The San Diego Symphony launched their 2018-19 indoor season last week with a sold-out performance featuring pianist Lang Lang. The Symphony is continuing the exciting momentum in November with a packed lineup of Jacobs Masterworks and Jazz @ The Jacobs concerts, as well as the return of the City Lights concert series on November 9 with Rickie Lee Jones & Anders Osborne.
November will also host two of the San Diego Symphony’s most anticipated events of the season:
On November 1, the San Diego Symphony will be unveiling a special concert series: Rush Hour 2.0. This series features one-hour concerts designed to help people who live or work downtown skip traffic, while enjoying a world-class musical program at a lower price. Guests can also enjoy signature cocktails, a photobooth, and a food truck prior to the concert. The first Rush Hour 2.0 concert will feature a one-hour performance of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with 24-year-old pianist Conrad Tao, who was recently named one of New York Times’ 5 Classical Music Faces to Watch this Season.
On November 1, 2 and 4, the San Diego Symphony will host the world premiere of a unique commissioned work – Brazos de niebla – that brings together Mexican composer Javier Alvarez and genre-crossing United States Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera. Alvarez’s piece – that is set to an original poem by Herrera (a San Diego native) – depicts the thoughts and feelings of a young immigrant child lost in the circumstances surrounding him. This work, commissioned by the San Diego Symphony, will provide a snapshot of today’s climate, start conversation and connect people through a moving musical narrative.
Looking ahead to December, the Symphony will be celebrating the winter holidays with two exciting concert offerings: Love Actually in Concert on December 14 and Noel Noel on December 15, 21 and 22. Tis the season to celebrate with music!
NOVEMBER CONCERTS:
THU NOV 1 | TAO PLAYS TCHAIKOVSKY
David Danzmayr, Conductor
Conrad Tao, Piano
The unique commissioned work that opens this program brings together Mexican composer Javier Álvarez and genre-crossing United States Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera. Imagining the hopes, fears and dreams of an immigrant child, this work features a boy soprano and incorporates the sound of Mexican vihuelas. The concert also features brilliant young pianist/composer Conrad Tao performing Piotr Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto.
Note: This Rush Hour 2.0 concert begins at 6:30 PM and runs less than 90 minutes with no intermission.
FRI NOV 2 | SUN NOV 4 | TCHAIKOVSKY & PROKOFIEV
David Danzmayr, Conductor
Conrad Tao, Piano
The unique commissioned work that opens this program brings together Mexican composer Javier Álvarez and genre-crossing United States Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera. Imagining the hopes, fears and dreams of an immigrant child, this work features a boy soprano and incorporates the sound of Mexican vihuelas. The concert also features brilliant young pianist/composer Conrad Tao performing Piotr Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto.
THU NOV 8 | STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. (1928)
Russ Peck, Organ
Our film season opens with the final Silent Era Masterpiece from comedian extraordinaire, Buster Keaton. Buster plays a college graduate trying to gain the respect of his father, a roughneck riverboat captain, as well as the love of Kitty, pretty daughter of his father’s business rival. This film contains one of cinema’s most famous (and dangerous) stunts as Buster narrowly avoids being crushed by a tumbling house facade.
FRI NOV 9 | RICKIE LEE JONES & ANDERS OSBORNE
Our City Lights season opens with an artist who has been blazing her own trail for years, singer/songwriter Rickie Lee Jones. From her early collaborations with Tom Waits and Dr. John to her own breakout hits “Chuck E.’s In Love” and “The Last Chance Texaco,” Jones became a “cool pop” icon in the late ‘70s/early ‘8os, appearing on Rolling Stone covers and SNL. Two Grammys® and 15 critically-acclaimed albums later (including her landmark 1981 breakup album Pirates), Jones has fearlessly explored a number of American musical idioms such as rhythm & blues, jazz and (most recently) New Orleans soul. Rickie Lee Jones’ vast repertoire, musical curiosity and “confessional” style of songwriting will make for a memorable evening at Copley Symphony Hall. Jones' special guest will be sensational New Orleans singer and guitarist, Anders Osborne. Guitar Player calls him “the poet laureate of Louisiana’s fertile roots music scene.” New Orleans' Gambit Weekly has honored Osborne as the Entertainer Of The Year. OffBeat named him the Crescent City’s Best Guitarist for the third year in a row, and the Best Songwriter for the second straight year. Osborne also won Song Of The Year for his composition, "Louisiana Gold."
FRI NOV 16 | SAT NOV 17 | BERNSTEIN & HIS WORLD
Steven Sloane, Conductor
Orli Shaham, Piano
We continue our celebration of Leonard Bernstein@100 with works inspired by him and written by close colleagues. The urban sophistication of Bernstein’s own The Age of Anxiety, which is structured as a concerto for piano with orchestra, contrasts with the pastoral nostalgia invoked by Aaron Copland’s American masterpiece, Appalachian Spring.
SAT NOV 24 | EDDIE PALMIERI LATIN JAZZ SEPTET
Winner of ten Grammy® awards (including the first-ever Grammy® for Best Latin Recording), Eddie Palmieri is a living legend and innovator who in the 1970s dared to combine elements of salsa, funk and soul with a Latin jazz heritage absorbed from early collaborators Tito Rodríguez, Carl Tjader and his own beloved brother, Charlie Palmieri. Founder of the bands La Perfecta, La Perfecta II and Harlem River Drive, Palmieri recently received the coveted Jazz Master award from the National Endowment of the Arts and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences.
Note: San Diego Symphony does not appear as part of this program.
TUE NOV 27 | AN EVENING WITH KELLI O’HARA & MATTHEW MORRISON
Rob Fisher, Conductor
Two of Broadway’s brightest stars come together for one glittering evening of American song with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra! Matthew Morrison is well-known for his featured roles in Broadway’s Hairspray, The Light in the Piazza and South Pacific as well as the landmark Fox TV series, Glee. Before winning the Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical for the 2015 revival of The King and I, Kelli O’Hara was Morrison’s co-star in The Light in the Piazza and South Pacific. Together they and the Symphony will make Copley Symphony Hall shine like the Great White Way!
FRI NOV 30 | MOZART AND DVORAK
Johannes Debus, Conductor
Jeff Thayer, Violin
Witold Lutosławski wrote his charming Polish folk music-based Little Suite in response to criticism of his First Symphony as being “too modern." Antonín Dvoŕák’s Sixth Symphony brought him international recognition, and shows his developed style following German traditional form infused with Czech folk melodies. Concertmaster Jeff Thayer performs Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s final violin concerto, which contains a hint of international influence in the final movement.
