Igor Levit begins his residency with the San Francisco Symphony with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto, a work that rose from the ravages of the Napoleonic wars as a musical testament to the people’s heroism and resilience. Then, Esa-Pekka Salonen leads Beethoven’s expansive Symphony No. 3, Eroica, where the struggle between good and evil plays out in the orchestra as heroic themes battle inner demons that lurk not far below.
Program
Piano Concerto No. 5
These concerts, a part of The Barbro and Bernard Osher Masterworks Series, are made possible by a generous gift from Barbro and Bernard Osher.
THESE CONCERTS ARE GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY ANDY AND TERI GOODMAN.
THURSDAY MATINEE CONCERTS ARE ENDOWED BY A GIFT IN MEMORY OF RHODA GOLDMAN.
Conductor
Esa-Pekka Salonen is known as both a composer and conductor. He is currently the Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, where he works alongside eight Collaborative Partners from a variety of disciplines, ranging from composers to roboticists. He is the Conductor Laureate for the Philharmonia Orchestra, where he was Principal Conductor & Artistic Advisor from 2008 until 2021, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he was Music Director from 1992 until 2009, and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He is currently in the midst of Multiverse Esa-Pekka Salonen, a two-season residency as both composer and conductor, at Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. As a member of the faculty of LA's Colburn School, he develops, leads, and directs the pre-professional Negaunee Conducting Program. Salonen co-founded— and from 2003 until 2018 served as the Artistic Director for—the annual Baltic Sea Festival, which invites celebrated artists to promote unity and ecological awareness among the countries around the Baltic Sea.
Since joining the San Francisco Symphony in 2020, Salonen’s tenure has been defined by an impulse to embrace the possibilities of the orchestra and expand the institution beyond the confines of the subscription season. In addition to an unprecedented leadership model in which he is joined by eight Collaborative Partners—whose diversity of expertise reflects the scope of experience he envisions as the future of classical music and its audience—Salonen has led a series of collaborations across disciplines and practices which unite the Symphony’s musicians, administrative staff, and hands-on facility workers into a singular engine dedicated to engaging classical music in novel ways.
Salonen also brings his longstanding affinity for emerging technologies to the Symphony. In his first two seasons, he has spearheaded a complete overhaul of Davies Hall’s complement of audio and visual recording equipment, launched the SFSymphony+ streaming platform with a series of signature projects including an AI-infused take on the music of Györgi Ligeti, and the Grammy-nominated Throughline, and reshaped the Symphony into a powerhouse of the unexpected, equally comfortable with live performance and expansive new media projects.
Salonen has an extensive and varied recording career, both as a conductor and composer. His recent recordings include Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, recorded with Lise Davidsen and the Philharmonia Orchestra; Bartók’s Miraculous Mandarin and Dance Suite, also with the Philharmonia; Stravinsky’s Persephone, featuring Andrew Staples, Pauline Cheviller, and the Finnish National Opera, and a 2018 box set of his complete Sony recordings. His compositions appear on releases from Sony, Deutsche Grammophon, and Decca; his Piano Concerto (with Yefim Bronfman), Violin Concerto (with Leila Jofesowicz), and Cello Concerto (with Yo-Yo Ma) all appear on recordings conducted by Salonen himself.
Salonen is the recipient of many major awards, including the UNESCO Rostrum Prize for his work Floof in 1992, and the Siena Prize, given by the Accademia Chigiana, in 1993; he is the first conductor to receive it. In 1995 he received the Royal Philharmonic Society's Opera Award and two years later, its Conductor Award. Salonen was awarded the Litteris et Artibus medal, one of Sweden's highest honors, by the King of Sweden in 1996. In 1998 the French government awarded him the rank of Officier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In addition to receiving both the Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland and the Helsinki Medal, he was named Commander, First Class of the Order of the Lion of Finland by the President of Finland. Musical America named him its Musician of the Year in 2006, and he was elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010. His Violin Concerto won the 2012 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. He was the recipient of the 2014 Nemmers Composition Prize, which included a residency at the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University and performances by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 2020, he was appointed an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by the Queen of England. To date, he has received seven honorary doctorates in four different countries.
Piano
With an alert and critical mind, Igor Levit places his art in the context of social events and understands their inextricable connection. He was named Musical America’s Recording Artist of the Year in 2020 and the Gilmore Artist in 2018. In June 2022 his album On DSCH received the Recording of the Year Award as well as the Instrumental Award from BBC Music Magazine.
Mr. Levit is a regular soloist with the world’s leading ensembles, including the Cleveland Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and Vienna Philharmonic. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in April 2015 as a Shenson Young Artist.
Mr. Levit’s highly acclaimed recording of the 32 Beethoven sonatas received the Gramophone Artist of the Year Award and the Opus Klassik. In spring 2021 Hanser published Mr. Levit’s first book, House Concert, co-authored by Florian Zinnecker. Fall 2022 saw the release of Mr. Levit’s solo album Tristan as well as the release of the documentary Igor Levit—No Fear.
Born in Nizhni Novgorod, Russia, Mr. Levit moved to Germany with his family at age eight. He completed his piano studies in Hannover with the highest score in the history of the institute. Mr. Levit was the youngest participant in the 2005 International Arthur Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv, where he won silver, the special prize for chamber music, the audience prize, and the special prize for the best performance of contemporary pieces. In spring 2019 he was appointed professor of piano at his alma mater, the University of Music, Theatre, and Media, in Hanover.
In recognition of his political commitment, Mr. Levit was awarded the 5th International Beethoven Prize in 2019, followed by the award of the “Statue B” of the International Auschwitz Committee in January 2020. His 53 livestreamed house concerts during the spring 2020 lockdown garnered a worldwide audience, offering a sense of community and hope in a time of isolation and despair. In October 2020 Mr. Levit was recognized with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In Berlin, where he makes his home, he plays on a Steinway Model D piano kindly given to him by the Trustees of Independent Opera at Sadler’s Wells.
June 2023
The San Francisco Symphony is thrilled to welcome renowned pianist, Igor Levit, for a two-week concert residency. Levit, Gramophone's 2020 Artist of the Year, will join the Orchestra for performances of concertos by Ludwig van Beethoven and Ferruccio Busoni, along with chamber performances with members of the SF Symphony, and a solo recital on the Great Performers Series. Levit became a household name in 2020 when he presented a daily concert online from his home for fifty consecutive days, bringing music, hope, and connection to people around the world during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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