Women's Festival Inaugural Performance by Unbound Symphony

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Join us for our inaugural performance by Unbound Symphony and hear an all-women's orchestra! Tickets include additional access to attend open rehearsals on July 8th & 9th 2-4PM.

July 10th, INAUGURAL PERFORMANCE
Highline Performing Arts Center
6:45PM Pre-Concert Talk
7:30PM Concert

CONCERT PROGRAM

• Starburst by Jessie Montgomery
• Concerto for Double Bass by Dr. Sarah Bassingthwaighte, and soloist Rebecca Lawrence
• Spider Boots (World Premiere) by Dr. Sarah Bassingthwaighte and Tessa Brinckman, includes Audience participation!
• Selections from the Montgomery Variations by Margaret Bonds
• Kauyumari by Gabriela Ortiz

Conductors: Dr. Anna Edwards & Hsing-Hui Hsu
Composer in Residence: Dr. Sarah Bassingthwaighte
Double Bass Soloist: Rebecca Lawrence

About our Double Bass Soloist, Rebecca Lawrence

Rebecca Lawrence grew up in Seattle, and following studies in Los Angeles, Paris, and Frankfurt, moved to Berlin in 2025. Her work with the double bass draws on more than four centuries of musical practice, bringing together historical awareness, contemporary experimentation, and a deep curiosity for sound. Influenced by interests ranging from social movements and feminism to anthropology, ritual, and natural systems, she collaborates closely with leading composers in today’s European music scene. At the same time, a search for simple musical truth and harmony led her to study early music, which evolved into endless experimentation with the sonic possibilities of early instruments in contemporary contexts. 

Rebecca is a member of the Berlin-based Ensemble Kollektiv, and plays often as as a guest with a wide range of ensembles and orchestras, including Ensemble Modern, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the Basel Sinfonietta, the Folkwang Kammerorchestra, Klangforum Wien, Deutsche Kammerorchester Bremen, and others. 

This year, she’ll record her first solo album with producer Weston Olencki, supported by a grant from the Deutscher Orchesterstiftung, exploring the possibilities of contemporary improvised pieces and arrangements on historical instruments.

Photo by Jörg Baumann

About our Composer-in-Residence Dr. Sarah Bassingthwaighte

With a career spanning four decades, Dr. Sarah Bassingthwaighte is a Canadian-American composer and flutist who loves to play, teach and create music, and focuses her work on social and climate justice. She has received accolades in each of these roles in Iceland, England, Europe, Russia, Mexico, and the United States. The London Symphony Orchestra recorded Dr. Bassingthwaighte’s Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra in 2023, and a full album was released in 2025. Other notable performers include members of the Scottish Royal Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, the Port Angeles Symphony, and the Beaverton Symphony, and soloists including Megan Lanz, Jill Felber, Claudia Anderson, and Steve Schermer. In fall of 2022, Sarah performed the US Premiere of Marquez’ Danzon #3 with guitarist Alejandra Reyes Zamarano and the Northwest Symphony Orchestra. She will be Composer-in-Residence in Sweden, at the Visby International Centre for Composers (VICC)as well as at the Uncool Residency in Switzerland. 

Bassingthwaighte is the winner of many competitions, including European Classical Music Awards Composer of the Year 2025, NACUSA 2025, the 2025 International Couperin Competition in Orchestral Music, the 2024 European Classical Music Awards in Orchestral Music, the Erik Satie International Competition in both Orchestral and Chamber Music, the International Saint-Saëns Competition in Composition in both Orchestral and Chamber Music, and a 2024 and 2025 Finalist for the ICMA Awards, the American Prize and the FeNam Competition. Her compositions also won the Newly Published Music Competition of the National Flute Association in 2013, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. Orchestrating the Wild was Album of the Week on the CBC in 2025, too. She is the flutist for The Sound Ensemble, the Ecco Chamber Ensemble, and Windsong Classical Trio. She has served on the faculties of University of Washington, Seattle University, the Rachmaninov Institute in Tambov, Russia, the Seattle Youth Symphony, Music Center of the Northwest, and was Founding Director of Affinity Chamber Players during its 13-year lifespan. At the age of 18, she performed Jacques Ibert’s Concerto with the Seattle Symphony, and has since received numerous awards. Her solo CDs include Songs from the Caucasus, Stalks in the Breeze and Flute Meets Machine, and she and Mark Wilson recorded Around the World and Through Time as the ensemble Sirocco.

The British journal Pan Magazine acclaims her “hypnotic and rich sound” and goes on to say “The tone quality is full of depth and power.  Bassingthwaighte seems to have a particular talent for communicating the message of contemporary pieces,” which are “performed with polish and virtuosity.” A past president of the Seattle Flute Society, Sarah has been a featured lecturer and performer for the National Flute Association, and a presenter at College Music Society conferences.  She actively commissions new pieces for solo flute or chamber ensembles, and has been responsible for the commission, performance, and recording of more than 36 new pieces.

She has a DMA in flute performance and an MM in composition from the University of Washington, an MM in theory and pedagogy from Central Washington University, and a BM Honors in performance from Indiana University, Bloomington.  Her flute teachers include Carol Wincenc, Julius Baker, Peter Lloyd, James Pellerite, Felix Skowronek, Bonnie Blanchard and Hal Ott and her composition teachers include Richard Karpen, Diane Thome, John Mickel and Margaret Brouwer.  Bassingthwaighte is Head of Composition at Seattle Pacific University. Besides playing music, Sarah loves to hike and travel, especially with her son Izzy and her dog Bibi.  They’ve gone to Kenya, Uganda, Ecuador, Peru, Norway, Italy, Russia, Iceland, and more, in a spirit of adventure and broadening perspective.

https://www.sarahbassingthwaighte.org.