The Score | Dausgaard Heads to Seattle Symphony Podium

Thomas Dausgaard has been named to a four-year term as music director of the Seattle Symphony, beginning in September 2019. The Danish-born conductor replaces Ludovic Morlot, who will step down after the 2018-19 season. Dausgaard, 54, has served as the orchestra’s principal guest conductor since 2014. He first guest conducted the orchestra in 2003, in Nielsen’s Symphony No. 5. In 2017, Dausgaard led the Seattle Symphony in the U.S. premiere of Helen Grime’s Snow, part of Dausgaard’s “Scottish Inspirations” commissioning project with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, where he is also chief conductor. At the Seattle Symphony, Dausgaard has led an unusual program that featured local Finnish choirs spontaneously rising up out of the audience to sing Finlandia during the Sibelius Festival, and he is featured on two recent Seattle Symphony recordings: Nielsen’s third and fourth symphonies (released in 2017) and another of Mahler’s Symphony No. 10 (2016). Through 2019, Dausgaard is also chief conductor of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, where he is leading a multi-season commissioning project inspired by J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos and featuring new works by Mark-Anthony Turnage, Olga Neuwirth, Anders Hillborg, Brett Dean, and American composers Steven Mackey and Uri Caine.