Event

LUCO: Britten Centenary

BRITTEN Passacaglia from Peter Grimes

BRITTEN Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra with Sean MacLean, narrator

BRAHMS Symphony No. 1 in C minor

Sean MacLean is Classical 98.1 King FM's afternoon and evening host of Northwest Focus LIVE! He grew up in San Francisco. Sean's compositions have been performed by choirs and orchestras including London's BBC Symphony. He received his masters in composition at Yale, studying with Lukas Foss and Jacob Druckman. Fascinated by each link in the chain of music production, from composer all the way to listener, he ran a recording business while living in Paris for five years. He moved to King FM in 2005 from WGBH in Boston. In his free time, Sean plays guitar and Remora, an electroacoustic harp-guitar of his own invention. He is a published travel photographer, but now concentrates on his Northwest surroundings, where he enjoys moonlight kayaking, telemark skiing, and kitesurfing.

It is not as though Benjamin Britten needed a 100th Birthday to be remembered and celebrated. He is one of the towering figures in 20th Century music and I never cease to be awed by the depth, imagination, craft and scope of his creations. As a matter of fact, I hold Britten as one of the greatest composers of his era along with Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bartok and Ravel. We dedicated the first half of our opening program to two of Britten's musical gems and are thrilled to present our long-time colleague Sean MacLean whose rapturous voice charms and enriches us weekly on King-FM.

- C. Chagnard