WFMT Orchestra Series

This Spring quarter of the WFMT Orchestra Series begins with the San Francisco Symphony’s world premiere of Push by Trevor Weston, Emerging Black Composers Project winner. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts a transcendent performance featuring Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in C minor. Vocalists Golda Schultz and Michelle DeYoung, along with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, join forces to bring Mahler’s glorious vision to life. Other season highlights include:

• Esa-Pekka Salonen continues the symphonic journey, presenting Igor Stravinsky’s explosive ballet score, The Firebird. Soprano Golda Schultz graces the stage for Jean Sibelius’s cosmic Luonnotar, followed by the United States premiere of Daniel Kidane’s San Francisco Symphony commission, Sun Poem;

• Experience an extraordinary evening with Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, featuring the world premiere of Magnus Lindberg’s Third Piano Concerto, showcasing the exceptional talent of pianist Yuja Wang. The program also includes Carl Nielsen’s sun-drenched Helios Overture and Béla Bartók’s powerful Concerto for Orchestra;

• Conductor Elim Chan debuts with the San Francisco Symphony in a captivating performance featuring Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s sunny Second Symphony, Sergei Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto with James Ehnes, and the world premiere of a San Francisco Symphony commission by Elizabeth Ogonek titled Moondog;

• Pianist Conor Hanick premieres a San Francisco Symphony commission of No Such Spring by Samuel Carl Adams, which sets the stage for Anton Bruckner’s imaginative Symphony No. 6 in A major;

• Conductor Cristian Măcelaru leads the symphony in Dmitri Shostakovich’s adventurous First Symphony and Wynton Marsalis’ celebration of Black history and folklore, Blues Symphony. San Francisco Symphony English horn player Russ de Luna stars in Outi Tarkiainen’s Milky Ways.