Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra

First, I need to have a disclaimer: I am a musician from the SPO. I’m saddened to see the two reviews and wanted to give updates.
The orchestra has gotten better, I’ve been told. And honestly, in my many years of being a musician, I haven’t come across one that was as tight or passionate about the music they’re making. Sure, it may not be perfect, but we’re also a member-​owned orchestra from the community; we are engineers, lawyers, chemists, and teachers, to name a few.
I’d also like to update another Unilocaler’s review since she’s commenting on the old manager. Michael has been our president for the 2013 – 2014 season and is friendly, so both the dates and manager are incorrect. But if you have had a poor experience, Rebekah, please dm me and I’ll check with the SPO.
The Seattle Philharmonic are going to be at Benaroya for the 2014 – 2015 season for all of the concerts, so they have a customer service line (
), a more-​upscale environment, and great acoustics. Along with many famous pieces, we’ll be performing «The Planets» at the end of the season. From what I can tell, he won’t let us settle for anything less than great when at Benaroya. The LivingSocial deal will be happening again as far as I’m told.
Before you disregard this review, please know that the musicians in the SPO play with heart and integrity to share beautiful music with the community and please give us a try.

Written about today: October 21^st, 2014
About: Meany Hall and the Manager, Will, of the Philharmonic Orchestra
Upset: Due to the lack of a phone number on the website or for the venue, lack of parking signs, lack of service, a donut that had ice in the middle, rude volunteers, no program handed to me, and treated with utter demhumanization and lack of respect when I did express my dissatisfaction for being 20 minutes late b/​c I did not know where to park and drove all over campus and finally illegally parked in an off campus zone b/​c I could not find street parking.
I was really looking forward to enjoying the music because I bought this ticket on Living Social for 9.00. I have been wanting to enrich my life with music, but I am extremely poor. I also want to educate myself more about classical music, and I felt that this would be a great opportunity. However, I ended up being soured on the experience before it even started, because the Seattle Philharmonic does not advertise a phone number on their website for help for information about parking or about how long the event is, or if you just have general questions. I was pretty upset about this. I drove to the event at the UW Campus thinking there would be signs for the event, signs for parking and directing people where to go. There was none of this. Out of respect for the Seattle Philharmonic and the performers, I did not understand why both the performers and Meany Hall did not try harder in this regard. In the end, I, the audience member and customer, was the one who ended up suffering. I am pretty angry and upset that I had to walk around sweating on a hot day looking for a place to park.
When I got there, after walking through a confusing bunch of steps, going up and down them, wandering through mazes in the courtyard and sweating even more, I was not warmly greeted. I knocked on the wrong glass door and the young girl who gave directions had a major attitude problem to me. Then, when I got to the other door, was not given a program. The volunteer took me to the manager of the Philharmonic and he was very rude and was very snide about the whole thing when I pointed out the lack of signage, the lack of a phone number, or any of the other things they could do better. When I asked him why he did not have a phone number, he just said they don’t. He did not apologize, did not seem to care about my overall experience, did not offer a free ticket or anything. Meanwhile, the other people behind the glass were sitting there starting at me like Northwestern deers in the headlights as Seattleites often do. However, I had the right to express my very good points about the experience. When I asked Will if he would think of hiring someone to take phone calls for them for venues, he, as well as others behind the glass were smirking at me and laughing at me. As a writer and reporter who got a 4.0 in college, I felt insulted. As a human being, I felt insulted. Since I have 100 pounds to lose, I am used to being treated like a lesser human being, but this really took the cake.
During intermission, I was even more insulted that I bought an overpriced Wal Mart donut for $ 4.00 that apparently had been kept in the freezer, b/​c when I bit into it, it was frozen!!! Horrifying!!!
The ACTUAL MUSIC was very good and so was the quality of the musicians. The ACTUAL AUDITORIUM was ugly as sin, and the stage looks like it is falling apart. I am sad to see that. I am sad to see that there is no money that people would put into this group. I know that Adam cares about getting music to the masses, and I was very impressed with him and the fact that he came out afterwards to talk to the audience. I have NEVER seen a conductor more passionate about the music and dedicated to the craft. So I LOVED him. What made me sad is that the marketing and the customer experience is so bad that there really is no reason I feel compelled to come back… In fact, I am loathe to come back and go through a similar experience again. On the other hand, Adam kind of won me over at the end when he came out, but I did not want to ask him about the details of the parking and the lack of phone number and signage when this was supposed to be a question and answer session at the end about the music, of which I complimented him on his passion and the actual show which was Benjamin Britten and Tchaikovsky’s «Pathetique». I LOVE how Adam is all about the music. I LOVE how Adam makes it that the MUSIC is what matters, not the add ons or dumbing music down, and as I said, he really won me, and many people, over.
I am a liberal. I am a hippy. I am a poet. I am an artist. I am a writer.
However, I cannot stomach the overall nastiness of the manager, and do not know how to process this in conjunction with the good experience of meeting Adam, the Conductor. So, can someone please explain why the service and experience was so bad, and why MY VOICE was not heard?

I would not be writing this review if I had not paid 18.00 to see the SPO. Really the show should be 5 – 10.00 as it is not very professional. The performance overall was reasonably executed, with a great percussion section, as well as a really great harp player. But, it was not exceptional. What made the show fail for me were two unprofessional events. First the spouse of a performer brought a baby and young girl to the show. The baby cried intermittently throughout the second half of the show, but the woman would not leave the room. Then her other daughter ran on stage to find her daddy. This part was actually cute, and funny, but should not be part of a show we paid quite a lot to see. Also, there was a big sign before we entered saying no children under 5, so she was in the wrong (the mother). Finally, for the giving tree spoken word piece, the performance was very lacking in quality. The conductor had drafted his young daughter to read the story. She made multiple mistakes, and used the same kind of aggressive voice for all the characters in the story. She should have changed her voice to fit the characters.
Anyway, I was expecting a city like Seattle to have a great Philharmonic, volunteer based or not, and I was disappointed.
I would attend free shows in the future however…