Composer Hannah Kendall (center) and conductor Jonathon Heyward (behind her) with the Seattle Symphony at the U.S. premiere of Kendall’s The Spark Catchers in 2019. Photo by James Holt/Seattle Symphony
“Hannah Kendall is a name you’ll want to remember,” writes Thomas May in Tuesday’s (2/16) Seattle Times. “It was only two years ago that the young British composer’s work was first played by an American orchestra, when Berkeley Symphony gave the world premiere of Kendall’s ‘Disillusioned Dreamer.’ … Soon after, Seattle Symphony presented the U.S. premiere of her intensely evocative and haunting ‘The Spark Catchers’ … inspired by a poetic tribute to exploited workers in a 19th-century matchmaking factory…. On Feb. 25, Seattle Symphony presents another U.S. premiere of a Kendall piece with … ‘Kanashibari.’ ‘Kanashibari’ dates from 2013 and is among the composer’s earliest pieces…. ‘Kanashibari’ achieves a marvelous array of colors with chamber forces of mostly winds and strings. ‘Kanashibari’ is the Japanese word for sleep paralysis, caused by disruption of the sleep cycles…. The hallucinations that can result inspired Kendall to imagine a musical depiction of ‘an episode of sleep paralysis.’ … ‘What I love about Hannah’s work is that her music has such a pure identity,’ says Jonathon Heyward, who will guest conduct the Feb. 25 concert. The 28-year-old maestro [led] the 2019 program that included ‘The Spark Catchers’ [and] has since become one of Kendall’s foremost interpreters.”
