San Diego Symphony Announces Rafael Payare's First Season As Music Director

San Diego Symphony Announces Rafael Payare's First Season As Music Director
2019-2020 season celebrates Beethoven at 250 with 12 works across eight months

Season Highlights:

• Internationally acclaimed conductor and San Diego Symphony's 13th Music Director Rafael Payare conducts 10 weeks of the 2019-2020 season.
• In his new role Principal Guest Conductor Edo de Waart conducts three weeks, including the fifth annual January Festival: "Beethoven: Iconoclast, Innovator, Genius."
• 13 artists make their Jacob Masterworks series debut, and 16 classical works will receive their first San Diego Symphony performance.
• Special guest artists include Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Pacho Flores, Leila Josefowicz, and Alisa Weilerstein.
• Season features eight women artists including: Alisa Weilerstein, Dorothea Röschmann, Nancy Zhou, Leila Josefowicz, Wei Luo, Eun Sun Kim, and works of Sofia Gubaidulina and Lili Boulanger.
• This season the Orchestra will be performing seven contemporary works including three by California composers, and U.S. premiere of new work by Paquito D'Rivera.
• Coldplay V. Beethoven explores Beethoven's far reaching impact on a wide range of musicians weaving the melodies and lyrics of Coldplay into Beethoven's works.
• Two Disney in Concert presentations with the Orchestra: Coco, the family-friendly, Academy Award-winning animated film, and Mary Poppins, the five-time Academy Award-winning musical.
• Launch of new Broadway series: Broadway @ The Jacobs.

Debut of Music Director

Music Director Rafael Payare will conduct 10 weeks of concerts during the highly anticipated San Diego Symphony 2019-2020 season. Payare conducts the first five weeks of the season featuring Mason Bates, Mahler, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Bach and Strauss.

Highlights of Payare's season include: Mahler Symphony No. 5 - one of the grandest, most ambitious and deeply personal works ever written for orchestra. Few works can match Mahler's Fifth Symphony in its emotional range, dramatic arc, and expressiveness. Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream in semi-staged performances featuring actors and stunning projections by Chicago-based artist Mike Tutaj. Composers who represent orchestral music at its most epic and expressive: the powerful works of Russian composers Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 and No. 6, and Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 and No. 11. R. Strauss Don Quixote which tells the story of Cervantes great literary work through the characters performed by Alisa Weilerstein, cello, as Don Quixote and Chi-Yuan Chen, viola, as Sancho Panza.

"It is a wondrous experience to work with an incoming music director on his very first season. In 10 weeks of programs during the 2019-2020 season we will be immersed in Rafael Payare's concept and vision for his future music making with our orchestra. I am so excited to hear the season unfold," said San Diego Symphony CEO Martha Gilmer. "Throughout the season we will recognize Rafael's signature composers that form a foundation in the season - Beethoven, Mahler, Strauss, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich. In addition, there are flashes of color and variety in works by composers from all over the globe - from California to Australia, and Venezuela to Cuba. Rafael's international perspective, and commitment to San Diego combine to make for a cohesive, varied and dynamic exploration of music with the San Diego Symphony."

In addition, Payare will be leading the U.S. premiere of Cuban-American composer Paquito D'Rivera's new work co-commissioned with orchestras from Spain, Mexico and Norway. This work will feature Venezuelan trumpeter Pacho Flores who was the principal trumpet in the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, and like Payare, trained in the El Sistema program.

Payare's programs will also include works by California composers Mason Bates and Andrew Norman. Payare's first season as music director will end with Beethoven's most famous and powerful Symphony No. 9.

"Music has the power to change lives. It can draw us together, build new connections, and inspire us towards a better future," said Payare. "I love new music and music that comes from where we least expect it. This is a living art and we are lucky to live in a time when all sorts of people who, in the past, might not have thought of writing their music down, are now doing so. Every year brings new sounds and new ideas. The music that we play, and the performers who play it, and the people who listen to it should all reflect the richness of opportunity and hope and change that is opening up before us all."

"The intensity, nuance, clarity, and sense of collaboration and inclusiveness that Rafael Payare gives to the music and musicians alike will serve the orchestra very well as we continue to grow and evolve as an ensemble under his leadership," said Jeff Thayer, San Diego Symphony concert master. "I greatly look forward to sharing the energy and exceptional music making that Payare will bring to the San Diego Symphony Orchestra."

A Focus on Beethoven

Two hundred fifty years after his birth, Beethoven remains perhaps the most iconic artist in Western music. His life is, in itself, a chronicle of heroic perseverance in the face of adversity. Even today, his music remains vital and relevant, speaking to us about human dignity, joy, universal brotherhood and the struggle for freedom. This season, the San Diego Symphony will feature 12 works by Beethoven in eight months.

In January, the San Diego Symphony will shine a light on the strength and courage of this heroic voice during its annual festival - "Beethoven: Iconoclast, Innovator, Genius" - conducted by principal guest conductor Edo de Waart. Featuring seven of Beethoven's works including Symphonies No. 5 and 6 and a performance by pianist Emanuel Ax of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1.

In February, the San Diego Symphony will present Coldplay V. Beethoven transforming Beethoven's Eroica Symphony into an oratorio, weaving the melodies and lyrics of Coldplay into the original Beethoven and pairing them together based on content and context. Three vocalists join the full symphony; many of Coldplay's most well-known songs are interpolated, including "Fix You," "Paradise" and "The Scientist." This program was created and arranged by conductor Steve Hackman.

The celebration of Beethoven continues throughout the 2019-2020 season, with performances including chamber music and other events to be announced.

Debuts in the 2019-2020 Season

Sixteen works will receive their San Diego Symphony Orchestra debut during the 2019-20 season. They include: John Adams: Violin Concerto; MASON BATES: Alternative Energy; BEETHOVEN: Grosse Fuge; BEETHOVEN: Prisoners' Chorus from Fidelio ; L. BOULANGER: D'un matin de printemps; BRITTEN: Violin Concerto; PAQUITO D'RIVERA: New Trumpet Concerto (Co-Commission); BRETT DEAN: Testament; ESTÉVEZ: Mediodía en el llano (Midday on the Plains); SOFIA GUBAIDULINA: Fairytale Poem; TEXU KIM: Spin-Flip; MENDELSSOHN: Trumpet Overture; Andrew Norman: Drip Blip Sparkle Spin Glint Glide Glow Float Flop Chop Pop Shatter Splash; PIAZZOLLA: Four Seasons of Buenos Aires (arr. L. Desyatnikov); RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Suite from The Snow Maiden; and WALTON: Crown Imperial.

Guest Artists

The San Diego Symphony always strives to bring the world's top artists to Southern California audiences and the 2019-20 Jacobs Masterworks season is no exception. The 13 highly acclaimed and accomplished guest musicians making debuts with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra include: Paul Appleby, tenor; Pacho Flores, trumpet; Alexander Gavrylyuk, piano; Benjamin Grosvenor, piano; Soloman Howard, baritone; Stefan Jackiw, violin; Eun Sun Kim, conductor; Wei Luo, piano; Jun Märkl, conductor; Felicia Moore, soprano; Víkingur Ólafsson, piano; Dorothea Röschmann, soprano; Nancy Zhou, violin.

Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream

From Mozart and Beethoven to Schumann and Grieg, we owe some of our most beloved musical masterpieces to the theater, though we rarely hear these works in their original dramatic settings. On October 11 and 12, the San Diego Symphony encourages guests to hear this music as it was meant to be experienced. In this production created by Gerard McBurney, featuring stunning projections by Chicago-based artist Mike Tutaj, the San Diego Symphony performs every note Mendelssohn wrote to dramatize Shakespeare's immortal words. Experience the interaction between this delightful music and the twists, turns and humor of Shakespeare's comic masterpiece in an abridged version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, accompanied by Mendelssohn's magical score.

Fox Theatre Film Series

Disney in Concert: Coco- the 2017 two-time Academy Award winning film for Best Original Song as well as Best Animated Feature Film - delights audiences young and old with Michael Giacchino's beautiful musical score played by the San Diego Symphony along with the live film. This special film will be shown at 2 and 8 p.m. on October 26.

On December 13, five-time Oscar award winning Disney film - Mary Poppins - unfolds on the big screen with the San Diego Symphony orchestra performing The Sherman Brothers' charming and delightful Oscar award winning musical score.

Continuing its popular and successful run within the Symphony's film series, on April 17 and 18, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, shows us Harry, Ron and Hermione facing their latest set of challenges and foes both new and old as the seventh film comes to Copley Symphony Hall at Jacobs Music Center, projected on a giant screen and accompanied by the San Diego Symphony Orchestra.

As part of our Fox Film Series to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the opening of San Diego's classic movie palace the Fox Theatre, now Copley Symphony Hall at Jacobs Music Center, one of the greatest silent films ever made - Pandora's Box - will be shown on November 23, accompanied by our huge original pipe organ.

Family Concerts

There is no better way to introduce children and their parents to symphonic music than through the engaging and enlightening Family Concerts. These special concerts include activities prior to the start of the performance, which give children the chance to see some of the instruments up close and to perhaps even try making their own music. This season's family concerts include California Gold, a musical journey across the U.S. as we search for symphonic gold; the family tradition Noel Noel, featuring timeless holiday classics; Beethoven the Music Genius, a journey through the life of this gifted and temperamental genius as excerpts of his most famous works are played by the orchestra; Lemony Snicket's The Composer is Dead, in which we discover clues to a composer's murder through the text of Lemony Snicket and the music of Nathaniel Stookey performed by the San Diego Symphony.

Special Subscription Options

This season the San Diego Symphony is offering four new subscription options. Subscription Package pricing ranges from $48-$1,400.

• All Beethoven (7 concerts): $140 to $735
• Seven Sundays with Rafael Payare (7 concerts): $140 to $735
• Piano Masters (4 concerts): $80 to $420
• Festival Package (4 concerts): $80 to $420

Subscriptions for 2019-2020 are available for renewal Tuesday, March 19. Single tickets go on sale Sunday, August 25.

San Diego Symphony
Copley Symphony Hall / Jacobs Music Center
750 B Street, San Diego, CA 92101
Box Office: 619.235.0804
Website: www.sandiegosymphony.org

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