Having addressed the categories of “Works by Living Composers” and “Returning Conductors” in previewing the Orchestral Series of the 2025–26 season of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS), the next category I had planned to address is “Returning Soloists & Guest Artists.” This accounts for 26 performers most (but not all) of whom will be visitors. Ironically, all but two of them are involved with programs that have already been cited.
One of those involves the “Living Composers” category, because SFS Principal Trombone Timothy Higgins will be the soloist in the performance of Jimmy López’ “Shift” on May 29 and 30. Similarly, on November 20 and 22, Olli Mustonen’s second nonet will share the program with the much earlier BWV 1050 fifth “Brandenburg” concerto by Johann Sebastian Bach, which will feature an extended harpsichord solo played by Jonathan Dimmock. Outi Tarkianainen’s “The Rapids of Life” will be coupled with Dmitri Shostakovich’s first piano concerto, which will be performed on January 22–24, The concerto includes a generous amount of trumpet work, which will be played by Principal Trumpet Mark Inouye; and the principal soloist will be visiting pianist Seong-Jin Cho. Finally, the premiere performance of Imam Habibi’s “Zhiân,” on June 12–14 will also feature violinist María Dueñas playing Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s violin concerto.
The most interesting of the returning conductors will be Manfred Honeck, performing on the last two days of February and the first of March. He will present Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 626 setting of the Requiem text as a “dramatic production.” Most likely, this will particularly involve the vocal soloists, soprano Ying Fang, mezzo Sasha Cooke, and bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen. In addition soprano Golda Schultz will sing arias from three Mozart operas on February 5–7. Then (of course) there will be the soloists for the annual performance (December 5 and 6) of George Frideric Handel’s HWV 56 Messiah oratorio: soprano Heidi Stober, mezzo Jennifer Johnson Cano, and baritone Will Liverman. Bach will again be featured in the Easter program (April 9–11), for which the soloists will be soprano Joélle Harvey and baritone Joshua Hopkins. This will couple the BWV 249 “Easter” oratorio with the BWV 243 setting of the Magnificat text. Almost as inevitable will be the next performance of Ludwig van Beethoven Opus 125 (ninth) symphony, whose soloists will include the debut of soprano Jessica Faselt, performing with mezzo Kelley O’Connor and tenor Thomas Cooley.
Max Bruch (photograph from Anne S. Faulkner’s book What We Hear in Music, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
That leaves one cello concerto, two violin concertos, and six piano concertos. The cello concerto is Camille Saint-Saëns’ Opus 33 (first) in A minor, which will be performed by Gautier Capuçon on April 17–19. The violinists will be Randall Goosby (Max Bruch’s Opus 26, his first violin concerto in G minor, January 15–17) Leonidas Kavakos (Béla Bartók’s second concerto, October 16–18), and Sergey Khachatryan (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 35 in D major, October 24–26).
Two of solo pianists will perform Mozart concertos, Emanuel Ax (K. 503 in C major, January 29–31) and Jan Lisiecki (K. 271 in E-flat major, March 20–22). Lisiecki will be followed by Simon Trpčeski (May 22–24) playing Sergei Rachmaninoff’s concerto in F-sharp minor, which is not only his first concerto but also his Opus 1. Edvard Grieg’s piano concerto will feature soloist Javier Perianes on October 3–5; and Jean-Yves Thibaudet will play Camille Saint-Saëns’ final (fifth) piano concerto, Opus 103, which reflects a visit the composer made to Egypt. His performance will be on March 26–28.
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