The Cascade Symphony Orchestra (CSO) opens its 63rd season at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 28, performing music by composers Beethoven, Camille Saint-Saëns, Alexander Scriabin and Eric Coates for its Poem of Ecstasy concert at the Edmonds Center for the Arts (ECA), 410 4th Ave. N., in Edmonds.
Michael Miropolsky, starting his 23rd season as Cascade Symphony’s music director, says it will be “an evening of surprises.”
“We will present three orchestral premieres: Beethoven’s heroic ‘Overture to the opera Fidelio,’ the delightful Joyous Youth Suite by English composer Eric Coates, and the mystic Poem of Ecstasy by one of the most controversial Russian composers of the 20th century, Alexander Scriabin,” Miropolsky noted.
This Scriabin composition, rarely played in the Pacific Northwest, is not widely familiar. Miropolsky remembers performing it one time many years ago in Moscow, and had been wanting to conduct it here. He said that the connection between mysticism and the erotic was important to Scriabin, and it manifested into one of his most significant works. It combines impressionistic elements reminiscent of French composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, highly chromatic post-Wagnerian harmonic language, and a lavish orchestration that includes no less than six trumpets and eight horns.
The concert’s featured soloist is 14-year-old pianist Leonardo Zhou, who has performed and won awards locally and around the world.
Leonardo earned gold medals in the Northwest Chopin Festival of 2019-2020, first places in the 2018 Perugia Music Festival, and won the Eastside Scholarship Competition of 2018-2022, the Fujairah International Competition for 2020, and the grand prize for the Piano Online Forum of 2021. He also earned the Judith Thiel Artist Award for Piano in 2023.
“The young star Leonardo Zhou is ready to impress us with cascades of virtuosic passages from Camille Saint-Saëns’ most popular Piano Concerto No. 2,” Miropolsky said.
Leonardo was previously a guest soloist with the Cascade Symphony in October of 2022.
A pre-concert lecture at 6:30 p.m., by KING-FM radio personality Dave Beck, will preview the musical highlights for the Poem of Ecstasy concert.
Concert ticket prices are: $30 for adults; $26 for seniors (60-plus); and $10 for youth (12 and younger).
Tickets can be purchased online through the ECA website and by telephone (425-275-9595). The ECA Box Office may be reached by email at boxoffice@ec4arts.org. The ECA Box Office is open noon-5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and extended hours during performances.
Additional information about the Cascade Symphony Orchestra and its full 2024-25 concert season is available online at www.cascadesymphony.org.
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