SFS 2025–26: Great Performers Series

The reason for the above scare quotes is that, traditionally, performances in the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) Great Performers Series are limited to a single evening, usually on a weekend so as not to conflict with SFS performances in the Orchestral Series. However, in the coming season there will be one “outlier” that will be given three performances on the weekend before Thanksgiving. As was reported a little over a month ago, the program will begin with the second nonet scored for string orchestra by Olli Mustonen, led by violinist Alexi Kenney. After that, the repertoire will take “a great leap backward.”

Kenney will continue to lead, but he will also be one of the three soloists in Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1050 “Brandenburg” concerto in D major, joined by flutist Yubeen Kim with Jonathan Dimmock at the harpsichord. This will be given three performances at 2 p.m. on Thursday, November 20, and 7:30 p.m. on Friday, November 21, and Saturday, November 22. This will be preceded by Kenney’s instrumental arrangement of one of Barbara Strozzi’s earliest madrigals and followed by the much more familiar Four Seasons cycle of concertos by Antonio Vivaldi.

George Balanchine’s choreography for “The Four Temperaments” performed by the Kansas City Ballet (photograph by Steve Wilson, courtesy of KCBalletMedia, from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license)

There will be one other orchestral performance in the Series, taking place on Sunday, April 26. The Mahler Chamber Orchestra will present a program of music by Paul Hindemith flanked on either side by Sergei Prokofiev, beginning with his first (“Classical”) symphony and concluding with his second piano concerto. Yuja Wang will be both soloist and director, with Matthew Truscott leading from the concertmaster’s chair when necessary. The Hindemith selection will be “The Four Temperaments,” originally conceived for choreographer Léonide Massine but ultimately completed on a commission for George Balanchine, who created the dance for the Ballet Society, which premiered it in 1946.

February 8 will see a rather unique duo recital. Violinist Nicola Benedetti will be accompanied on guitar by Plínio Fernandes. There will also be a violin recital by Itzhak Perlman on November 4, followed on November 16 by cello recitalist Gautier Capuçon. The two solo piano recitalists will be Marc-André Hamelin on October 19 and Yefim Bronfman on February 8.