SFS Youth Orchestra Season: 2025–26

Radu Paponiu conducting SFSYO (from the Web page for this season’s performance on May 17)

This season will see five concerts in Davies Symphony Hall performed by the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra (SFSYO) led by Wattis Foundation Music Director Radu Paponiu. As usual, tickets will be available at the Davies Symphony Hall Box Office, which is at the entrance on the south side of Grove Street, between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street; and hyperlinks are available below for online purchases. As was previously announced at the beginning of this month, the first of those performances will take place a 2 p.m. on Sunday, November 23, featuring an overture by Johannes Brahms, a concerto by Felix Mendelssohn, and a symphony by Antonín Dvořák. Details about the remaining four events in the season, which will also take place on Sundays, are as follows:

December 14, 2 p.m.: As usual, the holiday season will be celebrated with the annual performance by SFSYO of Sergei Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf.” This year the narrator will be Joshua Dela Cruz. There will also be selections from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker, and the program will conclude with a “sing-along” of traditional Christmas carols. Ticket prices will range from $19.50 to $149.

January 18, 3 p.m.: SFSYO will host the Bay Area Youth Orchestra Festival. The other participating ensembles will be the California Youth Symphony, the Marin Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Santa Rosa Symphony Youth Orchestra, and the Young People’s Symphony Orchestra. Each participating ensemble will perform a selection, and the program will conclude with an “all-hands” performance by the Festival Orchestra. The program will include overtures by Giuseppe Verdi (Nabuco) and Johannes Brahms (“Academic Festival”), movements selected from three symphonies by, respectively, Antonín Dvořák (Opus 88, the eighth in G major), Sergei Prokofiev (Opus 100, the fifth, in B-flat major), and Dmitri Shostakovich (Opus 93, the tenth in E minor). The program will also include “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Paul Dukas and the “Pinkillo Serrano” movement from Gabriela Lena Frank’s Apu: Tone Poem for Orchestra. Ticket prices will range from $25 to $70.

March 8, 2 p.m.: Soprano Hanna Cho will be guest artist, performing in the final movement of Gustav Mahler’s fourth symphony in G major. The first half of the program will begin with Jean Sibelius’ “Finlandia,” followed by “blue cathedral,” composed by Jennifer Higdon. Ticket prices will range from $40 to $75.

May 17, 7:30 p.m.: The season will conclude with a “two symphonies” program. The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 47, his fifth symphony in D minor. The first half will conclude with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 21, his first symphony in C major. The “overture” for this program will be Dylan Hall’s “Scherzo for Orchestra.”