Jaap van Zweden & Emanuel Ax
January 29, 30 & 31, 2026
Overview
Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden and American pianist Emanuel Ax return to the San Francisco Symphony for a stellar program featuring two Austrian giants. The passionate, far-reaching C-major Piano Concerto, K.503 is now recognized as one of Mozart’s finest—and most difficult—works in the genre. Olivier Messiaen called the brief third theme of the third movement the most beautiful sequence of bars that Mozart ever wrote. It wasn’t until his Seventh Symphony that Bruckner, age 60, enjoyed any popular success as a composer. The Seventh Symphony features a contrabass tuba and, for the first time outside The Ring cycle, four Wagner tubas. It’s a fitting tribute to Wagner, whom Bruckner memorialized in the symphony’s elegiac coda—calling it “funeral music for the Master.”Concert Extras
A preconcert talk will be presented from the stage one hour before the concert. Free to all ticketholders.
Program
Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart
Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K.503
Anton
Bruckner
Symphony No. 7
Sponsors
These concerts are generously sponsored by Andy and Teri Goodman.
Jaap van Zweden, conductor
San Francisco Symphony
Jaap van Zweden
Conductor
Jaap van Zweden is currently music director of the Seoul Philharmonic and music director designate of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Among his past music directorships are the New York Philharmonic, where his tenure included 31 premieres and the reopening of David Geffen Hall, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic, which was named Gramophone’s Orchestra of the Year under his leadership. He has conducted the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Berlin Staatskapelle, London Symphony, Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Los Angeles Philharmonic, among many others. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in October 2012 and will lead the Orchestra in a three-season cycle of Beethoven’s nine symphonies beginning in February 2026.
This season, van Zweden undertakes European and Asian tours with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and rejoins the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, and Antwerp Symphony, where he is conductor emeritus. In the United States, he returns to the Chicago Symphony and leads his first US tour with the Seoul Philharmonic. In Asia, he returns to the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Hong Kong Philharmonic.
Van Zweden’s discography includes acclaimed releases on Decca Gold and Naxos. With the New York Philharmonic, he recorded David Lang’s prisoner of the state and Julia Wolfe’s Grammy-nominated Fire in my mouth. With the Hong Kong Philharmonic, he conducted the first full Ring cycle ever staged in Hong Kong, and his performance of Parsifal received the 2012 Edison Award for Best Opera Recording.
Born in Amsterdam, van Zweden was appointed the youngest-ever concertmaster in the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at age 19, and began his conducting career in 1996. A winner of the Concertgebouw Prize and Musical America’s 2012 Conductor of the Year, he founded the Papageno Foundation with his wife, supporting young people with autism through music, housing, research, and innovation.
This season, van Zweden undertakes European and Asian tours with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and rejoins the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, and Antwerp Symphony, where he is conductor emeritus. In the United States, he returns to the Chicago Symphony and leads his first US tour with the Seoul Philharmonic. In Asia, he returns to the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Hong Kong Philharmonic.
Van Zweden’s discography includes acclaimed releases on Decca Gold and Naxos. With the New York Philharmonic, he recorded David Lang’s prisoner of the state and Julia Wolfe’s Grammy-nominated Fire in my mouth. With the Hong Kong Philharmonic, he conducted the first full Ring cycle ever staged in Hong Kong, and his performance of Parsifal received the 2012 Edison Award for Best Opera Recording.
Born in Amsterdam, van Zweden was appointed the youngest-ever concertmaster in the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at age 19, and began his conducting career in 1996. A winner of the Concertgebouw Prize and Musical America’s 2012 Conductor of the Year, he founded the Papageno Foundation with his wife, supporting young people with autism through music, housing, research, and innovation.
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