into three sections instead of the usual two) and episodes for solo woodwinds and horn, the brass come roaring back in the finale, a D-minor march that begins slowly but soon accelerates. After a slower central episode, timpani leads into a reprise of the march theme, resulting in a D major finale that was for many years believed to be a conclusion of genuine celebration. But in his 1979 memoir, Testament, Shostakovich relates that the rejoicing is forced, “as if someone is beating you with a stick and saying, ‘Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing.’ ”