INTERPLAY: PEKKA KUUSISTO
October 06 & 07, 2023
At A Glance
This concert brings together two contemporary works by composers who have been championed by San Francisco Symphony Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Jesper Nordin’s Convergence is a cutting-edge reinvention of the violin concerto, commissioned by the SF Symphony for Collaborative Partner Pekka Kuusisto. Nordin’s Reactional Music Engine, designed in part to create custom music for video games, powers electronic instruments in real time, triggered by the soloist and conductor through audio tracking and motion sensors.
John Adams’s Naïve and Sentimental Music, co-commissioned and premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1999 during Salonen’s music directorship there, seeks to shake off the composer’s “anxiety of influence” and the weight of expectation, returning to the “naïve” realm of direct and individual musical creativity.
Jesper Nordin’s Convergence is a cutting-edge reinvention of the violin concerto, commissioned by the SF Symphony for Collaborative Partner Pekka Kuusisto. Nordin’s Reactional Music Engine, designed in part to create custom music for video games, powers electronic instruments in real time, triggered by the soloist and conductor through audio tracking and motion sensors.
John Adams’s Naïve and Sentimental Music, co-commissioned and premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1999 during Salonen’s music directorship there, seeks to shake off the composer’s “anxiety of influence” and the weight of expectation, returning to the “naïve” realm of direct and individual musical creativity.
Program
Jesper
Nordin
Convergence
[SF Symphony Commission and World Premiere]
[SF Symphony Commission and World Premiere]
John
Adams
Naïve and Sentimental Music
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Conductor
Esa-Pekka Salonen is known as both a composer and conductor. He is 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 of the Philharmonia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. As a member of the faculty of the Colburn School, he directs the pre-professional Negaunee Conducting Program. Salonen co-founded, and until 2018 served as the Artistic Director of, the annual Baltic Sea Festival.
Highlights from Esa-Pekka Salonen’s 2023–24 San Francisco Symphony season include world premieres from Jesper Nordin, Anders Hillborg, and Jens Ibsen; projects by Collaborative Partners Pekka Kuusisto and Carol Reiley; the launch of the inaugural California Festival; a tour of California; and a program of Ravel and Schoenberg featuring choreography by Alonzo King and staging by Peter Sellars.
Salonen also conducts many of his own compositions around the world this season. Among them are Tiu, a new work commemorating the 20th anniversary of Walt Disney Concert Hall, premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Karawane, also with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Salonen’s Sinfonia Concertante for Organ and Orchestra with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Philadelphia Orchestra; and kínēma with the San Francisco Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestra.
Salonen has an extensive and varied recording career. Releases with the San Francisco Symphony include recordings of Bartók’s piano concertos, as well as spatial audio recordings of several Ligeti compositions. Other recent recordings include Strauss’s Four Last Songs, Bartók’s Miraculous Mandarin and Dance Suite, and a 2018 box set of his complete Sony recordings. His compositions appear on releases from Sony, Deutsche Grammophon, and Decca; his Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, and Cello Concerto all appear on recordings he conducted himself.
Highlights from Esa-Pekka Salonen’s 2023–24 San Francisco Symphony season include world premieres from Jesper Nordin, Anders Hillborg, and Jens Ibsen; projects by Collaborative Partners Pekka Kuusisto and Carol Reiley; the launch of the inaugural California Festival; a tour of California; and a program of Ravel and Schoenberg featuring choreography by Alonzo King and staging by Peter Sellars.
Salonen also conducts many of his own compositions around the world this season. Among them are Tiu, a new work commemorating the 20th anniversary of Walt Disney Concert Hall, premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Karawane, also with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Salonen’s Sinfonia Concertante for Organ and Orchestra with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Philadelphia Orchestra; and kínēma with the San Francisco Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestra.
Salonen has an extensive and varied recording career. Releases with the San Francisco Symphony include recordings of Bartók’s piano concertos, as well as spatial audio recordings of several Ligeti compositions. Other recent recordings include Strauss’s Four Last Songs, Bartók’s Miraculous Mandarin and Dance Suite, and a 2018 box set of his complete Sony recordings. His compositions appear on releases from Sony, Deutsche Grammophon, and Decca; his Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, and Cello Concerto all appear on recordings he conducted himself.
Enrich Your Experience
- Learn the secrets behind Jesper Nordin’s Reactional Music technology through an in-concert discussion/demonstration with Nordin and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
- Expand your senses with video projections, created live in the moment.
- It’s game on as Pekka Kuusisto improvises alongside Jesper Nordin’s technology.
Reactional Music
Composer/developer Jesper Nordin comfortably straddles the worlds of concert music and gaming, and his twin interests have found a home in his Reactional Music platform. In addition to creating custom in-the-moment music for gamers, Reactional Music also allows unprecedented interaction between live performers and technology as gestures inspire the surrounding musical atmosphere. Nordin’s violin concerto offers a fascinating opportunity to see and hear Reactional Music in action.
