Press Room

Jan 21, 2022

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—The San Francisco Symphony celebrates the Year of the Tiger with Lunar New Year: Year of the Tiger concert on Saturday, February 5 at Davies Symphony Hall. This year’s celebration marks the 22nd anniversary of the Symphony’s signature event, which bridges East and West traditions with the universal language of music. The annual event is an elegant celebration of the Lunar New Year, drawing upon vibrant Asian traditions, past and present. Conductor Yue Bao makes her debut leading the Orchestra in traditional folk music and works by Asian composers, featuring music from Chen Gang & He Zhanhao’s The Butterfly Lovers Concerto performed by violinist Bomsori, Tan Dun’s Eternal Vow from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon performed by SF Symphony Assistant Principal Cello Amos Yang, and works by Huan-zhi Li, Texu Kim, Huang Ruo, Tyzen Hsiao, and Liu Yuan.

Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, is the most important cultural holiday for many nations in East, South, and Southeast Asia, and is celebrated by people of Asian descent worldwide. Both a time of profound reflection of the past year and joyous optimism for what is to come, the SF Symphony’s Lunar New Year concert shares the sounds and beauty of varied musical and cultural experiences coming together in solidarity to fight Asian American and Pacific Islander hate. An inspiring program of music will be performed alongside short video reflections from members of our community on what it means to be Asian American, or to stand in solidarity with Asian Americans, today.

Due to the surge in the Omicron variant and out of an abundance of caution, the Blue Moon Banquet will not take place.  

The 5pm concert celebrates the Lunar New Year and San Francisco’s unique cultural fabric, featuring a combination of traditional Asian music alongside orchestral works influenced by both Eastern and Western musical traditions. The program opens with Huan-zhi Li’s Spring Festival Overture—the first movement of a suite honoring the Lunar New Year, followed by Chen Gang and He Zhanhao’s The Butterfly Lovers Concerto performed by violinist Bomsori. The Butterfly Lovers Concerto was composed in 1959 and faced censorship during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, finally gaining popularity in late 1970s. Composed for Western instruments and intertwining tonal harmonies with Chinese melodies, the concerto is considered the embodiment of a China in transition. The concert continues with Flower Drum Song from Feng Yang and Girl From the Da Ban City from Huang Ruo’s Folk Songs for Orchestra, originally commissioned and performed by the San Francisco Symphony at the 2012 Chinese New Year concert; Eternal Vow from Tan Dun’s score to Ang Lee’s 2000 Academy Award- and Golden Globe Award-winning film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, featuring SF Symphony Assistant Principal Cello Amos; and Texu Kim’s Spin-Flip, which the composer describes as “an eight-minute overture that is all about ping-pong.” Concluding the program are Tyzen Hsiao’s The Angel from Formosa, a work which evokes the quiet, rural life in the composer’s homeland of Taiwan, and Liu Yuan’s depiction of a rushing locomotive,Train Toccata.

The Lunar New Year Concert is underwritten by Patricia and Steven Lee-Hoffmann. Proceeds from the Lunar New Year: Year of the Tiger benefit the Symphony's artistic, education, and community programs. This celebration is presented in partnership with the San Francisco Arts Commission.

About the artists
Yue Bao serves as the Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Foundation Assistant Conductor of the Houston Symphony, assisting Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada. In May 2019, she completed a two-year tenure as the Rita E. Hauser Conducting Fellow at the Curtis Institute of Music, working closely with Yannick Nézet-Séguin. She was the Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation Conducting Fellow at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in 2019. In 2018, she served as the David Effron Conducting Fellow at the Chautauqua Music Festival. She also participated in the online iteration of the 2020 Tanglewood Conducting Seminar. She has been active as both a conductor and assistant, working with Michael Tilson Thomas, Osmo Vänskä, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Marin Alsop, David Robertson, and Itzhak Perlman.

Yue Bao made her subscription debut with the Houston Symphony on the opening night concert of the 2020–21 season and conducted the orchestra at the 2021 summer concerts at the Miller Theater. She made her Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut at the 2021 Ravinia Festival. Upcoming highlights include debuts with the Detroit Symphony and the Oviedo Filarmonia. She makes her San Francisco Symphony debut at this performance.

Recent appearances include engagements with the Shanghai Opera Symphony Orchestra, Xiamen Philharmonic, and the New Symphony Orchestra. Equally at home with both symphonic and operatic repertoire, she has conducted productions of Eugene Onegin, Carmen, Mahagonny: Ein Songspiel, and The Medium. She is also active as a pianist, recently playing for a production of Les contes d’Hoffmann at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing.

Along with an Artist Diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music, Yue Bao holds Bachelor of Music degrees in orchestral conducting and opera accompanying from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and a Master of Music degree in orchestral conducting from the Mannes School of Music.

Born in South Korea, Bomsori received a bachelor’s degree at Seoul National University, where she studied with Young Uck Kim. She also earned her Master of Music Degree and Artist Diploma at the Juilliard School where she studied with Sylvia Rosenberg and Ronald Copes.

Bomsori was the Focus Artist of the Rheingau Musik Festival 2021. She performed all five of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s violin concertos with the Camerata Salzburg, Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic, and works of J.S. Bach with Tenebrae. In summer 2021, she began a five-year residency at the Gstaad Menuhin Festival. This season she makes her debuts at the Philharmonie Essen, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, and the Philharmonie in Cologne, and she performs with the Danish National Symphony, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Singapore Symphony, and Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. This performance marks her San Francisco Symphony debut.

An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist, Bomsori released her first solo album on the label, Violin on Stage, with NFM Wrocław Philharmonic and Giancarlo Guerrero, in June 2021. In 2019 she released a duo album on Deutsche Grammophon with pianist Rafał Blechacz, featuring works by Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, Karol Szymanowski, and Frédéric Chopin. The album won the Fryderyk Music Award for Best Polish Album Abroad. In 2017, Warner Classics released Bomsori’s debut album with Jacek Kaspszyk and the Warsaw National Philharmonic, featuring Henryk Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 2 and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1.

With the support of Kumho Asiana Cultural Foundation, she currently plays on a 1774 violin by Joannes Baptista Guadagnini.

Amos Yang, occupant of the Karel & Lida Urbanek Chair, joined the San Francisco Symphony in 2007 as Assistant Principal Cello. He was previously a member of the Seattle Symphony. Born and raised in San Francisco, he was a member of the SF Symphony Youth Orchestra and San Francisco Boys Choir and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Juilliard School. From 1996 to 2002 he was the cellist in the Maia String Quartet. Mr. Yang serves on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the San Francisco Academy Orchestra.

CALENDAR EDITORS, PLEASE NOTE:

Tickets 
Tickets for concerts at Davies Symphony can be purchased via sfsymphony.org or by calling the San Francisco Symphony Box Office at 415-864-6000.

Location 
Davies Symphony Hall is located at 201 Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco.

Health & Safety Information 
Davies Symphony Hall is currently operating at full audience capacity. The San Francisco Symphony requires proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 for everyone ages 12 and up entering Davies Symphony Hall—including patrons, performers, volunteers, and staff. Full vaccination is defined as completion of the two-dose regimen of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or one dose of Johnson & Johnson vaccine or other WHO authorized COVID-19 vaccine administered two weeks or more in advance of the concert. For those eligible, proof of a COVID-19 booster—received at least one week prior to each event—is required for entrance into Davies Symphony Hall beginning February 1. Audience members between the ages of 5 and 11 must show proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 or a negative COVID-19 test (PCR test within 48 hours of the event, or antigen [rapid] test within 24 hours of the event). Audience members under age 5 must show proof of a negative COVID-19 test (PCR test within 48 hours of the event, or antigen [rapid] test within 24 hours of the event). Based on health and safety recommendations from the City and County of San Francisco and due to the transmissibility of the Omicron variant, all patrons are required to wear a non-vented respirator, such as a N95, KN95, KF94, or equivalent face mask while inside Davies Symphony Hall. Details about health and safety protocols at Davies Symphony Hall can be found here. 
  Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 5pm
 
Yue Bao conductor
Bomsori violin
Amos Yang cello
San Francisco Symphony
 
HUAN-ZHI LI Spring Festival Overture
 
CHEN GANG; HE ZHANHAO Excerpt from The Butterfly Lovers Concerto
 
HUANG RUO Flower Drum Song from Feng Yang and Girl from the Da Ban City from Folk Songs for Orchestra
 
TAN DUN Eternal Vow from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
 
TEXU KIM Spin-Flip
 
TYZEN HSIAO The Angel from Formosa
 
LIU YUAN Train Toccata
 
Tickets: $25–85.
 
Ticket Link: https://www.sfsymphony.org/Buy-Tickets/2021-22/Lunar-New-Year-Year-of-the-Tiger