Esa-Pekka Salonen is back in Davies Symphony Hall, with two weeks of San Francisco Symphony concerts featuring two very special guests. This week, soprano Julia Bullock joins the conductor and orchestra in a French-themed program; next week brings violinist Leila Josefowicz as soloist in one of Salonen’s own award-winning works.
Anticipation is running high for these performances. With the Symphony announcing the 2020-21 season this week, and Salonen making his first return to the podium since last fall’s announcement that he would succeed Michael Tilson Thomas as the Symphony’s music director, Bay Area audiences have another opportunity to hear more of this extraordinary composer-conductor’s musical passions and creative output.
Salonen, whose current title is Music Director Designate — he officially becomes the Symphony’s 12th music director at the start of the fall season in September — has already made an indelible impression here.
During his 18-year tenure as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he’s appeared on a number of San Francisco Symphony programs, beginning in 2004 as guest conductor in concerts that included his own tone poem, “Insomnia,” and, in 2011, one featuring his Violin Concerto. In 2019, just after his appointment was announced, he led a thrilling program that featured works by Sibelius, Richard Strauss and Anna Thorvaldsdottir. Audiences also witnessed Salonen’s compositional brilliance in a March 2019 appearance at Cal Performances in Berkeley, when he led London’s Philharmonia Orchestra and soloist Truls Mørk in an astonishing traversal of his own Cello Concerto.
This week’s S.F. Symphony performances begin Feb. 20, with Bullock joining Salonen in two works for orchestra and voice: Benjamin Britten’s “Les Illuminations,” which features texts by Arthur Rimbaud; and Ravel’s “Three Poems of Stéphane Mallarmé.” The program also includes Ravel’s “Ma Mère l’Oye” (Mother Goose) Suite, based on characters by Charles Perrault. “Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky, completes the program.
A radiant vocalist, Bullock is a San Francisco Symphony resident artist this season. Audiences will remember her in the starring role of Dame Shirley in San Francisco Opera’s world premiere production of John Adams’ “Girls of the Golden West.” But Bullock, a St. Louis native, is equally at home in a range of music from Mozart to Josephine Baker. She returns to San Francisco from a starring role in “Zauberland,” a new dramatic song cycle by composer Bernard Foccroulle that imagines a peaceful land in the heart of the war-torn Middle East; it premiered last week at the Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels, Belgium. In April, she’ll be back in San Francisco, curating a program for the Symphony’s groundbreaking SoundBox series.
In the second week of concerts, beginning Feb. 27, Salonen returns to conduct his Violin Concerto with Josefowicz as soloist. An artist who startles and surprises with each Symphony appearance, Josefowicz is a committed new music advocate; she’s premiered and performed many new works for her instrument (who can forget her ravishing 2017 performance of Adams’ “Scheherazade.2” in Davies Hall?)
Josefowicz is also one of Salonen’s frequent musical partners. She performed in the world premiere of the Violin Concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2009 and served as soloist in the work’s San Francisco Symphony performances in 2011. (The score won the Grawemeyer Award shortly after its premiere, and was featured in a 2014 International Apple ad campaign for iPod.)
Josefowicz joins Salonen and the orchestra once again to traverse this densely scored, fiercely expressive four-movement concerto. The program, which also includes Nielsen’s Symphony No. 5, opens with Beethoven’s Overture to “King Stephen” — a work he composed in 1811 in honor of the Hungarian monarch and to commemorate the opening of a new concert hall in Pest.
So the next two weeks should be offer thrilling reminders of the musical gifts these artists bring to the stage – and a tempting preview of the kind of wide-ranging adventures the Bay Area can expect with Salonen come September.
Details: San Francisco Symphony Program I, 8 p.m. Feb. 20-22; Program 2, 8 p.m. Feb. 27-29; Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco; $20-$160; 415-864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org.
Contact Georgia Rowe at growe@pacbell.net
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There’s an impressive range of music on this week’s calendar, from new works to Baroque masterpieces. Here are four concerts classical fans won’t want to miss.
Music up close: One Found Sound continues to attract audiences in innovative ways. The collaborative, conductorless chamber orchestra invites music lovers to enjoy its salon-style performances in relaxed settings, with programs drawn from a range of eras and styles. In its first concert of the New Year, the group convenes at Heron Arts for a program titled “Wonder,” featuring Caroline Shaw’s “Entr’acte,” Maurice Ravel’s “Ma mere l’Oye” (Mother Goose Suite), and Samuel Barber’s “Knoxville, Summer of 1915,” with the radiant soprano Julie Adams as soloist. Details: 8 p.m. Feb. 21, Heron Arts, San Francisco; $25 advance, $30 at the door; www.onefoundsound.org.
“(Im)migration” stories: The Great Migration brought some 16 million African-Americans to the North from Southern states, and their harrowing journeys continue to inspire works of art, literature, poetry, and music. This weekend brings “(Im)migration: Music of Change” to San Jose, featuring the Imani Winds Ensemble in concert with the Catalyst Quartet. The evening’s featured work is “Sergeant McCauley,” composed by Catalyst violinist Jessie Montgomery and based on her great-grandfather’s experiences. The one-night only performance also includes music by composers Gabriela Lena Frank, Mongo Santamaria, Jason Moran, and Roberto Sierra. Details: 7:30 Feb. 22, Hammer Theatre Center, San Jose; $30-$45; 408-924-8501, hammertheatre.com.
Violins of Hope: Since its arrival in the Bay Area last month, the Violins of Hope initiative has been imparting messages of history and hope. This weekend, selected instruments from this Holocaust-era collection will be featured in a special Oakland Symphony concert. Conducted by Michael Morgan, the program includes Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, Vivaldi’s Concerto in F Major for Three Violins and Strings, and Steve Martland’s “Crossing the Border,” with dancers from the Oakland Ballet. Details: 8 p.m. Feb. 22, Paramount Theatre, Oakland; $25-$90; 510-444-0802; www.oaklandsymphony.org.
Baroque treasures: “Secrets of the Baroque” is the title of Sunday afternoon’s Berkeley concert by the Akademie Für Alte Musik Berlin. Presented by Cal Performances, the esteemed ensemble will play works by Handel, Telemann, and Vivaldi, along with lesser-known 18th century lights such as Dutch composer Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer. Details: 3 p.m. Feb. 23, Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley; $68; 510-642-9988, calperformances.org.