SAN FRANCISCO, CA—Guest conductors Dalia Stasevska and Jukka-Pekka Saraste lead the San Francisco Symphony in two weeks of concerts at Davies Symphony Hall in January and February.

January 18–20: Seong-Jin Cho Plays Beethoven
On January 18–20, Dalia Stasevska, Chief Conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra in Finland, leads the San Francisco Symphony in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, featuring pianist Seong-Jin Cho in his Orchestral Series debut. Influenced by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, Beethoven’s Third Concerto is a taut and lean work and the first of his five piano concertos written in his mature style.

Rounding out the program is Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World. Written during the composer’s sojourn in the United States, the Symphony reflects his interest in American music. Dvořák was inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem The Song of Hiawatha, and later noted that he tried to reproduce the essence of Native American and African American songs in his works of this period.

February 2–4: Saraste Conducts Beethoven 7
On February 2–4, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Chief Conductor and Music Director of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, conducts the San Francisco Symphony in a program featuring Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 6. Composed between 1817 and 1818, the piece is nicknamed the “Little” C-major Symphony so as not to be confused with Schubert’s later Symphony in C major, often referred to as the “Great.”

The program concludes with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, which he wrote as his hearing loss worsened. He believed Symphony No. 7 to be his “most excellent symphony,” and the second movement Allegretto is one of his most popular compositions.

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