Thursday, December 20, 2018

Conductors Visiting SFS in January of 2019

January will be the next month during which, in all San Francisco Symphony (SFS) subscription concerts, the podium of Davies Symphony Hall will be occupied entirely by visiting conductors. As has already been announced, Esa-Pekka Salonen, whose tenure as the twelfth SFS Music Director will begin in September 2020, will recognize his appointment with a program that will be given three performances between Friday, January 18, and Sunday, January 20. Specifics for the other three visitors and the programs they have prepared are as follows:

January 11–13: Conductor Jaap van Zweden made his SFS debut in February of 2014, when he was Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. He will return as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, and he has prepared program that promises to be a feast for attentive listeners. SFS Principal Clarinet Carey Bell, who gave a thoroughly engaging account of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 581 clarinet quintet in A major this past Sunday, will perform Mozart’s other major composition for clarinet, the K. 622 concerto in A major, completed in the year of his death. The second half of the program will then be devoted entirely to Anton Bruckner’s fifth symphony.

This concert will be given three performances, at 8 p.m. on Friday, January 11, and Saturday, January 12, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, January 13. There will be an Inside Music talk given by Scott Foglesong that will begin one hour before the performance. Doors to the Davies lobbies open fifteen minutes before the talk begins. Ticket prices range from $20 to $156. 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 Davies Box Office, whose entrance is on the south side of Grove Street between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. The event page also has an embedded sound file of KDFC’s Rik Malone’s podcast about the Bruckner symphony, as well as another file of sound clips from previous SFS performances of that symphony. Flash must be enabled for both streamed content and online ticket purchases. The Box Office is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday, and two hours prior to Sunday performances.

January 24–26: Christian Reif is now in his final season as SFS Resident Conductor and Wattis Foundation Music Director of the SFS Youth Orchestra. He has prepared a “standard” overture-concerto-symphony program. The concerto soloist will be the German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser, who will be featured in the first SFS performances of Witold Lutosławski’s cello concerto. (This will replace the previously announced performance of Andrew Norman’s cello concerto, which has been postponed to a later date.) The overture will be Richard Strauss’ Opus 20 tone poem “Don Juan;” and the symphony will be Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 100 (fifth) symphony in B-flat major.

This concert will be given three performances, all at 8 p.m. on Thursday, January 24, Friday, January 25, Saturday, January 26. The Inside Music talk will be given by Peter Grunberg one hour prior to each concert. Ticket prices range from $20 to $166, and an event page has been created for online purchase. The event page also has an embedded sound file of KDFC’s Rik Malone’s podcast about the Prokofiev symphony and sound clips of previous SFS performances of that symphony.

January 31–February 2: Conductor Laureate Herbert Blomstedt will make his annual return to the Davies podium. He will conduct two nineteenth-century symphonies, both of which were inspired by travel and nature. The first of these will be Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 68 (Pastoral) in F major. The intermission will then be followed by Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 56 (Scottish) in A major.

This concert will be given three performances, all at 8 p.m. on Thursday, January 31, Friday, February 1, Saturday, February 2. The Inside Music talk will be given by James M. Keller one hour prior to each concert. Ticket prices range from $20 to $156, and an event page has been created for online purchase. The event page also has an embedded sound file of KDFC’s Rik Malone’s podcast about both symphonies and sound clips of previous SFS performances, also of both symphonies.

In addition, these performances will be preceded by the next Katherine Hanrahan Open Rehearsal. This special behind-the-scenes experience begins at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, January 31, with coffee and complimentary doughnuts, followed by a half-hour introductory talk by Keller 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 and Rear Boxes and $45 for seating in the Side Boxes and the Loge. Tickets may be purchased online through a separate event page.

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