Latest protection and commentary in The Seattle Instances concerning the Seattle Symphony’s first of two opening weekends [“Seattle Symphony’s 2023 opening night was impressive. Where was the audience?” Sept. 22] centered on two themes, one factual and the opposite opinion that, whereas true to the author’s expertise, was deceptive and dangerous to the area’s financial and cultural future.
Sure, as was asserted by reviewer Melinda Bargreen, the Seattle Symphony carried out fantastically on Sept. 21, matching its top-tier repute constructed on Grammy and Gramophone honors and a powerful roster of musicians. No, the semi-full home that night was not attributable to fears of downtown, as implied in a subsequent letter to the editor [“Downtown Seattle: I no longer feel safe,” Sept. 29], nor, I consider, to a fading curiosity in stay efficiency among the many devoted. I attribute it fairly to the confusion fostered amongst patrons by the scheduling of a live performance celebrating the anniversaries of the symphony and of Benaroya Corridor the week earlier than the standard and glamorous gala opener. The next week’s gala live performance that includes pianist Lang Lang was carried out earlier than a sold-out home.
Earlier than one presumes, nonetheless, that the stardom of Lang Lang briefly overrode fears of waning curiosity, it must be famous that the third weekend of the symphony’s calendar, Oct. 5-8, featured three performances with an estimated 2,000 attendees every. Six thousand or extra people traveled to Benaroya Corridor to listen to the sensible Seattle Symphony principal cello Efe Baltacigil carry out Shostakovich cello Concerto No. 2 and to bask within the radiance of Stravinsky’s “Firebird.” Exterior the corridor, eating places had been full, and the sidewalks had been busy with symphony and non-symphony patrons alike.
Public security is and will stay a precedence all through the area, however to foster that concept by the propagation of unfounded conclusions is dangerous to society and town upon which the area’s future rests. No matter the place one lives within the Puget Sound space, Seattle is and can stay our area’s financial and cultural engine with world-class arts organizations, trade and culinary explorations.
Attendees of such longstanding establishments because the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Opera, and Pacific Northwest Ballet expertise world-class performances that won’t be replicated in outlying areas. To permit assumptions to dissuade us from partaking with our premiere cultural middle is to permit human gullibility to dictate a moribund future for not solely Seattle however the area and its financial and cultural vitality.
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