Cosmic!

It's time to blast off into the cosmos with the Seattle Symphony as they take you on a celestial adventure with Gustav Holst's enduringly popular The Planets. From the bombast of Mars, Bringer of War to the lively joy of Jupiter, let the symphony, led by Music Director Designate Xian Zhang and accompanied by breathtaking HD NASA images of space.

Completed between 1914 and 1916, The Planets is by far the most popular of Holst's works (a fact that troubled him in later life). Based not around the Roman Gods as is easily assumed, each planet's character and sound comes from Astrology, an idea that fascinated Holst at the time. Each movement seeks to evoke the emotion and passion that each planet elicits in us.

The evening also features Steven Banks, who makes his Seattle Symphony debut in Diaspora  a saxophone concerto written for him by American composer Billy Childs, as a meditation on the Black experience, past present and future.