SAN DIEGO — As a San Diego Symphony Orchestra (SDSO) subscriber, I received in the mail a beautiful, shiny brochure, optimistically advertising the concerts scheduled for the orchestra’s 2020-2021 Season.
With Raphael Payare, our city’s dynamic new conductor at the helm for his second season, and a wonderful lineup of concerts, we all hope it happens.
The opening program of the Jacobs Masterworks, October 9, 10, 11, will feature Payare’s wife, the brilliant cellist, Alisa Weilerstein, performing Beethoven’s Triple Concerto for violin, cello and piano with the SDSO’s concertmaster, Jeffrey Thayer, and Israeli pianist, Inon Barnatan, current Director of the La Jolla Music Society’s Summerfest. The program will open with a work entitled, Siempre lunes, siempre marzo, by Reinaldo Moya, who, like Payare, grew up in the El Sistema Program in their native Venezuela.
Moya played violin in the Simon Bolivar Orchestra and went on to earn his Masters and Doctorate degrees from the Julliard School in New York. His compositions have been performed world-wide. The program will conclude with Shostakovitch’s popular Symphony #5.
The second Jacobs Masterworks program, October 16 and 18, will feature Beethoven’s Symphony #2 and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #5, The Emperor. The pianist will be Jonathan Biss, Director of Music at Marlboro and faculty member at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. Biss, like Weilerstein, comes from a very musical family. His paternal grandmother was the great cellist, Raya Garbousova, and his mother is the Israeli violinist, Miriam Fried. She currently teaches at the New England Conservatory where Alisa Weilerstein’s parents also serve on the faculty, Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, piano, Donald Weilerstein, violin.
In addition to the Beethoven Concerto, Biss will play the Brett Dean Piano Concerto, based on the imagining of the thoughts and feelings of an aging Beethoven.
Beethoven will be well represented throughout the season with performances of his Symphony #1 on November 7, Piano Concerto #3 December 5, and his Symphony #6, Pastoral, January 30. Beethoven’s 250th birthday continues to be celebrated by orchestras throughout the world.
One performance I am eagerly looking forward to is the Water Concerto by the Chinese composer, Tan Dun. I heard its San Diego premiere with the La Jolla Symphony, Steven Schick, percussion soloist. I am happy to see that he will again be performing this unusual, innovative work. He is the UC San Diego faculty person who directs the La Jolla Symphony. he is also the curator for the San Diego Symphony’s three-concert January festival, In the Name of the Earth.
Principal Guest Conductor of the SDSO, Edo de Waart, will be conducting one concert in December and two in April, and Conductor Laureate Jahja Ling will be conducting one concert program the last weekend of February.
The final concert, May 23, will once again feature cellist Alisa Weilerstein in the Elgar Cello Concerto.
I will always remember Jacqueline Du Pre’s magnificent rendition of that concerto with our orchestra under Zoltan Rosznyai. Participating in that performance was one of the most memorable musical highlights of my 37 years with the orchestra.
Du Pre, too, was the wife of a conductor, Daniel Barenboim. Before she married him, she converted to Judaism and they were united at the Western Wall. Unfortunately, her life was cut short by multiple sclerosis. She died at the age of 42 and is buried in the Jewish Cemetery in London.
I am sure Weilerstein will give the Elgar a fine performance. But this time, I will be sitting in the audience.
If you would like a copy of the beautiful SDSO brochure, Call 619-235-0804 or go to tickets@sandiegosymphony.org.
I hope all these well-planned concerts will take place and that we are safely able to congregate once again to listen to the inspiring sounds of live music performed by our San Diego Symphony Orchestra.
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Eileen Wingard, a retired violinist with the San Diego Symphony, is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts. She may be contacted via eileen.wingard@sdjewishworld.com