Summer with the Symphony at Davies

As in the past, Summer with the Symphony involves San Francisco Symphony (SFS) programming that goes beyond the repertoire of the subscription concerts. The summer season will run from early July through early August. The more traditional classical music offerings will consist of four programs to be performed at Davies Symphony Hall and one that will take place as one of the events in the Stern Grove Festival. This year, however, will see a departure from tradition. Stern Grove will not host a Fourth of July program. Instead, SFS will give a Sunday afternoon program at Stern Grove at the end of July, along with four programs that will be performed in Davies. Specifics (with hyperlinks for purchasing tickets) are as follows:

Thursday, July 7, 7:30 p.m.: The title of this program is Night in Bohemia. This actually refers to the second half of the program, which will be devoted entirely to Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 88 (eighth) symphony in G major. This will be an overture-concerto-symphony program. The concerto soloist will be cellist Johannes Moser, playing Édouard Lalo’s only cello concerto. The “overture” will be Kareem Roustom’s “Ramal.” The conductor will be Erina Yashima.

Thursday, July 14, 7:30 p.m.: The guest artists for this program will be the members of the Time for Three trio, violinists Nicolas Kendall and Charles Yang, and bass player Ranaan Meyer. Both Kendall and Yang also perform as vocalists. They will be featured in a performance of “Contact,” a concerto for two violins, bass, and orchestra, which was co-commissioned by SFS. The program will get off to a rousing start with Aaron Copland’s “El Salón México.” The remainder of the program will be devoted to “Viennese nostalgia.” The first selection following the intermission will be the overture to Johan Strauss II’s operetta Die Fledermaus (the bat). The baton will then be passed from the “Viennese Strauss” to the “German Strauss,” Richard. The program will conclude with a suite of music from the opera Die Rosenkavalier (the knight of the rose). The conductor will be Paolo Bortolameolli.

Thursday, July 21, 7:30 p.m.: The title of this program is Rapture & Reverie. The soloist will be pianist Inon Barnatan, performing Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.” This will follow the “overture” selection, “Tidalwave Kitchen,” composed by Gabriella Smith. The second half of the program will be based on the friendship between George Gershwin and Maurice Ravel. Appropriate to that context, the first selection will be Gershwin’s “An American in Paris.” This will be followed by Ravel’s “Boléro.” The conductor will be Ludovic Morlot.

Sunday, July 31, 2 p.m.: The soloist for this program will be violinist Benjamin Beilman. He will perform Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 19 (first) violin concerto in D major. Russian music will be performed at the beginning, middle, and end of the program. Igor Stravinsky will lead the way with his “Scherzo à la russe,” which was given its premiere performance by SFS in March of 1946. The final selection will be Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Capriccio Espagnol.” Stravinsky’s playfulness will be followed by a less familiar playful composition, Dinuk Wijeratne’s “Polyphonic Lively,” which won the 2017 Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia Masterworks Arts Award. The second half of the program will introduce two contrasting works preceding “Capriccio Espagnol.” The first of these will be “Coincident Dances” by Jessie Montgomery. This will be followed by Johannes Brahms Opus 81 concert overture given the title “Tragic Overture.” The conductor will be Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser. This will be a free concert, but advance reservations will be required. Reservations will be made through the Stern Grove Web site, but the hyperlink will not be posted until July 19. The SFS event page (hyperlinked above) includes a hyperlink for making reservations, which will be activated on that date.

Thursday, August 4, 2 p.m. and Friday, August 5, 7:30 p.m.: The final program will be given two performances. Teddy Abrams will not only conduct but also begin the program with one of his compositions, the overture to The Greatest: Muhammad Ali, which Abrams describes as “a 90-minute opera-rap-oratorio mashup.” (In addition to composing the music, Abrams wrote the libretto.) Abrams overture will be followed by “Philharmonia Fantastique: The Making of the Orchestra” composed on an SFS co-commission by Mason Bates. The second half of the program will begin with Angélica Negrón’s “Fractal Isles.” It will then conclude with the “Symphonic Dances” music that Leonard Bernstein arranged from his score for the musical West Side Story.