The Seattle Symphony’s November program pairs Mozart’s Requiem with the world premiere of Virtù, a timpani concerto by Joseph Pereira. The orchestra’s principal timpanist, Eric Schweikert, will be the soloist, with Music Director Xian Zhang conducting.
The performances are set for Nov. 19, 21 and 22 at Benaroya Hall, according to The Seattle Times. The Seattle Symphony co-commissioned Virtù and identifies it as a world premiere featuring its principal timpanist. The Benaroya Hall calendar lists the work as Virtù for Solo Timpani and String Orchestra, with Schweikert as soloist.
A Seattle Symphony press release confirms the November dates for Mozart’s Requiem with Zhang and says the performance will feature the Seattle Symphony Chorale. The program also presents the Pereira concerto as a co-commission and world premiere.
A Concerto Built Around Five Drums
Virtù is written for five timpani and string orchestra and runs approximately 20 minutes, per the Seattle Times report. The piece uses sustained passages, rapid rhythms and sliding pitches, and it includes adventurous string techniques such as unusual bowing and added pressure from the orchestra's string section. According to the same report, the concerto also alludes to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Bartók's Second Piano Concerto.
Timpani, also called kettledrums, are the rounded metal bowls typically stationed at the back of an orchestra, where players use foot pedals to tighten or loosen the drumheads and change pitch. The instrument traditionally reinforces orchestral rhythms and harmonies rather than carrying a melody on its own, and timpani concertos remain uncommon in part because the instrument's pitch range is narrower than something like a violin or piano, per the Seattle Times.
Schweikert told the paper the timpani are tunable, and that stepping forward as a soloist flips his usual role in the ensemble. He said performing as a concerto soloist lets him reverse his typical position in the orchestra, and the Times reports he expects to be positioned closer to Zhang than usual during the premiere.
Preparing Largely on His Own
Schweikert practiced the concerto largely by himself ahead of the premiere and, as of late October, had not yet explored how the piece fits with Pereira's string writing, according to the Seattle Times. He will have three orchestral rehearsals before opening night. He also said he may need to change his improvisational shtick, noting that Virtù allows him some freedom to improvise and that he plans to use plastic brushes near the edge of the lowest drum to produce sharp overtones.
Schweikert joined the Seattle Symphony as principal timpanist during the 2023/2024 season, according to a Seattle Symphony announcement from that time, making this his fourth season with the orchestra. Before coming to Seattle, he spent 34 years with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, where he also served as principal timpani, and he was director of percussion studies at Purdue University Fort Wayne, the same release states. He has previously performed Philip Glass's 2000 Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra, a piece that had its own premiere on Nov. 19, 2000, at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center, performed by Jonathan Haas and Svetoslav Stoyanov with the American Symphony Orchestra under Leon Botstein, according to Philip Glass's own website.
A Composer With Timpani Roots of His Own
Joseph Pereira is himself a working timpanist — principal timpani of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where biographies from the orchestra and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music differ slightly on his appointment date. The Los Angeles Philharmonic states he was appointed in 2007 by Esa-Pekka Salonen, while the San Francisco Conservatory of Music says he has held the post since 2008; the two institutions also give differing date ranges for his earlier tenure with the New York Philharmonic, with the Conservatory citing 1997 to 2008 and the Los Angeles Philharmonic citing January 1998 to September 2008.
This isn't Pereira's first time writing for his own instrument. The Los Angeles Philharmonic premiered his earlier timpani concerto, Threshold, in 2018 with Gustavo Dudamel on the podium, and the orchestra also premiered his Percussion Concerto in 2012 with soloist Colin Currie. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music notes that Pereira's recent commissions have come from the LA Phil in 2025 and from the Seattle and New Jersey Symphonies for the 2026/27 season.
A Broader Percussion Precedent
A related, though broader, precedent is Joseph Schwantner’s Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra. The Los Angeles Philharmonic says the New York Philharmonic commissioned it for its 150th-anniversary season in 1992–93, with percussion featured throughout. Unlike Virtù, it is a work for solo percussion and orchestra, not specifically for solo timpani and string orchestra.
An East Coast Premiere to Follow
Virtù won't stay a Seattle-only piece for long. The New Jersey Symphony lists itself as a co-commissioner and plans an East Coast premiere of the work April 1 through 4, 2027, according to the New Jersey Symphony, part of 54 mainstage programs the orchestra has planned across five New Jersey cities that season. In New Jersey, the soloist will be the orchestra's own principal timpanist, Gregory LaRosa, who the symphony says is stepping forward as soloist for the first time in a brand-new work written just for him.
Double-timpani writing has a small history of its own elsewhere in the repertoire. A 2014 article in the Valdosta Daily Times, covering a Valdosta Symphony Orchestra performance of James Oliverio's Dynasty Double Timpani Concerto featuring principal timpanists David Morris and Mark Yancich, described Dynasty and Glass's Concerto Fantasy as, at that time, the only two double-timpani concerti in existence — a claim specific to that 2014 report rather than a current survey of the field. Oliverio has composed three timpani concertos in total, including Dynasty, per the Seattle Times.
