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The Cascade Symphony Orchestra (CSO) opens its 64th season at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 27, performing music by Mendelssohn, Grieg, Goldmark, Liadov and Kabalevsky for its Opening Night and Piano Celebration concert at the Edmonds Center for the Arts, 410 4th Ave. N., in Edmonds.
Michael Miropolsky, in his 24th season as Cascade Symphony’s Music Director, says it will be “an evening of virtuoso piano music and hidden orchestral gems.”
The program includes a work rarely, if ever, performed in the Seattle area with the 2nd Symphony by Dmitri Kabalevsky, a lesser-known but equally talented contemporary of Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Also on the program is In the Garden, a wonderfully romantic work by the Austrian composer Karl Goldmark from his Rustic Wedding Symphony, and a short tone poem titled Baba Yaga, by the 19th century Russian composer Anatoly Liadov.
The concert opens with two virtuosic works for piano and orchestra. “We have worked with the Eastside Piano Teachers Competition to feature two very talented young men who won the competition this year,” Miropolsky said. “Aaron Jin will perform the first movement of Edvard Grieg’s wonderful Piano Concerto in A Minor. Jeffrey Zhao, who appeared with us once before in 2022, will dazzle the audience with Felix Mendelssohn’s youthfully exuberant First Piano Concerto.”
Both Jin and Zhao have won multiple gold medals in regional and international piano competitions, including the Pacific Northwest, Bellevue Symphony and Seattle International Virtuoso competitions, and have been finalists in numerous piano competitions in the U.S., Europe and China.
A pre-concert lecture at 6:30 p.m., by KING-FM radio personality Dave Beck, will preview the musical highlights for the evening.
Concert ticket prices are $30 for adults; $25 for those under age 50; and $10 for youth (12 and younger).
Tickets can be purchased online through the ECA website, by telephone (425-275-9595) or in person. The ECA Box Office may be reached by email at boxoffice@ec4arts.org. The box office is open noon-5 p.m. Monday through Friday, with extended hours on performance nights.
The Cascade Symphony is also accepting applications for its 2025 Rising Star Competition, open to pianists and violinists age 12 or younger as of February 2026, and to other instrumentalists age 15 or younger. Winners will perform on the Symphony’s Family Concert in February, with applications due by Nov. 1.
Additional information about the Cascade Symphony Orchestra, its full 2025-26 concert season and the Rising Stars Competition is available at www.cascadesymphony.org.
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