Pianist Vikingur Ólafsson to Premiere John Adams's AFTER THE FALL With the San Francisco Symphony

Pianist Vikingur Ólafsson will premiere John Adams's new piano concerto, After the Fall, with the San Francisco Symphony on January 16–19, conducted by longtime Adams collaborator David Robertson.

Following the world premiere, Ólafsson will tour After the Fall internationally:

• January 22–24: Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich / Paavo Järvi, Zürich
• March 16: Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich / Paavo Järvi, Hamburg
• March 18: Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich / Paavo Järvi, Paris
• May 3–4: Wiener Symphoniker / Lahav Shani, Vienna (Musikverein)  

After the Fall is John Adams's third full-scale concerto for solo piano, following Century Rolls (1996), written for Emanuel Ax, and Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? (2018), composed for Yuja Wang.

Pianist Vikingur Ólafsson made a powerful impression on Adams when he played Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? across Europe with the composer conducting in Paris, Amsterdam, Prague, Reykjavík, and Zurich. The pianist's deep knowledge of his music additionally impressed Adams: “He genuinely loves my music and knows nearly all of it—not just my concertos but the operas and orchestral works.”

Adams in turn became a fan of Ólafsson. “He has such a wide bandwidth of expressive possibility. His Rameau and Bach and Mozart have incredible delicacy, but when the music calls for it, he can make the piano sound huge without banging it. I tried to incorporate that awareness into After the Fall.”

 The title, After the Fall, is a nod to another piano concerto, No Such Spring, by his son Samuel Carl Adams, which was premiered by the pianist Conor Hanick with the San Francisco Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen in 2023. “I was so overwhelmed by it that I really didn't think I could ever write another piano concerto,” John Adams recalls. “So the title is partly a tip of the hat to Sam's piece: there is no such spring after the fall.”

John Adams's After the Fall was co-commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, Paris Philharmonie, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Philharmonia Orchestra (London), Gothenburg Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien, and the Wiener Symphoniker.

Premiere Information

Thursday, January 16, 2025 at at 7:30pm PT

Saturday, January 18, 2025 at 7:30pm PT

Sunday, January 19, 2025 at 2pm PT

Davies Symphony Hall

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