San Francisco Symphony February Programming To Feature Guest Conductors Paavo Järvi and Robin Ticciati and More

The San Francisco Symphony's February programming lineup features four Orchestral Series programs led by Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen and guest conductors Paavo Järvi and Robin Ticciati, alongside a star-studded lineup of guest pianists including Kirill Gerstein, Francesco Piemontesi, Daniil Trifonov, and Yuja Wang.

The month also features a solo piano recital by Seong-Jin Cho; a performance by Academy of St Martin in the Fields, led by violinist Joshua Bell; and violinist Tessa Lark in the first recital of the 2024–25 Shenson Spotlight Series. In addition, the San Francisco Symphony marks the 25th anniversary of its annual Lunar New Year concert, celebrating the Year of the Serpent.

Orchestral Series

February 6–7 & 9: Järvi Conducts Mahler 7

Paavo Järvi, Music Director of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and Artistic Director of Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, is joined by pianist Kirill Gerstein for Dmitri Shostakovich's lighthearted Piano Concerto No. 2, which the composer wrote for his son's 19th birthday. Järvi also conducts the Orchestra in Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 7, which Mahler described as having a symmetrical structure: three night pieces (a genre in which Mahler excelled), with a finale representing bright day, and a first movement as foundation for the whole. 

February 13–16: Esa-Pekka Salonen & Yuja Wang 

Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen returns to the SF Symphony podium for a program featuring Yuja Wang in two piano concertos. First on the program is Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, originally commissioned by pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who was instrumental in expanding the repertoire for piano music written for the left hand. Wang also performs the first SF Symphony performances of Einojuhani Rautavaara's postmodern Piano Concerto No. 1, which the composer describes as a return to “the aesthetics of expressiveness.” 

Salonen also leads the Orchestra in Claude Debussy's Images pour orchestre, a composition in three sections: Gigues, Rondes de printemps, and Ibéria. Spanish composer Manuel de Falla complimented Debussy's musical depiction of Spain in the most popular of the three, Ibéria, describing “the echoes from the villages, a kind of sevillana [...] which seems to float in a clear atmosphere of scintillating light; the intoxicating spell of Andalusian nights, the festive gaiety of a people dancing...” 

February 21–23: Esa-Pekka Salonen & Daniil Trifonov 

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the world premiere of Strange Beasts by Xavier Muzik, who won the third annual Emerging Black Composers Project Michael Morgan prize in 2023. “With this work, I aim to explore personal anxieties by examining my relationship to the manufactured world around me,” said Muzik. “I see my ‘self' reflected in the artificial structures here in Los Angeles, my home, alive with hubris—stoic monuments exemplifying dominion over nature and time. Yet, as these monuments inevitably fade and crack, so do my personal mythologies thus revealing their inane fallibility. I seek to confront the transient natures of both the external world and my internal narratives to challenge my perspective and find meaning beyond the facade of permanence." 

Daniil Trifonov performs Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2, one of the most challenging piano concertos in the repertoire. Salonen and the Orchestra close the program with Igor Stravinsky's iconic The Rite of Spring, which the composer described as being “unified by a single idea: the mystery and great surge of creative power of spring.”  

February 28–March 2: Ticciati Conducts Rachmaninoff 2  

Robin Ticciati, Music Director of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Glyndebourne Festival Opera, leads the Orchestra in Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4, featuring an evocative second movement that pits the soloist against the orchestra in dramatic fashion. Francesco Piemontesi is soloist in his Orchestral Series Debut. Ticciati also conducts Sergei Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2, a late-Romantic jewel that has also inspired the work of pop and rock artists.  

Great Performers Series  

February 9: Seong-Jin Cho Piano Recital 

Seong-Jin Cho performs the complete piano solo works of Maurice Ravel, including Gaspard de la nuit, Le tombeau de Couperin, Miroirs, and more. Having loved Ravel since childhood and immersed himself in the composer while studying at the Paris Conservatoire, Cho has chosen to mark the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth in 2025 by recording his complete solo piano music and the two piano concertos. He will release the first of the two albums, Ravel: The Complete Solo Piano Works, on January 17, 2025. This program includes two intermissions. 

February 26: Joshua Bell & Academy of St Martin in the Fields 

Joshua Bell and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields return to Davies Symphony Hall for a program in collaboration with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The concert features Johann Sebastian Bach's Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1043, with SFCM student violinist Fiona Cunninghame-Murray performing alongside Bell; Franz Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 29 in E major; and Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, performed with SFCM students. 

Shenson Spotlight Series 

February 19: Tessa Lark

Violinist Tessa Lark kicks off the 2024–25 Shenson Spotlight Series with a solo violin recital, accompanied by pianist Amy Yang. The concert features Lark's original compositions Ysaÿe Shuffle and Jig and Pop, as well as Béla Bartók's Romanian Folk Dances, Eugène-Auguste Ysaÿe's Sonata No. 4 in E minor for Solo Violin, Fritz Kreisler's Chanson Louis XIII et Pavane and Syncopation, and John Corigliano's Violin Sonata. Lark's debut commercial recording was Sky, a bluegrass-inspired violin concerto written for her by Michael Torke and performed with the Albany Symphony Orchestra. The recording was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo in 2020. Her newest album, The Stradgrass Sessions, was released in spring 2023.   

Special Events 

February 8: Lunar New Year: The Year of the Serpent  

The San Francisco Symphony celebrates the 25th anniversary of its annual Lunar New Year concert with a program conducted by Francesco Lecce-Chong. The program includes An-Lun Huang's Saibei Dance, from Saibei Suite No. 2; Tian Zhou's Indigo from Concerto for Orchestra; and the world premiere of a new work by Shuying Li. Pipa player Wu Man joins the Orchestra to perform Zhao Jiping's Pipa Concerto No. 2, and Assistant Principal Cello Amos Yang plays selections from Chen Gang and He Zhanhao's The Butterfly Lovers Concerto. The concert closes with Huan-Zhi Li's Spring Festival Overture. 

The celebration begins at 4:00pm with preconcert lobby festivities open to all ticketholders, featuring an array of entertainment and activities, such as lion dancers, dragon's beard candy making, fortune readers, calligraphy artists, and cultural performances. 

The postconcert Lunar New Year Banquet begins at 6:30pm in Zellerbach Rehearsal Hall, located at 300 Franklin Street at the rear of Davies Symphony Hall, and features a lucky draw and live music, including a special performance. VIP dinner packages include access to the preconcert Ruby Reception, premium concert seating, and seating at the banquet. 

Tickets for concerts at Davies Symphony Hall can be purchased via sfsymphony.org or by calling the San Francisco Symphony Box Office at 415.864.6000.

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