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©Copyright - Northwest Mahler Festival

2025 Summer Festival Concert Mahler–Symphony No. 10

Tigran Arakelyan–Music Director
Also featuring:
Jean Sibelius — Valse Triste
Alexander Borodin — Ballet music from the opera “Prince Igor”
John Falskow — Conductor
Saturday, July 26, 2025  7:30pm

Shorewood Performing Arts Center 
at Shorewood High School

17300 Fremont Ave. N. 
Shoreline, WA 98133



Reading Sessions


Reading sessions allow musicians to explore the symphonic repertoire in an open  informal  setting with leading conductors.  These evenings are open to all interested musicians with no parts assigned and rotation within the wind sections strongly encouraged.

Shorewood High School
17300 Fremont Ave. North
Shoreline, WA 98133-52992025 Reading Session Dates
All Reading Sessions are from 7-10PM

Monday, June 16 – Reading 1 Shorewood Performing Arts Stage
Nielsen Symphony No.3
Laura Loge, Soprano
Kevin Helppie Baritone
Marcin Pączkowski, Conductor

Thursday, June 19 – Reading 2 Shorewood Performing Arts Stage
Mussorgsky, Night on Bald Mountain (Rimsy-Korsakov arrangement)
Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition
Tigran Arakelyan, Conductor

Monday, June 23 – Reading 3 Shorewood Performing Arts Stage
Stravinsky, The Firebird (1919 version)
Paula Nava Madrigal, Conductor

Wednesday, June 25 – Reading 4 Shorewood Performing Arts Stage.
Tchaikovsky, Manfred Symphony
Joseph P. Scott, Conductor


About the Festival

The Northwest Mahler Festival was founded in 1995 by three Seattle-area musicians, Dan Weiss, Robin Miller, and David McBride, to provide an opportunity for local musicians, including serious avocational musicians, professionals, and talented students, to experience the large-scale Romantic works not generally accessible to smaller local orchestras, and to bring this music to the public.  This includes works for orchestra alone as well as for orchestra and chorus.

Since 1995, the NWMF has held open reading sessions each June to explore this literature.  Readings are open to all qualified musicians, and draw as more than 100 participants from throughout the Seattle region and beyond. While family and friends are welcome to come and listen, the readings are not performances. Rather, each session is spent exploring a given piece of music for the musical growth and enjoyment of the participants. Readings to date have included the symphonies of Gustav Mahler as well as major works by a range of Romantic and other composers including R Strauss, Bruckner, Shostakovich, Britten, Honegger, Nielsen, Stravinsky, and Szymanowski.  The readings have also included sessions devoted to exploring new music for large orchestra by local composers.  In addition to allowing local area musicians to experience these works, the reading sessions provide a unique opportunity for local and regional conductors.  The NWMF has been privileged to have attracted a number of nationally and internationally known conductors.  A list of all past reading sessions and conductors is provided in the past event section.
Building on the success of the readings, the NWMF held its first public concert in July 1996. For that inaugural concert, Roupen Shakarian led the NWMF Orchestra in a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in addition to works by Wagner and R. Strauss.  This was followed by yearly performances each July covering a range of works not usually encountered in the Seattle area.  Notable performances include Mahler’s 8th Symphony (the Symphony of A Thousand) in July 2000 and also Messaien’s Turangulila in September 2007, both under the baton of Music Director Emeritus Geoffrey Simon.

The NWMF has presented several benefit performances to aid in local and global charities including a recent benefit for Northwest Harvest and a concert to raise relief money for the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

The Northwest Mahler Festival is free to all musicians and no fees are required for participation. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dependent on donations to help cover expenses, and hope that you will consider supporting the NWMF in its continuing mission by making a donation today. 



Board of Directors

Mark Lloyd – President
Shari Muller-Ho – Vice-President
Charlene Utt – Secretary
Martha Lipscomb – Treasurer
Tigran  Arakelyan – Music Director
Emily Parkhurst


Our mission:

To create an opportunity for orchestral instrumentalists and chorus members in the Northwest to experience first-hand the larger, more difficult orchestral pieces, through readings, performances, workshops, seminars, master classes and other informative means;

To encourage and facilitate relationships between the Northwest’s community, student and professional orchestras and choruses, their organizations and memberships, and the community at large;

To provide an enjoyable and enriching musical experience for all participants.

Tigran Arakelyan

Tigran Arakelyan is an Armenian-American conductor, executive director, radio host, podcaster and producer. He is the Music Director of Northwest Mahler Festival, ORS of Tacoma and Artistic Director of  Port Townsend Symphony.  Tigran is also the Executive Director of Music Works Northwest. Previously, he was the assistant conductor of California Philharmonic and made his Walt Disney Concert Hall conducting debut in 2019. Tigran played alongside Sir James Galway during Galway’s induction into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. He received awards from The American Prize in Programming and the Global Music Awards for podcasting.

He held conducting positions with the Los Angeles Youth Orchestra, Bellingham Symphony, CSU Northridge Youth Philharmonic, Whidbey Island Orchestra and the Bremerton Youth Symphony.  During his tenure as Music Director of Federal Way 

Youth Symphony and Bainbridge Youth Orchestras; the organizations reached their highest enrollment, added multiple ensembles, premiered pieces and collaborated with dance companies and choirs. Tigran led the Federal Way Youth Symphony on three tours to South Korea, conducting in Seoul, Busan, Jeju, Daejeon, Gwangju, among other cities.

He conducted regional premieres by renowned composers Paul Hindemith, Keith Jarrett, Jovino Santos Neto, Brenno Blauth, Jeff Manookian and James Cohn. Since 2009, Tigran has taken orchestras to unconventional venues, from bars and cideries to cafes and homeless shelters. He has initiated and is a founder of the Port Townsend Chamber Orchestra,  Bainbridge Island String Festival, PTSO Young Artist Competition, Whidbey Competition for Young Composers, Cadence Chamber Orchestra (WA), Youth Orchestra at Lark Musical Society (CA) and numerous scholarship/grant and funding initiatives.

During his time at the University of Washington, he was the conductor of the Campus Philharmonia and the UW Summer Orchestra. Tigran has conducted the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, Olympia Chamber Orchestra, numerous youth orchestras in South Korea, Armenian Pops Orchestra, Juneau Symphony, Ballard Civic Orchestra, Bainbridge Symphony, Inverted Space Ensemble, Lark Orchestra (CA), Yakima Symphony Chamber Orchestra and innovative collaborations with the Olympic Performance Group and Olympic Youth Choir.

Tigran is a three time awardee of the Armenian General Benevolent Union Performing Arts Fellowship. He participated in the Conductors Guild Workshop, Pierre Monteux School and Music Festival, Idyllwild Music Festival and Dilijan Chamber Music Series, among others. Tigran conducted in masterclasses with notable conductors David Loebel, Frank Battisti, Donald Thulean, Michael Jinbo and David Effron.  

Invited by Maestro Ludovic Morlot, Tigran earned the Doctor of Musical Arts in conducting from the University of Washington where he was the first student in the inaugural class of David Rahbee and Morlot. His mentors are Victor Vener, John Barcellona, Paul Taub, and Laura Osborn. In his youth he played in the Los Angeles Junior Philharmonic Orchestra and attended Lark Musical Society.

Outside of conducting, he was a host and producer of Exploring Music, a radio show on KPTZ (91.9FM).  An active podcaster since 2012, he most recently hosted and produced Let’s Talk Off The Podium (140+ episodes). Tigran interviewed winners of Grammy Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, MacArthur Fellow, Rome Prize & the Polar Music Prize. Past guests include: Evelyn Glennie, George Walker, Mark O’Connor, Christian McBride, David Harrington (Kronos Quartet), JoAnn Falletta, Richard Stoltzman, Sharon Isbin, Vijay Iyer, Christopher Theofanidis, Yolanda Kondonassis, Roger Bobo, and a long list of others.