SFS and Salonen Announce 2022–23 Season

As I write this, it is probably the case that all those holding any subscription package for the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) have already received electronic mail notifying them that subscription packages for the 2022–23 season are now on sale. (I assume that anyone reading this also receives and reads electronic mail!) The full scope of the season’s programming is now available for viewing through the Calendar Web page, but that site is not easily browsed. As a result, I always seem to find myself at a loss when it comes to finding the “sweet spot” between saying too much or saying too little. As a result, I shall try to take my guidance from the topical organization of this morning’s press release in order to inform readers of some of the more interesting aspects of the coming season.

The primary focus of each season is, of course, SFS itself and its Orchestral Series. Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen will take the podium in a variety of capacities:

• He will lead world premiere performances of three new works. Titles have not yet been assigned, but the composers will be Samuel Adams, Magnus Lindberg, and Trevor Weston, the 2021 winner of the Emerging Black Composer Project competition. Salonen will also conduct the United State premiere of Daniel Kidane’s suite Precipice Dances.
• Salonen will conduct two weeks of programming in October appropriate to the Halloween holiday. Selections will include the suite that Béla Bartók extracted from his score for the one-act pantomime ballet “The Miraculous Mandarin.” There will also be a suite based on the music that Bernard Herrmann composed for the film Psycho. The other selections will include Hector Berlioz’ “Symphonie fantastique,” Heinz Karl (HK) Gruber’s “Frankenstein!!,” described as a “pan-demonium,” Franz Liszt’s “Totentanz,” and Modest Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain.”
• The soloists that Salonen will conduct include Collaborative Partner Julia Bullock. Returning guests will be Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Michelle DeYoung, Lang Lang, Igor Levit, and Yuja Wang. Soloists making debut performances at these Series concerts will be Bertrand Chamayou, Randall Goosby, Conor Hanick, Christopher Purves, and Golda Schultz.
• Composers from the “general repertoire canon” will be (in alphabetical order) Bartók (“Concerto for Orchestra”), Ludwig van Beethoven (the Opus 55 “Eroica” symphony in E-flat major), Berlioz (as above), Anton Bruckner (sixth symphony in A major), Gustav Mahler (C-minor “Resurrection” symphony), Jean Sibelius (Opus 82 in E-flat major), Richard Strauss (“Also sprach Zarathustra”), and the complete score that Igor Stravinsky composed for the ballet “The Firebird.”

In addition this coming June will mark the beginning of a four-year partnership with director Peter Sellars, who will stage Stravinsky’s opera-oratorio “Oedipus rex.” One year later Sellars will stage Kaija Saariaho’s one-act opera “Adriana Mater.” Plans are in the works for the following two years and will be announced once more is known.

There will also be three offerings of a special nature:

1. As may be guessed, one of these will be the Opening Night Gala, with festivities taking place both before and after the Opening Night Concert, which will begin at 7 p.m. on Friday, September 23. The program has not yet been announced. This year that performance will again be preceded by the All San Francisco concert, which is offered to community groups and social service organizations by invitation only. Those interested in being invited should send electronic mail to allsf@sysymphony.org, preferably prior to September.
2. Lang will be the first of two “special guests,” serving as soloist in a performance of Edvard Grieg’s piano concerto on the same program at which Salonen will conduct Sibelius’ Opus 82 (fifth) symphony in E-flat major.
3. The other “special guest” will also be a pianist. Wang will be the soloist in a performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Opus 30 (third) piano concerto in D minor. This program will also include Salonen conducting “Nyx,” one of his own compositions.

Music Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) will conduct four of the SFS subscription programs. Three soloists will perform with him. Of greatest interest is that Gautier Capuçon will be the solo cellist in the United States premiere of a cello concerto composed by Danny Elfman. The other visiting arts will be pianists. Emanuel Ax will perform Johannes Brahms’ Opus 15 (first) piano concerto in D minor; and Jean-Yves Thibaudet will perform Claude Debussy’s “Fantasie” for piano and orchestra. MTT’s repertoire for his visit will also include works by Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Olivier Messiaen, Mahler, and Heitor Villa-Lobos.

There will also be two premiere performances presented by other conductors:

1. Giancarlo Guerrero will lead the West Coast premiere of Julia Wolfe’s “Her Story,” which was co-commissioned by SFS. This work includes a libretto, which invokes the words of historical figures and the spirit of pivotal moments to pay tribute to the centuries of ongoing struggle for equal rights, representation, and access to democracy for women in America. The vocal parts will be performed by the Lorelei Ensemble.
2. Edwin Outwater will lead SFS in the premiere of another vocal selection. This will be Gabriel Kahane’s song cycle emergency shelter intake form. Kahane’s objective was to explore the perpetuation of systemic inequity and homelessness. He will be one of the vocalists, joined by Holland Andrews, Holcombe Waller and mezzo Alicia Hall Moran.

Finally, pianist Levitt will be this coming season’s Artist-in-Residence. He will perform two piano concertos with SFS with a wide difference in familiarity. Most likely the audience will already be familiar with Beethoven’s Opus 73 (fifth) concerto in E-flat major. On the other hand I suspect that only a handful know that Ferruccio Busoni composed a piano concerto (his Opus 39); and even fewer may know that the performance requires a male chorus. (For the record, as they say, I am only aware of this music through a CD; and I do not think I have encountered anyone who experienced this music in concert performance.) Levitt’s residency will also include a solo recital in the Great Performers Series and participation in an SFS Chamber Music program.

Further information about the Great Performers Series, as well as the Shenson Spotlight Series and the programs for the SFS Youth Orchestra, let by Wattis Foundation Music Director Daniel Stewart, will be forthcoming as the plans are finalized.

Single tickets will go on sale on July 16.