SFS Subscription Season: The Final Three Weeks

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting (photograph by Minna Hatinen, courtesy of SFS)

Following the staged ballet-opera program that will begin next month, which was described yesterday, there will be three more weeks of subscription programs presented by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). All of the performances will be led by Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, and each will involve a distinguished visiting artist. Specifics are as follows:

June 13–15: Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason will return to Davies Symphony Hall. He made his debut there in October of 2022, when he played Edward Elgar’s cello concerto with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, led by conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. For his debut in the Orchestral Series, he will play Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 107, the first of his two cello concertos composed in the key of E-flat major. The remainder of the program will be devoted to tone poems. The first of these will be the SFS premiere of “Fairytale Poem” by Sofia Gubaidulina. The program will then conclude with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Francesca da Rimini.”

June 21–23: Pianist Yefim Bronfman will return to Davies, this time as soloist in a performance of Robert Schumann’s piano concerto. The rest of the program will be devoted entirely to Anton Bruckner’s WAB 104, his fourth symphony in E-flat major. Bruckner himself gave this symphony the subtitle “Romantic.”

June 28–30: The final program of the season will consist only of Gustav Mahler’s third symphony. This is a full-evening composition with extended resources. Those resources will include visiting mezzo Kelley O’Connor, as well as the joined choral forces of the SFS Chorus (Jenny Wong, Director) and the Pacific Boychoir Academy (Andrew Brown, Director).

Each of the above dates is hyperlinked to an SFS Web page through which readers can be informed about ticket prices and availability, as well as support for online purchases. In addition, there will be an Open Rehearsal on Thursday, June 13, for the program with Kanneh-Mason. This special behind-the-scenes experience begins at 8:30 a.m. with coffee and complimentary doughnuts, followed by a half-hour introductory talk at 9 a.m. The rehearsal itself begins at 10 a.m.; and, of course, the pieces rehearsed are at the conductor’s discretion. Admission will be free for those holding tickets for one of the three concert performances. For others general admission is $35 with $45 for reserved seats in the Premiere Orchestra section, as well as all Boxes and the Loge. Tickets may be purchased online through a separate event page. All tickets may also be purchased at the Davies Symphony Hall Box Office. The entrance is on the south side of MTT Way (formerly Grove Street), located between Franklin Street and Van Ness Avenue.