WITH DEMARRE MCGILL, FLUTE SOLOIST
JULIA TAI, CONDUCTOR
TOWN HALL SEATTLE
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20 @ 2:00PM
The first African-American woman composer to earn national recognition, Florence Price focused her compositions on the Black American Experience. The title of her “Dances in the Canebrakes” refers to the wild cane cleared from marshes by the enslaved to make way for cotton, and to the music they made to lift each other’s spirits. Mozart‘s exuberant flute concerto was written when the young composer traveled to Mannheim, soaking up the new possibilities of a great orchestra of his time and falling in love for the first time. Mendelssohn‘s quintessential sunshine symphony – the Italian – will close the program.
PROGRAM:
Florence Price: Dances in the Canebrakes
W.A. Mozart: Flute Concerto No. 1 in G major, K. 313
Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90 “Italian”
SINGLE IN-PERSON TICKETS
Adult: $30
Senior/Student: $20
Livestream: $15
Child (under 18): Free with paying adult
DEMARRE MCGILL, FLUTE SOLOIST
Demarre McGill has gained international recognition as a soloist, recitalist, chamber and orchestral musician. Winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, he has appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Seattle, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Grant Park, Hawaii, San Diego, San Francisco, and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras and, at age 15, the Chicago Symphony. Now principal flute of the Seattle Symphony, he previously served as principal flute of the Dallas Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Florida Orchestra, and Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, and as acting principal flute of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
As an educator, Demarre has performed, coached, and presented master classes in South Africa, Korea, Japan, Quebec, and throughout the United States. With his brother Anthony, he was a speaker and performer at the 2018 League of American Orchestras Conference. He has also served on the faculties of the National Youth Orchestra of the United States, the National Orchestral Institute (NOI) at the University of Maryland, the Orford Music Festival, and participated in Summerfest at the Curtis Institute of Music, to name of few. In August of 2019, he was named Associate Professor of Flute at Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and is an artist-faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School.
A founding member of The Myriad Trio, and former member of Chamber Music Society Two, Demarre has participated in the Santa Fe, Marlboro, Seattle and Stellenbosch Chamber Music Festivals, to name a few. He is co-founder of The Art of Élan and, along with clarinetist Anthony McGill and pianist Michael McHale, founded the McGill/McHale Trio in 2014. Their first CD, Portraits, released in August 2017, has received ravereviews, as has Winged Creatures, his recording with Anthony McGill and the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra. In December 2019 the McGill/McHale Trio performed at New York City’s 92nd Street Y, and in March 2020 at the National Gallery in Washington D.C., in Danville KY, Ames IA and Tulsa OK.
Media credits include appearances on PBS’s Live from Lincoln Center, A&E Network’s The Gifted Ones, NBC’s Today Show, NBC Nightly News, and, with his brother Anthony when they were teenagers, on Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.
A native of Chicago, Demarre McGill began studying flute at age 7 and later, until he left Chicago, was a student of Susan Levitin. He attended the Merit School, was a member of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and went on to study at The Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School where he studied with Jeffrey Khaner and Julius Baker.
Demarre McGill can be heard on Cedille Records, Seattle Symphony Media, and Angel Records.
Philharmonia Northwest’s 2022-23 Season is made possible in part by generous grants from these Season Sponsors:
