The most-anticipated concert in Spring for Music, the most-anticipated classical-music festival in New York City’s season, the

Seattle Symphony’s performance in Carnegie Hall in May got a thrilling but accidental publicity boost when John Luther Adams’ Become Ocean—an SSO commission that the orchestra had decided months earlier would be one of the pieces they’d show off to the Big Apple—won a Pulitzer just before the trip. More than 800 locals traveled alongside the SSO to help pack the hall for a festive evening that was not only the highest-profile triumph of conductor Ludovic Morlot’s first three seasons here, but a strong statement of his commitment to making contemporary music a programming priority.

seattlesymphony.org

Read all of our picks for Arts & Culture, and explore the rest of this year’s edition of Best of Seattle.