The San Francisco Symphony has announced its 2022-2023 season, a packed program that includes premieres of new works, an emphasis on storytelling and a reverence for one of the form’s most essential elements: the piano.
With Esa-Pekka Salonen at the helm, the season kicks off with an opening night gala on Sept. 23. On Sept. 29, the music director conducts the debut of a new work by Trevor Weston, a music professor at Drew University and the winner of the 2021 Emerging Black Composers Project. That evening, the orchestra also performs Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler, the Austro-Bohemian romantic composer who has been a guiding light for the San Francisco Symphony since the tenure of previous music director Michael Tilson Thomas.
“I was immediately taken by the beauty and the energy of [Weston’s] music, and also the sparkle of ideas, which is rare,” said Salonen in a statement. “His music seemed to be completely alive. I’m greatly looking forward to conducting his piece before the Mahler Second Symphony.”
In October, Salonen will lead the orchestra in performances that revolve around the themes of magic, myth and horror. Featured works include Modest Mussorgsky’s witchy Night on Bald Mountain, a suite from Bernard Herrmann’s score to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and HK Gruber’s cartoonish Frankenstein!! with baritone Christopher Purves.
