ACCLAIM

Under Ioannides the orchestra played with precision and grace.  This was a brilliant beginning to the concert, and to the Symphony Tacoma season……

The opening work by Lili Boulanger, D’un Matin du Printemps (Of a Spring Morning), was a colorful and vivid orchestral tone poem…Under Ioannides the orchestra played with precision and grace. The concert’s second half was an interesting contrast of waltzes, Ravel’s La Valse, and Strauss; Suite from Der RosenkavalierLa Valse is a unique orchestral work, with a unique emotional impact.  Symphony Tacoma was impressive with their navigating the tricky turns of phrases, and demanding technical playing required in La Valse.  The whirlwind ending was full of crazy energy.  This performance was a wonderful spectacle for Tacoma to enjoy.

Rosenkavalier was especially breathtaking. The intensity and pacing of this passage highlighted the artistry Symphony Tacoma has developed under Sarah Ioannides leadership.   

Conductor Sarah Ioannides had to repeatedly return to the rostrum at Saffron Hall on Saturday evening to accept the applause of the audience at the conclusion of the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain’s end of course concert.

The orchestra played with palpable energy. Intense louds contrasted lush lyricism. Ioannides’ brilliant conducting led the orchestra through many technical passages.

Symphony Tacoma, led by conductor Sarah Ioannides, gave a driving and joyful performance of works old and new…The audience on Saturday night responded with an immediate and enthusiastic reaction, as one concert-goer exclaimed afterwards, “It blew my mind!”

February 2023, South Sound Magazine

Concert Review:Reconciliation 140 Years in the Making

Maestra Sarah Ioannides once again demonstrated her mastery of the classics with her world-class showing of Brahms’ Fourth Symphony. Ioannides deftly led the orchestra as the melody of the first movement interweaved though strings, woodwinds, and horns, building to one of the great climaxes of the nineteenth century. The entire symphony was a brilliant lecture on ensemble playing, and the orchestra was a pleasure to listen to the whole evening.

October 2022, South Sound Magazine

Concert Review: Symphony Tacoma Comes Up Roses

With Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, the orchestra came into its own. Seldom heard, this piece is just one example of some thoughtful and creative programming by Ioannides during the coming season, which also includes works by Black and female composers, a couple premieres, and a tango-inspired finale.

While each section had some shining moments — luscious saxophone, lilting bassoon, dark clouds of cello and bass — the best part was the rubati in the waltz. Following Ioannides’ masterful architecture and intense coaxing, every musician played the expressive hesitations as as a single mind, like a ballroom of perfectly whirling spirits.

June 2022, South Sound Magazine

Concert Review: A Requiem of Light in Darkness

Ioannides kept everyone together with a masterful authority, with only occasional messiness, while the orchestra valiantly kept beneath the soloists seated, by necessity, behind them.

May 2022, South Sound Magazine

Concert Review: A Prayer on the Mountaintop

Fruity bass chords, light-hearted violins, and a horn section clearly relishing every note of their many solos all shaped into meaningful structure and build under the baton of Sarah Ioannides. Like the sun after a storm, or the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth, it drew together the narratives of sorrow, stress, and separation, reminding us all of what it is to be human together in the beauty of the world.

April 2022, South Sound Magazine

Bleeding Pines and a Nature-Filled Fantasia

Helming the orchestra, Sarah Ioannides, also known for superb control, echoed Mahidhara’s tone in each interjection. The result was muted (especially in the Pantages’ muffled acoustics) but reflective, setting the mood for contemplation.

Smetana’s Moldau is a fantastic story in sound, and Symphony Tacoma held the full attention of the listeners, (…), Conductor Sarah Ioannides craftily led the orchestra through the river’s journey and navigated tricky transitions with grace. This music was magical.

Symphony Tacoma musicians stepped up to Mahler’s music with precision and confidence. In movement one, distant offstage trumpet fanfares synchronized wonderfully. The final movement shifted from loss and longing to triumph and celebration. Ioannides’ pacing of phrase and tempo made the symphony come alive.  The audience burst out in a standing ovation as the final chord rang into the theater.  

October 2021, South Sound Magazine

Together in Music

Ioannides remained superbly in control, (…), insisting on wider and wider dynamic arcs and gracefully reminding the audience that those moments between movements — without applause — are the hushed expressions of a thousand people all feeling the same thing.

The most outstanding performance of the night was led by a masterful conducting of Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony «From the New World». Starting from a deep knowledge of this work, this impetuous conductor, with a very solid British and American pedigree, deployed a great battery of technical resources, always at the service of the musical message, making the most from the orchestra during the preparation days towards this concert and assuming its pedagogical function as an essential factor in the assembly of this symphony, without losing at any time its defined and decisive artistic personality, which resulted in a great professional moment. The movement of her baton was integrated into the kinetics of her body, transmitting every detail with a clear sense of anticipation, sure pulse and balanced dynamic and metric proportionality, which left the sensation of an excellently worked and coordinated sound gear, all favored by the delivery and commitment of this new collection of musicians of the OJA, one of the cultural institutions that has been maintained by the Junta de Andalucía and that, together with the Young Choir of Andalusia, constitutes the central nucleus of the Andalusian Program for Young Performers that fulfilled its twenty-fifth anniversary last year 2019.

April 2021 El Correo

The Best Youth

Exciting reunion of the OJA with the double patronage of Claudio Constantini and Sarah Ioannides and a very American flavor

For this Constantini had the invaluable complicity of the Australian director Sarah Ioannides, an Americanist expert with an excellent album with music by John Corigliano under her belt, who followed Constantini’s intervention with care and respect and wrapped him with a broad idiomatic sense in a Rhapsody in blue attacked by the young performer, now as an efficient pianist, out of respect, scrupulously following the score without additions or flourishes, so common when it is a jazz player, like him, who plays it.

 Ioannides remained contained in the majestic opening allegro, warm and transparent in a length built with revealing silences and a prodigious sense of instrumental balance, fast-paced and lively in the scherzo and as dynamic as it was expansive in the fiery final allegro, to all of which the template was adapted with a broad sense of clarity and commendable responsibility.

February 2021 South Sound Magazine

Ten Minutes of Eternal Light

Forged into a cohesive, sparkling whole from rough diamonds of poetry, art, and music by Tacoma’s young people, the multimedia piece premiered by Symphony Tacoma on YouTube last weekend isn’t just a pretty gem. It’s 10 minutes of a vision into a hopeful future from a troubled present, of a new musical order where classical instruments fuse with electronica and voices, and where light triumphs.

Eternal Light came into being from a call to Tacoma youth to submit music, dance, poetry, or art on the theme of “eternal light,” inspired by the ethereal “Lux Eterna” movement from Mozart’s Requiem. Predictably, symphony director Sarah Ioannides, whose creative idea this was, and who directed the project, received a stream of work that on the surface seems difficult to weave together (the prelude is a literal collage of these raw submissions over a pulsing beat).

Conductor Sarah Ioannides’ artistic touch and movement was the perfect complement to Gottfried’s piece. Her style speaks powerful cohesion, almost in a way that reconciles the anachronism that’s felt when seeing an electric guitar among the orchestral instruments.

December 2019 South Sound Magazine

Profound Artistry with George Li and Symphony Tacoma

Saturday’s performance by George Li and Symphony Tacoma was one of the most special and memorable music events in our local arts history. Live music offers an amazing opportunity for people to connect. Sometimes across time and cultures the performing arts provide shared experiences that change us. Top to bottom – this Symphony Tacoma concert was exciting, polished, poetic, and touching.

 Under conductor Sarah Ioannides’ leadership, Symphony Tacoma complimented Li’s artistry with polish and inspiration. The admiration between the orchestra and soloist was visible – players smiling and looking at Li throughout the concerto. It was a treat to see the veil of professional stoicism lift, and to witness Ioannides, Li, and the orchestral musicians’ electric vibe that fueled their performance. This performance had the personal communication of chamber music through the large orchestra medium. The commitment to musical teamwork was most obvious in the magical woodwinds and horn solos, and the extreme soft passages with strings. Ioannides has cultivated a special ensemble for our community.

November 2019 South Sound Magazine

Symphony Tacoma’s Romeo and Juliet Collaboration = Big Win for Community

On October 19th, Sarah Ioannides and Symphony Tacoma performed music from Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet. This performance was a fantastic experience that blended drama and orchestra into a touching and profound live performance experience… a modern, creative staging for this music and acting—impressive and relevant work from our local arts community.

 This production was all about the orchestra music, and the acting provided reference to the story the music was telling. The flow of the performance felt natural, and Prokofiev’s score was always the center of attention. Believable excitement, nervousness, passion and romance all delivered through Prokofiev’s music, Symphony Tacoma’s artistry, and words from Shakespeare. Under Ioannides’ skilled leadership, this orchestra is playing at a very high level.

 This Symphony Tacoma concert was a testament to the creativity and collaboration that our community thrives on. The audience received the performance with enthusiastic applause and admiration. The teamwork and creativity of Sarah Ioannides, School of the Arts, and the Symphony Tacoma musicians has provided a unique and profound shared experience in the performing arts.

MAY 2019 South Sound Magazine

Symphony Tacoma Rises to Beethoven’s Sun

Commissioning new work has become part of the Tacoma orchestra’s identity since Ioannides, a British conductor hailed as done of the best on Lebrecht’s “Women Conductors: The Power List,” took the helm nearly five years ago.

 Symphony Tacoma, under Ioannides’ assured baton, rose to Beethoven’s sun with energy, passion and a full, rich sound that filled the sold-out theater. In the first movement, firm brass chords resonated against the renovated theater’s new shell, violins crisp and timpani exciting, with Ioannides guiding the music like a ship’s captain over stormy waves…Ioannides wove through the tempo changes with precision and grace, and the orchestra followed flawlessly.

November 2018. Tacoma Weekly

Symphony Tacoma is fantastic with ‘Symphonie Fantastique’

a mesmerizing performance…Through it all, Ioannides used her whole frame to channel the music on the page and to conduct it to the musicians of the orchestra. Her body, her hands and her facial expressions were constantly in motion, as she transmitted the music to the musicians who in turn brought it to life with their various skills.

 Symphony Tacoma performs their concerts with professional confidence that is duly appreciated by the audience, expressed in multiple standing ovations. It is always a thing of value to experience great music played by great musicians.

November, 2017. Philadelphia Enquirer. David Patrick Stearns:

Chamber Orchestra meets Beethoven in a wild-card concert

The other big discovery was guest conductor Sarah Ioannides, a Curtis Institute graduate and someone who has been working with regional orchestras from El Paso to Tacoma. However gracious her manner, she somehow induced Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia to play on a level that’s been wanting since the departure of now-conductor-laureate Ignat Solzhenitsyn some years ago. The playing in this longish Beethoven program was vigorous, solid, and with an unusually vibrant sonority. Her programming ideas were provocative: She programmed a lot of early Beethoven that’s worth an occasional hearing, such as the Rondo for piano and orchestra, as well as unfinished Beethoven, in an assemblage of his borderline-chaotic Symphony No. 10. Her rendering of that last piece was particularly notable: This is music with no real performance tradition, though you wouldn’t have known that from what was heard on Sunday.

May, 2017. Tacoma Tribune :

Ioannides and Ott inspire with premier performance of ‘Fire Mountain’

“Mountain and Sea” was not just a concert by Symphony Tacoma — it was a culmination of creativity, education, outreach and advocacy that touched our community and brought people together in a powerful shared experience.

 “Fire Mountain” ended in an elongated, disintegrating diminuendo. The violin sections melted into a single thread of sound, and their whisper faded into profound silence. This silence clung on for a long time. It seemed that nobody in the Pantages Theater wanted this moment to end. The silence broke, and the audience launched into an immediate standing ovation.

 A review of just the Symphony Tacoma performance cannot do justice to the depth and profound effect the “Fire Mountain” collaboration has had on the Tacoma community. Was it a great concert? Absolutely. Bravo to Symphony Tacoma, Sarah Ioannides, Daniel Ott, and everyone behind the massive and inclusive project. But the larger lesson goes beyond a single concert event. “Fire Mountain” has given us a glimpse at the creative and collaborative potential in Tacoma.” ~John Falskow.

August 2016. Cincinnati Enquirer

Music director candidate Sarah Ioannides wow in jazzy program

…a stunning performance of Francis Poulenc’s rarely heard “Sinfonietta.”

Ioannides stretched boundaries with an extraordinary program that spanned the worlds of classical and jazz.

“Caribbean Rhapsody,” was just one of the highlights of the Chamber Orchestra’s fascinating journey led by Sarah Ioannides.

The highlight of the evening’s first half was Poulenc’s “Sinfonietta.”…Ioannides’ reading of this ravishing gem was fresh and vivid. It was a wonderful discovery. The conductor made the most of its humorous outbursts and shaped Poulenc’s lovely French melodies beautifully. Best of all, she allowed every orchestral solo to emerge from the texture….The orchestra played superbly.

The finale, a stunning dialogue of witty tunes and staccato brass, was given an impressive performance by the orchestra. In an acoustically challenging hall, it was the best-balanced performance of the season.

The concert included….world premiere live performance of “Caribbean Rhapsody” (Carter has recorded it) by Puerto Rico-born composer Roberto Sierra. As the piece merged into Latin salsa, he picked up his tenor sax for a vibrant, syncopated dialogue with the orchestra. Ioannides was an alert partner, and the orchestra echoed the soloist with split-second precision. Listeners were on their feet.

 Darius Milhaud’s “The Creation of the World,”…..the lean orchestration had an arresting timbre, and Ioannides’ leadership was deft and energetic. One could only marvel at its witty syncopations, its wonderful jazz fugue and superb contributions from orchestral soloists.

For a multimedia touch, McCombs, a faculty member at NKU, created an inventive film – fusing his own imagery in the Overture with artworks from Cincinnati Art Museum and even the conductor Ioannides. It was perfectly synched to the music, all the way to “The Kiss.”
~Janelle Gelfand

March 2016. The News Tribune –

Tacoma Symphony luxuriates in Rialto sound, romantic program

Tacoma has proven that not only does it have the chops to do a major contemporary classical work, it’s got the audience to appreciate it. A host of forces, from conductor Sarah Ioannides to the Tacoma Symphony Chorus to soloists, stage crew and sponsors came together Sunday afternoon at the Pantages Theater to perform Tan Dun’s epic “Water Passion.”

 Holding all these forces together, along with the dramatic lighting (red for blood, gold for rebirth) and amplified sounds was Ioannides, whose personal connection to Tan Dun made the piece possible in the first place.
~Rosemary Ponnekanti

March 2016. The News Tribune –

Tacoma Symphony luxuriates in Rialto sound, romantic program

“Debussy, Alvars and Beethoven played with warmth and emotion”

And then came Beethoven’s Symphony no. 6, the “Pastorale”…..From the opening strings to the oboe solo and solid, driving bass in the first movement, through the nostalgic waltz and lyrical cello solo of the second (unusually strong), to the furious storm of the fourth and the triumphant melody of the final movement, the orchestra played well, responding to Ioannides’ attention to dynamic detail. Ioannides combines thoughtful musical logic (the slow-downs before new ideas, the emphasis on passed-on motifs) with passion, encouraging both emotion and courage from her musicians.
~Rosemary Ponnekanti

Dec 2015. The News Tribune –

Tacoma Symphony balances inventive, tradition; violinist Caroline Goulding stands out

Inventive met traditional at the Tacoma Symphony concert Sunday in the Pantages Theater, both between pieces and within them. The orchestra bookended the afternoon program with a United States premiere by Portuguese composer Luis Tinoco that scattered musicians throughout the theater and the highly conventional “Reformation” symphony of Mendelssohn, while violin soloist Caroline Goulding injected the 112-year-old Sibelius concerto with imaginative sound.

The awed audience member who uttered a solo “Whoa!” after the baton dropped summed it up for all of us.
~Rosemary Ponnekanti

October 2015. Diario Hispaniola

Conductor Sarah Ioannides and violinist Kristin Lee star in successful symphony concert

The successful participation of female instrumentalists and conductors in the current symphony season has been a wonderful experience, whose quality was reaffirmed on Wednesday night in the concert conducted impressively by Maestra Sarah Ioannides and in the brilliant performance of the talented violinist Kristin Lee in the Carlos Piantini Hall of the National Theatre Eduardo Brito…The Symphony No.2 in D Major by Sibelius concluded the evening, an impressive work of four movements, whose orchestral performance director Sarah Ioannides was equal to, demonstrating her “unquestionable strength and authority” and great qualities as a conductor, for which she is recognized as one of the most engaging and respected conductors of her generation, qualities that have led to her recent appointment as music director of the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra.
 ~Arismendi Vasquez

October 2015. Hoy

The magic of a violin enwraps the National Theater

Hoy by Carmen Heredia de Guerrero

The symphonic season 2015 has marked its imprint. It will always be remembered for the fact that for the first time, two of its concerts have been directed by female conductors; Zenaida Romeu, and in this fourth concert by Sarah Ioannides.

The symphonic poem “Finlandia” by Danish composer Jean Sibelius made a splendid opening for this musical night…With this beautiful, lovely and unnerving symphonic poem, conductor Sarah Ioannides presented her credentials to the Dominican public, receiving a satisfying answer from the orchestra.

The audience stands and rewards this special night with prolonged applause and we join them. Again we congratulate the maestro José Antonio Molina, head of the National Symphony, for the opportunity he provides in this season to appraise and enjoy efficient symphony leading women who definitely open up new paths.

January 2010. Chattanooga Times

Ioannides cajoled her forces toward a rousing climax

Substitute conductor works out for CSO – Conducting from memory, her gestures are clear, dramatic and controlled with no wasted motions … In this thrilling work, Ms. Ioannides cajoled her forces toward a rousing climax, producing a fitting opener for an exciting […] Ioannides was the ruler of her orchestral domain, eliciting the most sensitive playing. The tight ensemble was most impressive in a work that easily could become fragmented without a sure hand at the musical helm. […] Brahms’ “Symphony No. 4” is a mountaintop of symphonic literature, and Ms. Ioannides directed it with sensitivity, calling forth the great passion that characterizes the work. Each line seemed to be carefully crafted, reflecting her consistently thoughtful and musical approach to an impressive debut. Definitely a serendipitous substitution – Chattanooga Times

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