mainstage series
Saturday, February 6, 2027 • 7:30 p.m.
venue TBD
Harmonia Orchestra
William White, conductor
Cristina Valdés, piano
Program
Aram Khachaturian (1903–1978)
Waltz from Masquerade
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975)
Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 102
— intermission —
Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953)
Symphony No. 5 in B♭ major, Op. 100
About the Concert
Composers in the Soviet Union existed on a knife’s edge, never sure if the regime would praise their work or denounce it (often resulting in dire consequences). Khachaturian, Shostakovich and Prokofiev all managed to survive accusations of “formalism,” creating such masterpieces as an earworm waltz, a dazzling concerto, and a symphony celebrating “the grandeur of the human spirit.”
- This concert will last approximately two hours, including one intermission.
- Join music director William White for a pre-concert talk beginning at 6:30 p.m.
Maestro’s Prelude
Solo Artist
Recently hailed by Fanfare as “excellent” and “clearly sensitive,” Cuban-American pianist Cristina Valdés is known for presenting innovative concerts with repertoire spanning over 300 years. A fierce advocate for new music, she has premiered countless works, including many written for her. She has performed across four continents and in venues such as Lincoln Center, Benaroya Hall, Carnegie Recital Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, Roulette, Miller Theatre, Jordan Hall, and the Kennedy Center. Ms. Valdés has appeared both as a soloist and chamber musician at festivals worldwide including New Music in Miami, the Foro Internacional de Mýsica Nueva in Mexico City, Brisbane Arts Festival, the Festival of Contemporary Music in El Salvador, Havana Contemporary Music Festival and the Singapore Arts Festival.
An avid chamber musician and collaborator, Ms. Valdé’s Chamber Series and [UNTITLED] concerts have garnered critical acclaim, including her “knockout” (Seattle Times) performance of Bartok’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, and her “arrestingly eloquent performance” of Dutilleux’s Trois Preludes (MusicWeb International).
Ms. Valdés has appeared as concerto soloist with the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Philharmonic, Lake Union Civic Orchestra, Johns Hopkins Symphony Orchestra, Binghamton Philharmonic, NOCCO, Philharmonia Northwest, Eastman BroadBand and the Stony Brook Symphony, among others. Recent recordings include Ives’ Symphony No. 4 with Ludovic Morlot and the Seattle Symphony, Orlando Garcia’s From Darkness to Luminosity with the Málaga Philharmonic on Toccata Classics, and the world premiere recording of Kotoka Suzuki’s Shimmer, Tree | In Memoriam Jonathan Harvey. She can also be heard on the Albany, Newport Classics, Urtext and Ideologic Organ labels.
In recent seasons she gave performances of the Beethoven and Bartók third piano concertos, the world premiere of Carlos Sanchez-Guttierez’s Short Stories for piano and string orchestra with the Orquesta de Cámara de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, and the U.S. premiere of Under Construction for solo piano and tape playback by Heiner Goebbels at Benaroya Hall. Last season included a performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, the premiere of her own composition Sketches of an Anniversary Prelude for trumpet and piano, and the premiere of Jeremy Jolley’s (contro-)clessidra IV for piano and electronics, written especially for her.
Since 2006 she has made her home in Seattle where she has been an integral part of the new music scene. Ms. Valdés founded the SLAM Festival, a new-music festival dedicated to Latin American composers, and is a core member of the Seattle Modern Orchestra — the only large chamber orchestra in the Pacific Northwest solely dedicated to the music of the 20th and 21st centuries — with whom she has premiered works by Anahita Abbasi, Darius Jones, Wang Lu, Kaley Eaton, Jeremy Jolley and Yigit Kolat.
Ms. Valdés received a Bachelor of Music from the New England Conservatory of Music, and a Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts from SUNY Stony Brook. She is currently an artist-in-residence at the University of Washington, where she teaches piano and is the director of the UW Modern Music Ensemble.
- Learn more: washington.edu