Saturday, May 13, 2023

SFS: The Final Guest Conductors

Two guest conductors remain in the current season of San Francisco Symphony (SFS) subscription concerts. The first will close out the current month, and the second will first take the podium in Davies Symphony Hall on June 1. Specifics are as follows.

from the SFS event page for the program including Her Story

The final program of this month will be led by Giancarlo Guerrero, who made his Orchestral Series debut in April of last year. He will lead a “call-and-response” program, in which the “call” will be Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Opus 35 symphonic suite entitled Scheherazade. The “response” will be the West Coast premiere of Her Story, a composition by Julia Wolfe co-commissioned by SFS, along with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, and the Nashville Symphony, where Guerrero is Music Director. The performance will be a staged production, which incorporates text from throughout the history of women’s fight for equality, ranging from a letter written by Abigail Adams and words attributed to Sojourner Truth to public attacks directed at women protesting for the right to vote and political satire. Direction will be by Anne Kauffman, with scenery, lighting, and production designed by Jeff Sugg, sound design by Andrew Cotton, and costume design by Márion Talán de la Rosa. The entire project will be managed by Kenny Savelson, and Asher Lloyd Ehrenberg will serve as Associate Director. The entire production was conceived and realized by Bang on a Can.

This program will be given only two performances, both taking place at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 25, and Saturday, May 27. A single Web page has been created with hyperlinks for purchasing tickets for each of those dates. Ticket prices range from $35 to $135 and may also be purchased by calling the SFS Box Office at 415-864-6000.

These performances will be preceded by the next Katherine Hanrahan Open Rehearsal. This special behind-the-scenes experience begins at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 25, with coffee and complimentary doughnuts, followed by a half-hour introductory talk by Sarah Cahill at 9 a.m. The rehearsal itself begins at 10 a.m.; and, of course, the music to be rehearsed is at the conductor’s discretion. General admission is $30 with $40 for reserved seats in the Premier Orchestra section, Rear Boxes and Side Boxes, and the Loge. Tickets may be purchased online through a separate event page.

Next month will begin with the return of conductor Manfred Honeck. The program will follow the more conventional overture-concerto-symphony structure. The concerto soloist will be pianist Beatrice Rana, performing Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Opus 43, the “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.” The “overture” will be the first SFS performances of “amazon” by Gloria Isabel Ramos Triano. The symphony will be Franz Schubert’s D. 944 in C major, often known as “The Great.” Wikipedia still identifies this as his ninth symphony. However, after some arguing over what was listed as the seventh symphony, the New Schubert Edition dropped it from the count; and D. 944 is now listed as the eighth symphony!

This program will be given three performances at 2 p.m. on Thursday, June 1, and at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, June 2, and Saturday, June 3. A single Web page has been created with hyperlinks for purchasing tickets for each of those dates. Ticket prices range from $20 to $165 and may also be purchased by calling the SFS Box Office at 415-864-6000.

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