SFP Announces 2024–2025 Season

Yesterday’s electronic mail brought the announcement of the 2024–2025 San Francisco Performances (SFP) season. This should be treated as a landmark, since it will be the organization’s 45th season. Regular readers probably know by now that, towards the end of the summer, this site will give a series-by-series account of the programs that have been planned. For now, it will be sufficient to say that the season will begin on October 4 with a Gala Event held in conjunction with a recital by tenor Nicholas Phan accompanied at the piano by Jake Heggie. The season will conclude on May 3 with a solo recital by guitarist Manuel Barrueco, who was the first SFP guitarist-in-residence nearly 30 years ago.

As in the past, there will be a series taking place on Saturday mornings, beginning at 10 a.m. As in the past this series will be presented by the members of the Alexander String Quartet (ASQ) joined by Music Historian-in-Residence Robert Greenberg. However, this season will mark the “final bow” of ASQ, which will disband after having served as the SFS Ensemble-in-Residence for 36 years. The title of this final series will be Papa Joe and Wolfgang. Over the course of five programs six string quartets by Joseph Haydn will interleave with six by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. As was the case this season, the selections will be performed in roughly chronological order, allowing the listener to appreciate how each composer influenced the other.

This 45th season will also mark the tenth anniversary of the PIVOT Festival. Once again, the Festival will consist of three consecutive evenings of performances during the first month of the new year, this time on January 29, 30, and 31. The curator will again be Gabriel Kahane, serving as both pianist and vocalist for all three of the programs. The other contributing performers will be Carla Kihlstedt, violinist and vocalist, the Del Sol Quartet, and Sandbox Percussion. There will also be a special 45th Season Favorites Series to acknowledge four “regular visitors” to SFP: the Jerusalem Quartet, pianist Marc-André Hamelin, cellist Steven Isserlis, and the Pavel Haas Quartet. The other series will be familiar to SFP audiences:

• Robert and Ruth Dell Piano Series
• Great Artists and Ensembles
• Chamber
• Art of Song
• Guitar

As in the past, the Guitar Series will be presented in association with the OMNI Foundation for the Performing Arts.

Subscriptions will go on sale on April 16. Presumably, the usual booklet that summarizes all of the coming programs, supplemented with color photographs, will be sent in the mail to current subscribers. The benefits of subscribing include savings on single ticket prices, priority seating, free ticket exchange privileges, and invitations to the annual Gift Concert. This season that event will be a recital by violinist Geneva Lewis, who has prepared a program that will include music by both Robert and Clara Schumann, as well as Mozart, César Franck, and Valentin Silvestrov. Subscribers may select individual series or create their own packages. They may be ordered by calling the Ticket Office at 415-677-0325, and presumably a Web page for online orders will be made available on April 16. Single tickets will go on sale on August 13.