Seattle Symphony
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The Seattle Symphony is an American orchestra based in Seattle, Washington. Gerard Schwarz has served as its music director since 1985.
Over 300,000 people each year attend performances of this Grammy-award-winning orchestra in Benaroya Hall, located in downtown Seattle. Its season runs from September through July.
Under Schwarz's leadership, the orchestra has become particularly known for performing works of 20th century composers, especially of neglected American composers. Together, Schwarz and the orchestra have recorded a sizable number of pieces, including the major orchestral works of Howard Hanson.
In addition to its own concerts, the Seattle Symphony serves as the pit orchestra for most productions of the Seattle Opera, including that company's annual Wagner presentations each summer.
Music directors prior to Schwarz have included the noted American composer Henry Hadley (1909-11), John Spargur (1911-21), Basil Cameron (1932-38), Nikolai Sokoloff (1938-40), renowned British conductor Thomas Beecham (1941-44), Manuel Rosenthal (1949-51), and longest of all by Milton Katims (1954-76).
The orchestra's first performance was given on December 29, 1903, with Harry West conducting. Known from its founding as the Seattle Symphony, it was renamed in 1911 as the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1919, the orchestra was reorganized with new bylaws under the name Seattle Symphony Orchestra. Even so, for most of its 100-year history, and especially today, the ensemble is known by the two-word name "Seattle Symphony."
2005-2006 Musicians
First violin
Jennifer Bai
Mariel Bailey
Cecilia Poellein Buss
Jun Liang Du
Ayako Gamo
Timothy Garland
Simon James
Peter Kaman
Leonid Keylin
Maria Larionoff
Mikhail Shmidt
Clark Story
John Weller
Jeannie Wells Yablonsky
Arthur Zadinsky
Second violin
Stephen Bryant
Linda Cole
Xiao-po Fei
Gennady Filimonov
Wesley Fisk
Sande Gillette
Artur Girsky
Virginia Hunt Luce
Michael Miropolsky
Kenneth Moore
Eric Scott
Kathleen Stern
Andrew Yeung
Viola
Susan Gulkis Assadi
Vincent Comer
Penelope Crane
Wesley Anderson Dyring
Mara Gearman
Timothy Hale
James T. Kilian
Arie Schachter
Dorothy Shapiro
Richard Skerlong
Rachel Swerdlow
Cello
Bruce Bailey
Theresa Benshoof
Raymond Davis
Roberta Hansen Downey
Walter Gray
Vivian Gu
David Sabee
Susan Williams
Amos Yang
Bass
Jordan Anderson
Jonathan Burnstein
Jennifer Godfrey
Jonathan Green
Nancy Page Griffin
Joseph Kaufman
Sandra Lambert
Ronald Simon
Flute
Zartouhi Dombourian-Eby
Scott Goff
Judy Kriewall
Oboe
Ben Hausmann
Nathan Hughes
English horn
Stefan Farkas
Clarinet
Laura DeLuca
Larey McDaniel
Christopher Sereque
Bassoon
Mike Gamburg
Seth Krimsky
Paul Rafanelli
Horn
Susan Carroll
John Cerminaro
Jeff Fair
Adam Iascone
Mark Robbins
Scott Wilson
Trumpet
Geoffrey Bergler
David Gordon
Richard Pressley
Trombone
Stephen Fissel
David L. Ritt
Ko-ichiro Yamamoto
Tuba
Christopher Olka
Percussion
Randolph Baunton
Michael Clark
Michael Crusoe
Ron Johnson
Harp
Valerie Muzzolini