Ivan & Alyosha - Live At Benaroya Hall (feat. Seattle Symphony Orchestra) (2021) Hi-Res

“If there is a silver lining to the pandemic,” says Seattle Symphony associate conductor Lee Mills, “it’s that Seattle artists whom the orchestra wants to work with are all in town. Typically they’d be busy with touring. Now their schedules are clear.”

The artists Mills is specifically referring to are local stars from various popular music genres who have already collaborated, or who will collaborate with, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra as part of the latter’s new Essential Series program. A new iteration of the symphony’s past Sonic Evolution concerts, the Essential Series invites different voices from Seattle’s music community to partner with the orchestra in novel kinships.

Ivan & Alyosha frontman Tim Wilson also has confidence his band’s appearance at Benaroya Hall will be much more graceful than the sound of a rock band bashing away while the orchestra tries to keep up. (The concert will be livestreamed at live.seattlesymphony.org and available for a week to stream afterward.)

“There are a couple of reimaginings of certain songs we’ll do,” says Wilson by phone from the band’s garage studio in Edmonds. “There are moments where the symphony will come in really hot, and other moments when it will just be the band. There’s a song called ‘Tears In Your Eyes,’ where things won’t really pick up until well into the song, with the symphony and drums. But overall this will be us jamming with the Seattle Symphony, which is insane.” Wilson promises a slate of fan favorites, both old and new songs including the uplifting “Everybody Breaks,” the wintry lament “Everything is Burning” and the delicate ballad “Don’t Lose Your Love.” The latter “will sound beautiful, epic with the symphony behind it,” says Wilson.