San Francisco Symphony

Sight and sound converge in Pictures at an Exhibition as Modest Mussorgsky translates the canvases of his late friend Victor Hartmann into music. Now a twist: Bay Area artists Liz Hernández and Fernando Escartiz unveil newly commissioned artwork in response to each of Mussorgsky's musical pictures. Over more than seven prolific decades, Franco-American composer Betsy Jolas has developed her own distinctive style: lyrical and cerebral, tender and fierce. Her Latest receives its U.S. premiere in these concerts. Meanwhile Augustin Hadelich brings his eloquent artistry to Antonín Dvořák’s rousing and rhapsodic Violin Concerto.

Join in a celebration of Latin American music and culture including lobby installations by local artists. Conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya with vocalist Edna Vazquez and Casa Círculo Cultural, the dynamic concert program features traditional music and contemporary works that honor the rich heritage of this ancient holiday. The event is curated by longtime collaborator Martha Rodríguez-Salazar.

Experience an intimate chamber music program curated and performed by small ensembles of SF Symphony musicians. In this concert: music by California composers Reena Esmail, Jason Hainsworth, and Sarn Oliver, followed by Johannes Brahms’s String Quartet in A minor.

In Kínēma Esa-Pekka Salonen’s lyrical imagination takes flight via five cinematic scenes for solo clarinet and chamber orchestra. Emerging Black Composers Project winner Jens Ibsen grew up in the Bay Area, where he soaked up samba, soul, R&B, and progressive metal along with the music of Ghana and the African diaspora—all influences you might detect in Drowned in Light, a world premiere. Igor Stravinsky’s turbulent Symphony in Three Movements, which he called his “war symphony,” reflects the rampant destruction in Europe and Asia.

Rising young composer Gabriella Smith conjures the spaces and sounds of California, responding to landscapes both urban and rural, geographical and metaphysical. Igor Stravinsky depicts a festive, folk-inflected Slavic wedding in his ballet Les Noces, augmented by Steven Stucky’s orchestration and artist Hillary Leben's vivid new animated shorts. Stravinsky’s Octet for Winds and Brass, a uniquely scored neoclassical work, was inspired by a late-night dream.

The SF Symphony Youth Orchestra opens its season with a program featuring Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Metacosmos.