The January 24 concert is presented in partnership with
Inside Music Talks are supported in memory of Horacio Rodriguez.
Beethoven 5 & Seong-Jin Cho
January 22, 23 & 24, 2026
Overview
Finnish conductor John Storgårds makes his San Francisco Symphony debut with an exhilarating program centered on Beethoven’s monumental Fifth Symphony. Beethoven’s subject wasn’t the individual but the human condition, the fate we heroically create for ourselves, one choice at a time. Has any transition from C minor to C major ever felt more blissful, more fully earned? Less familiar but equally powerful is Finnish composer Outi Tarkiainen’s visceral and life-affirming The Rapids of Life, heard in its US premiere. Pianist Seong-Jin Cho and SF Symphony Principal Trumpet Mark Inouye perform Shostakovich’s sprightly and intelligent Piano Concerto No. 1, an underperformed gem that spans the silly and the sublime. Initially conceived as a trumpet concerto, the work still gives that instrument plenty of love: this is a double concerto in all but name.Concert Extras
An Inside Music Talk with Alicia Mastromonaco, PhD, will be presented on stage one hour before each concert. Free to all ticketholders.
Lobby Exhibit: Requiem Reflections. Head to Davies Symphony Hall’s First Tier lobby for an exhibit connecting Mozart’s Requiem with the universal questions it stirs. On display through March 4.
Lobby Exhibit: Requiem Reflections. Head to Davies Symphony Hall’s First Tier lobby for an exhibit connecting Mozart’s Requiem with the universal questions it stirs. On display through March 4.
Program
Outi
Tarkiainen
The Rapids of Life
United States Premiere
Dmitri
Shostakovich
Piano Concerto No. 1
Ludwig van
Beethoven
Symphony No. 5
Sponsors
Lead support for this concert series is provided by the Phyllis C. Wattis Fund for New Works of Music.
The January 24 concert is presented in partnership with
Inside Music Talks are supported in memory of Horacio Rodriguez.
The January 24 concert is presented in partnership with
Inside Music Talks are supported in memory of Horacio Rodriguez.
John Storgårds, conductor
San Francisco Symphony
John Storgårds
Conductor
Chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic and Turku Philharmonic, principal guest conductor of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra Ottawa, and longtime artistic director of the Lapland Chamber Orchestra, John Storgårds has a dual career as a conductor and violinist. Most recently, he was announced as music director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra and principal conductor and artistic adviser of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, with both positions commencing next season.
Highlights of his 2025–26 season include two appearances at the BBC Proms with the BBC Philharmonic, a tour to the Beijing Music Festival, this week’s debut with the San Francisco Symphony, and a debut with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. He also returns to the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Finnish Radio Symphony, Lahti Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, and Minnesota Orchestra.
Other recent appearances include the Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Berlin Radio Symphony, Netherlands Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, BBC Symphony, London Philharmonic, all the major Nordic orchestras, the Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Melbourne Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon, and NHK Symphony. He frequently incorporates violin performances into his conducting engagements and gives recitals internationally with his regular duo partner, Kirill Gerstein.
Storgårds’s award-winning discography includes Sibelius and Nielsen symphony cycles with the BBC Philharmonic for Chandos, as well as an ongoing Shostakovich cycle. He earned a Grammy nomination and Gramophone Award in 2012. Storgårds was concertmaster of the Swedish Radio Symphony under Esa-Pekka Salonen before studying conducting with Jorma Panula and Eri Klas. He received the Finnish State Prize for Music in 2002 and the Pro Finlandia Prize in 2012.
Highlights of his 2025–26 season include two appearances at the BBC Proms with the BBC Philharmonic, a tour to the Beijing Music Festival, this week’s debut with the San Francisco Symphony, and a debut with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. He also returns to the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Finnish Radio Symphony, Lahti Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, and Minnesota Orchestra.
Other recent appearances include the Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Berlin Radio Symphony, Netherlands Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, BBC Symphony, London Philharmonic, all the major Nordic orchestras, the Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Melbourne Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon, and NHK Symphony. He frequently incorporates violin performances into his conducting engagements and gives recitals internationally with his regular duo partner, Kirill Gerstein.
Storgårds’s award-winning discography includes Sibelius and Nielsen symphony cycles with the BBC Philharmonic for Chandos, as well as an ongoing Shostakovich cycle. He earned a Grammy nomination and Gramophone Award in 2012. Storgårds was concertmaster of the Swedish Radio Symphony under Esa-Pekka Salonen before studying conducting with Jorma Panula and Eri Klas. He received the Finnish State Prize for Music in 2002 and the Pro Finlandia Prize in 2012.
Mark Inouye
Trumpet
Mark Inouye joined the San Francisco Symphony in 1999 and became Principal Trumpet in 2008, holding the William G. Irwin Charity Foundation Chair. He was previously principal trumpet with the Houston Symphony and Charleston Symphony and has been a guest principal trumpet with the New York Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony. He has toured the United States with Toccatas and Flourishes, the acclaimed organ and trumpet duo, and was a member of the Empire Brass Quintet. Inouye graduated from the Juilliard School, where he transferred after two years as a civil engineering major at the University of California, Davis.
With the SF Symphony, Inouye has been a soloist in Copland’s Quiet City, Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto, Bach’s Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, and Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 on three occasions with Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Yuja Wang, and Seong-Jin Cho. He also led and soloed on a Summer with the Symphony program in both jazz and classical styles. As a composer, his works have been performed on the SF Symphony Chamber Music Series.
Equally at home in classical music and jazz, Inouye was a founding member of the Juilliard Jazz Sextet at Lincoln Center and a guest performer at the Hollywood Bowl in the Playboy Jazz Festival. He appeared as soloist in Wynton Marsalis’s video Marsalis on Music, on a Disney Channel production featuring the Who at Carnegie Hall, and released his own debut jazz album, The Trumpet & The Bull.
With the SF Symphony, Inouye has been a soloist in Copland’s Quiet City, Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto, Bach’s Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, and Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 on three occasions with Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Yuja Wang, and Seong-Jin Cho. He also led and soloed on a Summer with the Symphony program in both jazz and classical styles. As a composer, his works have been performed on the SF Symphony Chamber Music Series.
Equally at home in classical music and jazz, Inouye was a founding member of the Juilliard Jazz Sextet at Lincoln Center and a guest performer at the Hollywood Bowl in the Playboy Jazz Festival. He appeared as soloist in Wynton Marsalis’s video Marsalis on Music, on a Disney Channel production featuring the Who at Carnegie Hall, and released his own debut jazz album, The Trumpet & The Bull.
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