Yesterday (August 25) was Leonard Bernstein’s 99th birthday. The San Francisco Symphony (SFS) and Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) have planned a series of events between now and August 25, 2018 as an extended celebration of Bernstein’s birth centennial. That will include four concert programs and a film screening with “live” musical accompaniment that will take place over the course of the coming season. Since the first of those will take place a little less than a month from today, this is a good time to review all the options that will be available.
The very first program to follow the season-opening festivities will consist entirely of compositions by Bernstein. MTT will conduct a program that will begin with the jazzy “Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs” with Principal Clarinet Carey Bell as featured soloist. [updated 9/7, 5:35 p.m.: The SFS Chorus (Ragnar Bohlin, Director) will then join SFS for a performance of the Chichester Psalms cycle. The treble solo will be taken by boy soprano Nicholas Hu.] Bass-baritone Ryan McKinny will then make his SFS debut, joining mezzo Isabel Leonard in a performance of the song cycle Arias and Barcarolles. Bernstein composed this as chamber music in 1988, scored for mezzo, baritone, and four hands on a single piano keyboard. The original four hands were provided by Bernstein and MTT:
The 1988 premiere of Arias and Barcarolles, courtesy of SFS
On this program Bruce Coughlin’s orchestration of the piano part will be performed. The program will then conclude with the suite Symphonic Dances, a compilation of instrumental music from the musical West Side Story prepared by Irwin Kostal and Sid Ramin, both of whom prepared the score for the film version of this musical.
This concert will be given three performances, at 8 p.m. on Friday, September 22, and Saturday, September 23, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, September 24. [updated 9/7, 5:40 p.m.: There will be an Inside Music talk given by Bernstein scholar and biographer Humphrey Barton that will begin 90 minutes prior to each concert.] Doors to the lobbies open fifteen minutes before the talk begins. Ticket prices range from $35 to $159. They may be purchased online through the event page for this program on the SFS Web site, by calling 415-864-6000, or by visiting the Box Office in Davies Symphony Hall, whose entrance is on the south side of Grove Street between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. In addition, prior to the performances themselves, the Program Note Podcasts Web page will have a free podcast about West Side Story hosted by KDFC’s Rik Malone. The Box Office is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, and from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday.
At the beginning of November, MTT will present the second program with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet serving as guest soloist. He will be featured in a performance of Bernstein’s second symphony, which the composer named “The Age of Anxiety” after an 80-page poem by W. H. Auden, who called it (probably with a very arch sense of irony) “A Baroque Eclogue.” For this series of performances MTT has decided to couple this symphony with Richard Strauss’ Opus 40 tone poem “Ein Heldenleben” (a hero’s life). Listeners will be free to decide for themselves just who the “hero” is on this particular occasion.
This concert will be given three performances, at 8 p.m. on Thursday, November 2, and Friday, November 3, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, November 5. Ticket prices range from $15 to $155. They may be purchased online through the event page for this program on the SFS Web site, by calling 415-864-6000, or by visiting the Box Office in Davies Symphony Hall, whose entrance is on the south side of Grove Street between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. In addition, prior to the performances themselves, the Program Note Podcasts Web page will have a free podcast about “The Age of Anxiety” hosted by KDFC’s Rik Malone. The Box Office is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, and from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday.
In addition, these performances will be preceded by a Katherine Hanrahan Open Rehearsal. This special behind-the-scenes experience begins at 8:30 a.m. with coffee and complimentary doughnuts, followed by a half-hour introductory talk by Foglesong at 9 a.m. The rehearsal itself begins at 10 a.m.; and, of course, the pieces rehearsed are at the conductor’s discretion. General admission is $30 with $40 for reserved seats in the Premiere Orchestra section, the Side and Rear Boxes, and the Loge. Tickets may be purchased online through a separate event page.
In January MTT will conduct a concert performance of the musical Candide, for which Bernstein composed the score. The lead roles of Candide and Cunégonde will be taken by Jay Armstrong Johnson and Meghan Picerno, respectively. The SFS Chorus will also perform.
This concert will be given four performances, at 8 p.m. on Thursday, January 18, Friday, January 19, and Saturday, January 20, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, January 21. Ticket prices range from $35 to $159. They may be purchased online through the event page for this program on the SFS Web site, by calling 415-864-6000, or by visiting the Box Office in Davies Symphony Hall, whose entrance is on the south side of Grove Street between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. In addition, prior to the performances themselves, the Program Note Podcasts Web page will have a free podcast about the musical hosted by KDFC’s Rik Malone. The Box Office is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, and from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday.
The following month a remastered version of the West Side Story film will be screened three times. SFS will give a live performance of the score prepared for this film. David Newman will conduct.
The three screenings will all take place at 8 p.m. on Thursday, February 1, Friday, February 2, and Saturday, February 3. Ticket prices range from $46 to $166. They may be purchased online through the event page for this program on the SFS Web site, by calling 415-864-6000, or by visiting the Box Office in Davies Symphony Hall, whose entrance is on the south side of Grove Street between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. There is also a free podcast about the musical hosted by KDFC’s Rik Malone, which has already been posted and may be played through a hyperlink on the event page. The Box Office is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, and from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday.
The final concert in this series will mark the SFS debut of conductor Andrey Boreyko, currently Music Director of the Orchestra National de Belgique. Violinist Vadim Gluzman will return as soloist in a performance of Bernstein’s “Serenade after Plato’s ‘Symposium,’” whose movements basically serve as sketches of the personalities of the participants in this particular Platonic dialogue. The opening selection will be the orchestral divertimento that Bernstein composed in 1980. The second half of the program will consist entirely of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 47 (fifth) symphony in D minor. This symphony has its own “Bernstein connection,” since it was part of a program that Bernstein prepared for performance with the New York Philharmonic during a visit to the Soviet Union when the Cold War was at its coldest.
This concert will be given three performances, all at 8 p.m. on Thursday, February 22, Friday, February 23, and Saturday, February 24. Ticket prices range from $15 to $159. They may be purchased online through the event page for this program on the SFS Web site, by calling 415-864-6000, or by visiting the Box Office in Davies Symphony Hall, whose entrance is on the south side of Grove Street between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. In addition, prior to the performances themselves, the Program Note Podcasts Web page will have a free podcast about the Shostakovich symphony hosted by KDFC’s Rik Malone. The Box Office is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, and from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday.
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