SFS and Salonen Announce 2021–22 Season

This morning the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) and Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen announced plans for the 109th season. As San Francisco emerges from the lockdown conditions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, this will be the first complete season since Salonen began his tenure in 2020. He has planned a season that will reflect a spirit of collaboration, experimentation, and renewed dialogue through live music, which will involve not only SFS and the SFS Chorus but also Salonen’s eight hand-picked Collaborative Partners.

The full scope of the season’s programming has now been uploaded to the Calendar Web page on the SFS Web site. This is clearly more than can be accommodated in the scope of a single article. As a result, this site will present a “topical piecemeal” account of different categories of offerings. However, it is important to begin at the beginning, which means the performances that will take place during Opening Week. In addition this article will preview several of the innovative approaches to programming that Salonen will conduct in Davies Symphony Hall. These events will be ordered by date with hyperlinks to the Web pages from which tickets may be purchased:

Friday, October 1, 7 p.m.: The season will begin with a “Re-Opening Night Gala,” which will be held in honor of Sakurako and William Fisher. Sakurako was President of the SFS Board, succeeding John D. Goldman in 2012 and holding the post through the end of 2020. Salonen will begin the program with “Slonimsky’s Earbox,” composed by John Adams, known for his ongoing close relationship with SFS. His music will be complemented by twentieth-century works by two Latin American composers. The first of these will be Argentinian Alberto Ginastera with a performance of the suite from his Opus 8 score for the ballet “Estancia.” The program will conclude with “Noche de encantamiento” (night of enchantment), one of the movements he prepared for his suite based on his score for the film La noche de los mayas (the night of the Mayans). The Alonzo King LINES Ballet will perform for at least one of these selections. In addition Collaborative Partner Esperanza Spalding will present selected songs by Wayne Shorter, probably accompanying herself on bass.

Saturday, October 2, 7:30: The first subscription concert of the season will have the same program as performed on October 1 but without any of the Gala festivities.

Thursday, October 7, Friday, October 8, and Saturday, October 9, 7:30 p.m.: This program will feature two premieres. Hannah Kendall’s “Tuxedo: Vasco ‘de’ Gama” will be given its United States premiere. It will be followed by the first SFS performances of Unsuk Chin’s “Graffiti.” It will conclude with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 92 (seventh) symphony in A major.

Thursday, October 14, Friday, October 15, and Saturday, October 16, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, October 17, 2 p.m.: This may be called “Not Your Usual Program of French Music.” Collaborative Partner Claire Chase will be the flute soloists in the SFS premiere performance of Kaija Saariaho’s “Aile du songe” (wing of the dream). (Yes, Saariaho was born in Finland; but she has been living in France ever since she took her first course in computer music at IRCAM, the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music, in Paris!) Jeremy Denk will be the piano soloist in a performance of Olivier Messiaen’s “Oiseaux exotiques” (exotic birds). The entire program will be framed by two compositions by Claude Debussy, beginning with the “Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune” (prelude to the afternoon of a faun) and concluding with “La mer” (the sea).

Thursday, October 21, Friday, October 22, and Saturday, October 23, 7:30 p.m: The program will present the United States premiere of the violin concerto by Collaborative Partner Bryce Dessner, written on an SFS commission. The soloist will be Collaborative Partner Pekka Kuusisto, making his debut in the SFS Orchestra Series. This will be an overture-concerto-symphony program. The overture will be the second that Beethoven composed with the title “Leonore.” The symphony will be Franz Schubert’s D. 485 (fifth) in B-flat major.

Thursday and Saturday, February 24 and 26, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, February 27, 2 p.m.: This will be the first of two programs organized around the Greek myth of Prometheus. It will consist entirely of Beethoven’s music for the two-act ballet The Creatures of Prometheus. Animation will be provided by Hillary Leben.

Thursday, March 3, Friday, March 4, and Saturday, March 5, 7:30 p.m.: This program will be framed by the Prometheus selections. It will begin with Franz Liszt’s “Prometheus” symphonic poem. The program will conclude with one of Alexander Scriabin’s most ambitious undertakings, “Prometheus: The Poem of Fire,” which he scored for piano, orchestra, choir (optional), and “color organ.” The pianist will be Jean-Yves Thibaudet. The program will also include the world premiere of “Song of the Flaming Phoenix,” which Fang Man composed for sheng and orchestra. SFS shared in the commissioning of this composition. The remaining work on the program will be instrumental excerpts from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opera Castor et Pollux.

Thursday, March 10, 2 p.m., and Friday and Saturday, March 11–12, 7:30 p.m.: Violinist Leila Josefowicz will be the soloist in a performance of Igor Stravinsky’s violin concerto, and the second half of the program will be devoted to Stravinsky’s score for the ballet “The Rite of Spring;” the program will begin with the SFS premiere of “Sleep & Unremembrance” by Elizabeth Ogonek.

Friday and Saturday, June 10–11, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, June 12, 2 p.m.: Peter Sellars will present semi-staged performances of two compositions by Stravinsky, his oratorio “Oedipus Rex” and his “Symphony of Psalms.” Both of these works will feature the SFS Chorus. The vocal soloists will be tenor Sean Panikkar in the role of Oedipus, mezzo J’Nai Bridges making her Orchestral Series debut as Jocasta, and bass-baritone Willard White in the roles of Creon, Tiresias, and the messenger.

Because the season has not yet begun, subscriptions are only being sold. There are a wide variety of options, including those concert series that do not involve the SFS performances. A single Web page has been created that enumerates all options, providing hyperlinks to the details for each of them. Single tickets will go on sale on August 31.