Luminous Gems and Shining Stars

Now that the glorious whirlwind of the holidays is over, it’s an opportunity to start fresh with new, invigorating experiences and witness classics bloom in revelatory performances. This January, catch the captivating young stars of the Spotlight Series and be enchanted by French works that sparkle in the hands of a beloved pianist-conductor pairing.

This month, SF Symphony Music Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet team up for a program of rarely heard gems that glow with extraordinary instrumental colors. The first, Olivier Messiaen’s Trois petites liturgies de la Présence Divine, is touched with a mystical aura, boasting melodies transcribed from birdsong, an inventive solo piano part, a celestial women’s chorus, an array of unique percussion, and the cosmic sounds of the ondes Martenot, a proto-electronic instrument from the 1920s that continues to be a favorite of today’s artists, including Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, Daft Punk, Gaudi, and more. Next, Thibaudet unfurls Debussy’s enchanting Fantaisie, inspired by the Javanese gamelan—a sound that struck the composer so deeply at the Paris Exposition that he was more riveted by it than the newly revealed Eiffel Tower.

MTT & JEAN-YVES THIBAUDET

This season’s Shenson Spotlight Series kicks off on January 18 with cellist Sterling Elliott (pictured above), who learned to play the cello by the age of three and made his concerto competition debut (and win) at age seven. Next, violinist Johan Dalene, winner of the Norwegian Soloist Prize and First Prize at the prestigious 2019 Carl Nielsen Competition, takes the stage on January 31. Both of these acclaimed young artists stress that preparation is the key to a successful performance. “My goal is to feel so personally connected to the music that I could practically call the piece my own composition,” says Elliott, while Dalene prefers learning a piece well in advance of actually performing it. “When picking it up again it has hopefully matured with you,” he says. “Also, it feels way more comfortable relearning something you’ve worked on rather than starting from scratch.” READ MORE.

STERLING ELLIOTT, CELLO RECITAL

JOHAN DALENE, VIOLIN RECITAL

Coming soon: Gabriel Kahane’s
emergency shelter intake form

Not every composer would tackle a song cycle that revolves around America’s housing crisis, but that’s exactly what Gabriel Kahane did in his emergency shelter intake form, heard in its first SF Symphony performances next month. “Most of the work that I make is an effort to work through some problem,” Kahane said. “There’s so little daylight for me between my experience of the world—and how I go about trying to find my place in it—and the extent to which I try to do that through music.” READ MORE. 

EMERGENCY SHELTER INTAKE FORM

FROM OUR COMMUNITY PARTNERS:
Two Transcendent Exhibits at the Asian Art Museum

Journey across the world and to the future with two new exhibitions at the Asian Art Museum. In Color Trip: Yoshida Hodaka’s Modern Prints explore vibrant landscapes created through revolutionary Japanese printmaking. Then, travel through time with the critically acclaimed Kongkee: Warring States Cyberpunk, a neon-soaked, futurist fantasy. Plan your visit at asianart.org.

Left: Installation view of "Kongkee: Warring States Cyberpunk." Leo, from the series Zodiac Landscape (details), 1973, by Yoshida Hodaka (Japanese, 1926–1995). Right: Photoetching and woodblock print; ink and colors on paper. Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Museum purchase, Thomas F. Humiston Acquisition Fund, 2016.24, 2016.26, and 2016.28. © Chizuko Yoshida.