The Northwest Sinfonietta
The Northwest Sinfonietta was created in 1991 by Christophe Chagnard and Kathryn Habedank on the occasion of the Mozart Bicentennial. It features thirty six members from amongst the region's finest instrumentalists and performs a wide range of repertoire from Baroque to contemporary composers. The Northwest Sinfonietta has shared the stage with such distinguished soloists as Richard Stoltzman, Lynn Harrell, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Awadagin Pratt and Clayton Brainerd. In 1996, The World Harp Congress, Inc. contracted Maestro Christophe Chagnard and the Northwest Sinfonietta to perform 15 concertos with some of the world's finest harpists at its Sixth Congress.
Based in Tacoma, the Northwest Sinfonietta performs at the Rialto Theater, The Pantages Theater and Lagerquist Hall. It has also become Tacoma's only classical music export, with a subscription series in Seattle's Town Hall and performances at the Kirkland Performance Center, Nordstrom Hall in Seattle, the McCurdy Pavilion at Centrum, Port Townsend, and Olympia's Washington Center for the Performing Arts. Performances at Town Hall and Nordstrom Hall are also broadcast live on KING-FM 98.1.
The Northwest Sinfonietta has, in its eleven-year history, been a champion at collaborating with local arts organizations. They include: The Tacoma Opera, The Tacoma Philharmonic, the Tacoma Arts Museum, the Washington History Museum, the Tacoma Youth Chorus, the Tahoma Girls Choir and PLU's Choral Union.
In addition to a full season of concerts in Tacoma and Seattle, the NS produces a Youth Concerto Competition, an annual audition in which young musicians up to age 18 compete for cash prizes and the opportunity to play solo with the orchestra. In collaboration with the Tacoma Philharmonic, the Northwest Sinfonietta performs free children's concerts for third through sixth grade students in the Pantages Theater.
