RYAN BANCROFT & JOSHUA BELL

May 16, 17 & 18, 2024

Promo Code applied! Remove

Overview

The elements inspire and sustain, connecting our bodies to the earth—and even to points beyond. Violinist Joshua Bell commissioned Kevin Puts’ Earth, which celebrates the enduring resilience of soil and the awe-inspiring beauty of our planet. Water is represented by Claude Debussy’s richly textured marine triptych, which heaves and rolls, glitters and engulfs. Unsuk Chin’s Alaraph ‘Ritus des Herzschlags’—an SF Symphony commission and U.S. premieredepicts a so-called “heartbeat star,” so named because of the regular pulsation of its light.

The commissioning of Unsuk Chin’s Alaraph ‘Ritus des Herzschlags’ is made possible by the Ralph I. Dorfman Commissioning Fund.

Ryan Bancroft’s appearance is generously supported by the Shenson Young Artist Debut Fund.

Thursday matinee concerts are endowed by a gift in memory of Rhoda Goldman.

At A Glance

Cosmology has inspired a number of classical works, including Gustav Holst’s The Planets, Olivier Messiaen’s From the Canyons to the Stars, and George Crumb’s Makrokosmos. Unsuk Chin, one of the most internationally admired of contemporary composers, adds to that roster with Alaraph, ‘Ritus des Herzschlags’, named after a binary star in the constellation Virgo whose pulsation resembles a a heartbeat.

The Belgian violinist Henry Vieuxtemps, an international superstar in his day, wrote his Violin Concerto No. 5 as a competition piece for the Brussels Conservatory. In the slow movement, he quotes a passage from an opera by the earlier Belgian composer André Grétry—so here is a Belgian composer quoting another Belgian composer for the delectation of students at a Belgian conservatory.

Kevin Puts is one of five composers who contributed movements to the Elements project organized by Joshua Bell. “They all have something in common,” said Bell: “They all have a tendency toward tonality and melody, which I like.” Puts’s contribution represents the element Earth, originally in the company of Water, Fire, Air, and Space.
It was during youthful summer weeks spent at the beaches of Cannes that Claude Debussy learned to love the sea, particularly its unpredictability, its ever-changing nature. La Mer was only his seventh major orchestral score, but it is so brilliantly assured that it sometimes seems like Debussy invented the modern orchestra.
 

Artists

Ryan Bancroft

Conductor

Joshua Bell

Violin

San Francisco Symphony

Program

Unsuk Chin
Alaraph ‘Ritus des Herzschlags’ 
[SF Symphony Commission and U.S. Premiere]
Henri Vieuxtemps
Violin Concerto No. 5
Kevin Puts
Earth [First San Francisco Symphony Performances]
Claude Debussy

La Mer

RYAN BANCROFT & JOSHUA BELL

Enrich Your Experience

  • Friday, May 17 from 6:30–7:00pm: A preconcert talk with musicians Aaron Schuman and Tim Higgins and Chief Artistic Officer Phillippa Cole will be presented from the stage. Free to all ticketholders.


Please wait...