The Seattle Symphony performs the November world premiere of Hannah Lash’s double harp concerto, “The Peril of Dreams,” with the composer and Principal Harp Valerie Muzzolini as soloists, led by Associate Conductor Lee Mills. Photo by James Holt.
It’s not often that even one harp takes center stage at an orchestra concert. In November at Benaroya Hall, the Seattle Symphony performed a work that featured two harps: the commissioned world premiere of Hannah Lash’s new double harp concerto. The composer and Seattle Symphony Principal Harp Valerie Muzzolini were soloists in the concerto, subtitled “The Peril of Dreams.” Lash has described the four-movement piece as “a symphony expressed through the lens of a double harp concerto…. The third movement is a kind of Tarantella or death dance—a short, poisonous spike of energy before the somber, tragic final movement in which the harps drift nobly further and further from the orchestra.” Associate Conductor Lee Mills stepped in at the last minute for Music Director Thomas Dausgaard—who had just led his first concerts with the orchestra after returning to the United States from Denmark following 20 months of COVID-related visa delays, but had briefly fallen ill. A premiere for pandemic times, for sure.
