San Francisco Symphony Celebrates Día de los Muertos with Concert, Lobby Installations, and Community Activities, November 1

Click here to access the Online Press Kit, which includes PDFs of this press release in English and Spanish, artist headshots, and images from past SF Symphony Día de los Muertos celebrations.  

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—The San Francisco Symphony presents its 18th annual Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration at Davies Symphony Hall on Saturday, November 1. The event features a concert program of traditional and contemporary Latin American music, preceded by a festive array of family-friendly activities.

Lina González-Granados conducts the San Francisco Symphony in the concert program, which includes music by Ricardo Castro, Paul Desenne, Gabriela Lena Frank, Jimmy López, Arturo Márquez, and Gabriela Ortiz. Cellist Santiago Cañón-Valencia joins the Symphony to perform music from Márquez’s Espejos en la Arena, and dancers from Casa Círculo Cultural are featured throughout the concert. 

Every year leading up to the Symphony’s Day of the Dead celebration, the lobbies of Davies Symphony Hall are transformed with immersive art installations and altars built by local artists to honor the living and the deceased. Curated by longtime SF Symphony collaborator Martha Rodríguez-Salazar, this year’s theme honors the memory and perspective of children by commemorating Día de los Angelitos, or Day of the Little Angels, celebrated on November 1. The event includes preconcert activities for families, including live catrinas and interactive altars.

Tickets can be purchased online at sfsymphony.org, by calling the box office at 415.864.6000, or by visiting the box office located on Grove Street between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. Tickets are 50% off for children and young adults under 18.

The Día de los Muertos Concert is presented in partnership with the San Francisco Arts Commission. 

DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS CONCERT
Conductor Lina González-Granados joins the San Francisco Symphony for the annual Día de los Muertos concert. Dancers from Casa Círculo Cultural are featured throughout the concert, adding to the immersive experience. González-Granados opens the program with Gabriela Ortiz’s Kauyumari. “Kauyumari” translates to “blue deer” in Huichol, an indigenous language of Mexico, and is known as a spiritual guide for the Huichol people. Cellist Santiago Cañón-Valencia joins González-Granados and the Orchestra to perform music from Arturo Márquez’s Espejos en la Arena, the title of which translates to “mirrors in the sand.” The composer writes in a program note, “The mirrors in the title have to do with autobiographical, very personal reflections.” González-Granados conducts Ricardo Castro’s lyrical Intermezzo from Atzimba, an opera that was never completed; Paul Desenne’s Hipnosis Mariposa, dedicated to the late Simón Díaz, one of Venezuela's most renowned composers; and Jimmy López’s Loud, written to commemorate LGBTQ Pride in 2023. The program closes with Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No. 2, an extremely popular Mexican contemporary classical work, and Gabriela Lena Frank’s The Mestizo Waltz from Three Latin American Dances. In a program note, Frank credits the piece’s influences to “indigenous Indian cultures, African slave cultures, and western brass bands.”  

PERFORMERS
Colombian American conductor Lina González-Granados’s spectacular interpretations of the symphonic and operatic repertoire, as well as her dedication to highlighting new and unknown works by Latin American composers, have earned her international recognition. In the fall of 2022, she was appointed Resident Conductor by LA Opera, a post she will hold through June 2028. Her 2025–26 season began with an extensive tour with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, performing across France, Germany and Austria, followed by debuts with Orquestra Sinfonica de Mineria, Hong Kong Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, Istanbul State Orchestra, and more. Born and raised in Cali, Colombia, González-Granados made her conducting debut in 2008 with the Youth Orchestra of Bellas Artes. She made her San Francisco Symphony debut in 2021. 

Colombian cellist Santiago Cañón-Valencia is a prolific soloist, composer, commissioner, recording artist, painter, and photographer. A 2022 BBC New Generation Artist, he was born in Bogotá in 1995 and made his debut with Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá at age six before going on to win the Silver Medal at the 2019 XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition, the 2018 Starker Foundation Award, third prize at the 2017 Queen Elisabeth International Competition, and first prize at the Carlos Prieto International Cello Competition, among many other accolades. During the 2025–26 season, Cañón-Valencia takes on an international schedule, including solo recitals in Spain and Portugal, a performance with the Macedonian Philharmonic, and a seat on the jury for the Budapest International Cello Competition. In the United States, he performs with the Kansas City Symphony, Montgomery Symphony, Grand Rapids Symphony, Camerata Pacifica, and more. He makes his San Francisco Symphony debut with this performance. 

Casa Círculo Cultural, based in Redwood City, is a grassroots, multidisciplinary arts organization dedicated to celebrating and preserving Mexican culture and the arts. Since its founding in May 2009, it has served as a vital bridge between Mexican traditions and the local community, offering diverse cultural programming that reflects the richness and experiences of Latino communities across the Bay Area. With a strong record of hosting vibrant cultural celebrations, Casa Círculo Cultural produces theater, concerts, visual arts exhibitions, and music classes, and also operates a community radio station. Deeply committed to fostering creativity and opportunity, the organization provides after-school programs and adult classes that empower underserved Latino youth and adults to thrive and contribute to civic and economic life. Believing that social change is achieved through collaboration, art, and community empowerment, Casa Círculo Cultural stands as an essential force for cultural preservation, creativity, and community growth. 

Born in Mexico City and trained as a classical flutist and opera singer, Martha Rodríguez-Salazar is a curator, teacher, choir director, producer, and director of musical productions that celebrate Latin-American baroque, classical, and folk culture in the Bay Area. She teaches flute, voice, choirs, and mariachi at the Community Music Center and through the mariachi program at the San Francisco Unified School District. She has curated the San Francisco Symphony’s Día de los Muertos Concert since 2008. 

FAMILY-FRIENDLY LOBBY ACTIVITIES
Beginning at 1:30pm on November 1, guests can enjoy art and activities in the colorfully decorated Davies Symphony Hall lobbies. Attendees will be greeted by and have an opportunity to take photos with catrines and catrinas, the iconic image of Día de los Muertos celebrations, presented by Casa Círculo Cultural’s live performers. Bay Area artist Irma Ortiz will demonstrate her process of creating decorated sugar skulls and will have sugar skull decorating activities for children. Additionally, artist Victoria Araiza will present children’s activities on the Second Tier, which will include cempasúchil (marigold) tissue-flower making, mini ofrenda making, a memory table activity, and Día de los Muertos facepainting. Lastly, the Community Music Center’s successful Mariachi CMC ensemble will present a Mariachi Instrument Petting Zoo, where guests will have the opportunity to pick up, hold, and learn to play popular mariachi instruments, including the guitarrón, vihuela, guitar, and violin. This activity is led by the CMC’s mariachi faculty and mariachi professional Daphne González Cambambia. Bilingual docents from the Community Music Center will be stationed at each altar and installation to help guide and immerse the audience in the holiday’s rich cultural traditions. 

IMMERSIVE LOBBY ART
Art installations and altars built by local artists honor the living and the deceased inspired by Día de los Angelitos, or Day of the Little Angels. Curated by Martha Rodríguez-Salazar, this year’s installations feature works by artists from AccessSFUSD: The Arc, Adrián Arias, Victor Cartagena and Creativity Explored, Casa Círculo Cultural, Fernando Escartiz, The Marigold Project and Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Community School, and Mission Education Center.  

Memory Forest is an immersive installation that reimagines two deeply rooted Mexican traditions—the Árbol de la Vida (Tree of Life) and Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) altars—into a vibrant symbolic forest. Created by students from AccessSFUSD: The Arc, this work weaves together cultural heritage, personal memory, and collective storytelling. 

Adrián Arias’s altar is dedicated to the angelitos—the souls of children who, according to Mexican tradition, embark on a sacred journey to a radiant paradise. Inspired by the pre-Hispanic celebration of Miccailhuitontli, this space honors the belief that their spirits gather beneath a mystical tree, where laughter mingles with the whisper of cornfields and the hum of life.  

Symphony of Bones by Casa Círculo Cultural features eight oversized, articulated wooden skeletons that take their place as jubilant musicians within the windows of Davies Symphony Hall. Inspired by José Guadalupe Posada’s timeless engravings, these figures embody the playful vitality with which Mexican culture has long embraced the presence of death—not as an end, but as a continuation in rhythm and spirit. Adorned with penachos (feathered headdresses) and draped in delicate cadenas de papel (paper garlands), the skeletons transform into a festive orchestra. Their joyful stance recalls both the communal gatherings of the living and the eternal celebration of the departed. 

Faces that Speak by Victor Cartagena and Creativity Explored honors children with disabilities who have passed away, lives too often erased from public memory.  According to the World Health Organization, children with disabilities are nearly four times more likely to face violence, neglect, and exclusion, factors linked to premature death. Many also live with complex medical conditions, such as being immunocompromised, making them especially vulnerable to illness and healthcare disruptions. This installation gives voice to these lost lives, transforming the altar into a suspended field of memory and a platform for their unspoken desires. 

The Little Steps of the Horse/Pasitos de Caballo by Victor Cartagena is dedicated to honoring children who died in connection with crossing the Mexico-United States border. It also honors all children who have died shamefully under similar circumstances around the world. Titled “The Little Steps of the Horse,” the piece consists of two pairs of shoes—one adult and one child’s—covered with passport-size black-and-white photographs. Beneath the soles are horseshoes, disguising the footsteps of immigrants crossing the desert in search of a better life. It is an homage to all those who attempted to reach the American Dream and who died crossing the Río Grande or riding atop La Bestia, the train that connects South and North. 

Echoes of Innocence: A Symphony by Fernando Escartiz honors the spirit of Día de Muertos through music, memory, and light. At its heart are the vitrinas, small glass boxes rooted in Mexican popular art, created to honor the living by representing their trades and professions. By presenting them as if they were already gone, we symbolically “trick” death, asking her to pass them by and grant them more time. In this way, the vitrinas become offerings of protection, gratitude, and love. Here, the full San Francisco Symphony is reborn within the vitrina, performing an immortal melody dedicated to the children of heaven. The archway standing at the foot of the staircase in the Davies Symphony Hall lobby is inspired by an altarpiece of Baroque indigenous style that is in the church of Santa María Tonanzintla, in the state of Puebla in Mexico. First created in 2018, it returns this year with a new vision: two angels suspended above the stairs, their wide-open eyes filled with wonder at the indigenous paradise—where flowers, fruits, and birds welcome those who have passed as children once more. Lastly, in Where Children Still Play, Escartiz Studio presents a vision born from sorrow yet touched by hope: a skeleton dressed as a child, riding his tricycle. At a monumental scale, this figure transcends childhood play to become a universal symbol. 

Semillas de Luz is a participatory art installation by The Marigold Project in collaboration with Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Community School. The installation was created around a large kaleidoscope holding a symbolic Tree of Life, an emblem of Mexican culture that connects the underworld, the earthly realm, and the spirit world. Centered on this year’s theme of Día de los Angelitos, it honors the lives, dreams, and sacred spirit of children as seeds of hope and beauty, reminding us of the bright light they bring to this world.  

In The Journey of Our Ancestors by Carrie Wing and students from Mission Education Center, students honor their loved ones and ancestors who have passed away through framed portraits. Each student created a hojalata, a traditional Mexican folk art, by drawing and coloring portraits on aluminum sheets and placing them in decorated frames. This altar also pays tribute to the lives of immigrants who have journeyed in search of a better life for themselves and their families, symbolized here by the monarch butterfly. 

VISUAL ARTISTS
AccessSFUSD: The Arc includes adult students with disabilities, artists, creators, and proud members of the San Francisco community. Through AccessSFUSD: The Arc, and with the support of teachers Radka Pulliam and Heidi Seretan, students build real-life skills while discovering who they are and what they love. San Francisco is their classroom, studio, stage, and workplace. They learn by being out in the world: working jobs, making art, exploring the city, and meeting new people. Everything AccessSFUSD: The Arc does supports independence and helps students grow into confident, self-determined adults. Art is central to their lives. It helps them relax, process emotions, and tell stories that are sometimes hard to express in words. They’re also learning what it takes to be professional artists—receiving feedback, improving their skills, and sharing their work with the public. They gain experience in marketing, branding, and selling their art, too. Through their work, they show the world their ideas, emotions, and potential. This is their voice. This is their expression. This is who they are. 

Radka Pulliam is an artist-turned-educator who loves learning alongside her students. She enjoys exploring personal and cultural narratives, blending creativity with everyday life, and using art and problem-solving to create meaningful experiences that help students discover their purpose.  

Heidi Seretan has nearly two decades of experience working with young adults with disabilities. She is passionate about helping students explore their strengths and build greater independence, empowering them to become active, engaged members of their community.  

Victoria Araiza is an artist, cultural advocate, and former arts coordinator born and raised in San Francisco’s Mission District. For more than 20 years, she has worked with students across the San Francisco Unified School District, using art as a tool for cultural preservation, storytelling, and empowerment. Her practice includes, but is not limited to jewelry design, Day of the Dead altar installations, and community-based projects that draw on traditions while opening space for new voices and collective memory.  By centering student voices, heritage, and community engagement, her work affirms that culture is not static; it is living, evolving, and essential to our survival. 

Born in Peru, Adrián Arias is an American visual artist, poet, performer, and creator of cultural events. His multidisciplinary art has been experienced all around the world, in countries including Spain, France, Macedonia, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Chile, Argentina, Peru, and Japan. Arias has won international awards in painting, poetry, photography, and performing arts. He has exhibited at the de Young Museum, Galería de la Raza, Oakland Museum, Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, SOMArts, Red Poppy Art House, and various private galleries. He is the founder and an active member of the MAPP (Mission Arts Performance Project). His recent murals can be seen in San Francisco: on the corner of Turk and Hyde, inside the Magic Theater in Fort Mason, and on Google’s new Bay View campus. 

Víctor Cartagena, born in San Salvador, has been creating art in the Bay Area since the late 1980s. His early work, produced in the 1990s, grappled with memories of the violence in El Salvador and the pain and separation he experienced upon moving to the United States. During this period, he was part of Tamoanchán, a collective of Latin American printmakers working at the KALA Institute in Berkeley, sponsored by the California Arts Council (1990–1996). By the late 1990s, Cartagena’s work had expanded beyond the immigrant experience to address themes such as consumer culture, homelessness, violence, and material waste. His artistic practice has also diversified to include sculpture, audio and video installations, and performance. His artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally, in countries including France, Greece, Germany, Belarus, Cyprus, Spain, Cuba, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, and Argentina, among others.  

Cartagena created this project in collaboration with artists from Creativity Explored, a mission-based nonprofit founded in 1983 by Florence and Elias Katz. This organization provides artists with developmental disabilities the means to create and share their work with the community. It offers supportive studio space where artists create, collaborate, sell, and exhibit their art. For this installation, Cartagena worked alongside Camille Holvoet, Doris Yen, Selene Perez, Kate Thompson, Donna Osborne, and Kevin Roach. Each contributing artist brings a distinct visual practice and unique lived history to this impactful mix. 

Fernando Escartiz was born in Mexico City and became involved in the arts early in his childhood. An assistant and student of Enrique Miralda, Escartiz is also influenced by his late friend, Mexican sculptor Fernando Pereznieto. He enjoys traveling and encountering new textures, colors, forms, and feelings, all of which inspire his work as a sculptor, painter, and stage designer. In 2021, he founded Escartiz Studio, an artists’ collective that has quickly grown into a hub of creativity and cultural innovation. Now celebrating its fourth anniversary, Escartiz Studio has become known for its large-scale public art, cultural installations, and its commitment to connecting communities through creativity. Over the past four years, the studio has brought bold ideas to life, transforming public spaces and inspiring audiences with art that bridges tradition and contemporary expression. In addition to leading Escartiz Studio, Escartiz also contributes to the nonprofit Casa Círculo Cultural, where he shares his passion for art by teaching and supporting community events in Northern California. 

Deni Slehiman, Mara Lea Brown, and Danielle Revives are artists and educators from The Marigold Project whose practices center on community, cultural identity, ancestry, and relationship to the natural world. Slehiman, from Saltillo, Mexico, creates art and heartfelt spaces inspired by Mexican folklore and cosmology by sharing a message of conscious connection to the land and each other. Brown, a bilingual visual arts teacher at Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Community School, explores identity and belonging through expressive portraits and mixed media, weaving in motifs from nature to reflect the essence of the human experience. Revives, a San Francisco-born, Hawai’i-raised self-taught artist, builds contemporary altars rooted in Mesoamerican tradition and her mixed Persian, Hawaiian, and Filipino heritage, using flowers and reclaimed materials to create sacred spaces that bridge ancestors, earth, and community.   

Sugar-skull artist Irma Ortiz was born in the state of Querétaro, Mexico. She has been a Bay Area resident for more than 25 years. Her family has maintained traditional arts and crafts for many generations, and she learned from them the art of making sugar skulls and altars for Día de los Muertos. She enjoys demonstrating what she knows of her culture and has passed on her craft to her daughters and grandchildren. Ortiz has been showing her art at the San Francisco Symphony’s Día de los Muertos celebrations since 2011. 

Carrie Wing is a teacher and artist based in San Francisco. She has taught visual art in San Francisco Unified School District for the past 12 years and currently works as an elementary art teacher. In her own practice, she explores printmaking, painting, and ceramics. The contributing artists are students from Mission Education Center, grades TK–5. Mission Education Center is a newcomer school for Spanish-speaking students and offers a bilingual transitional Kindergarten program. 

COMMUNITY PARTNERS
The Community Music Center is a nonprofit institution making high-quality music accessible to people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities, regardless of financial means. With a newly expanded campus in the Mission and also in the Richmond neighborhood of San Francisco, CMC students come from every neighborhood to learn and make beautiful music. CMC’s musical opportunities are diverse, ranging from mariachi, to classical, to jazz and roots music. CMC believes in the power of music to connect people, celebrate cultures, and transform lives. As a vital San Francisco hub for music education and performance, CMC envisions students and faculty who are engaged and fulfilled in making music together, and audiences who are energized by their experiences. Inspired by their training, CMC students are empowered to find their own voice, develop lasting relationships, embrace learning, and give back to their communities. 

The Día de los Muertos Concert is presented in partnership with the San Francisco Arts Commission. The mission of The San Francisco Arts Commission is to invest in an arts community where all artists and cultural workers have the freedom, resources, and platform to share their stories, regardless of race. The San Francisco Arts Commission believes that art is critical to shaping neighborhoods and the urban environment and for fostering social change to confront and resolve the inequities of the past and present to move towards a more equitable future.

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