Last-Minute Announcement of Inaugural Concert

Poster for tonight’s concert (from its Facebook Events Web page)

“This just in” (as they say): Tonight the Taube Atrium Theater in the Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera will provide the venue for the world debut of the San Francisco Philharmonic. Little information has been released about this ensemble thus far, but the performance will be conducted by the ensemble’s founder and Music Director Jessica Bejarano. She has prepared a straightforward overture-concerto-symphony program that should account for the abilities of this new group to deal with the basic nut-and-bolts of concert performance.

The concerto selection will be Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 364, known as the “Sinfonia Concertante.” Mozart scored this for solo parts taken by both violin and viola. Those parts will be performed, respectively, by Cordula Merks, Concertmaster of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, and Jonathan Vinocour, Principal Viola of the San Francisco Symphony. This will be preceded by Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 26 concert overture known as “The Hebrides.” The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to the symphony offering, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 36 (fourth) symphony in F minor.

This performance will begin at 8 p.m. tonight, February 3; and doors will open at 7:30 p.m. The Atrium Theater is located in the Veterans Building (on the fourth floor) at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. General admission will be $30 for all. Tickets may be purchased in advance online through an Eventbrite event page.