Get ready for live performance at its very best. San Francisco Symphony live summer performances continue at Davies Symphony Hall, 0.2 miles from NEMA San Francisco. Founded in 1911, the San Francisco Symphony features classic performances and popular movie-accompaniment events throughout the year as artists from around the globe take to the Davies Symphony Hall stage.
One of the most influential and creative forces in music, SF Symphony Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen has—through his many high-profile conducting roles, work as a leading composer, and advocacy for accessibility and varied musical voices—shaped a unique vision for the present and future of the symphony orchestra. His restless innovation drives him constantly to reposition classical music in the now.
We’re looking forward to summer at the Symphony:
August 1, The Trailblazing Music Of Joni Mitchell, Carole King, & Carly Simon. Experience the unforgettable songs of three of the most influential and iconic artists of the last 50 years as the SF Symphony performs the music of Joni Mitchell, Carole King, and Carly Simon, curated by Ted Sperling. Together with guest vocalists, the Symphony presents a journey through the heartfelt lyrics and captivating melodies that have shaped generations.
August 3-4, Film With Live Orchestra: La La Land In Concert. A dazzling throwback to the golden age of Hollywood musicals, this film follows the whirlwind romance of an aspiring actress (Emma Stone) and jazz pianist (Ryan Gosling) as they chase their big breaks in modern-day Los Angeles. Don’t miss your chance to see composer Justin Hurwitz conduct his Academy Award®️-winning score with the SF Symphony as the film dances across the big screen.
September 5-8, Music From Studio Ghibli—Film With Live Orchestra. Lights, Camera, Music!: Watch favorite films on the big screen at Davies Symphony Hall as the scores are performed live by the SF Symphony. Composer Joe Hisaishi conducts his music from Studio Ghibli films by Hayao Miyazaki live-to-picture, accompanied by favorite scenes.
September 14, Cynthia Erivo With The Sf Symphony. Experience acclaimed singer and actress Cynthia Erivo on stage with the San Francisco Symphony. Famed for her Tony Award-winning Broadway role in The Color Purple, her portrayal of Harriet Tubman in the film biopic Harriet, and her much anticipated appearance as Elphaba in the upcoming film adaptation of Wicked, don’t miss Erivo light up the stage in a program showcasing her incredible talent.
September 19-21, Salonen Conducts Verdi’s Requiem. Crude as a gut punch, tender as a kiss, Verdi's Requiem translates the medieval Latin mass for the dead into the vivid and visceral idiom of Italian opera, bringing divine scripture to the streets, and vice versa. Opening the program is a set of three choral works by Gordon Getty, a longtime friend of the Symphony and one of San Francisco’s most celebrated composers.
September 25, Opening Gala With Lang Lang. Any concert with Lang Lang is an event. The superstar pianist takes the stage with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony in a celebratory program featuring Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Carnival of the Animals (with Lang Lang playing alongside his wife, pianist Gina Alice), together with selections from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.
September 27-28, Salonen Conducts Nico Muhly. The world premiere of Nico Muhly’s new Baroque-inspired Piano Concerto is surrounded by three other unmissable and underrated works of time-hopping, genre-swapping proto-postmodernism: the cerebral mischief of Paul Hindemith’s raucous Ragtime, based on a theme by J.S. Bach; Edward Elgar’s inventive transcription of Bach’s Fantasia & Fugue in C minor; and Hindemith’s Symphony Mathis der Maler. The last takes a 16th-century artist’s struggles against repression as the basis for a majestic symphonic triptych.
Davies Symphony Hall has good acoustics and sightlines in every section. The Orchestra level can put you closer to the musicians, while the Loge and Tiers (balconies) give you a bird’s-eye view of the entire stage. Terrace seats put you behind the orchestra, which lets you watch the conductor face on.
Image credit: SF Symphony on Facebook
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