Overview

Peruvian conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya leads the San Francisco Symphony in a globe-hopping, toe-tapping program that’s bursting with rhythm and color. Among the highlights is Shift, a new trombone concerto by Lima native Jimmy López—performed by SF Symphony Principal Trombone Timothy Higgins—inspired by “the behavior of waves as observed through the Doppler effect.” The Spanish composer Joaquín Turina wrote his most famous work, Danzas fantásticas, in 1919, inspired by the novel La orgía by José Más. Printed on the score at the start of each dance are quotations from the novel, which convey the ecstatic splendor of Turina’s music. Born in the French Pyrenees to a Basque mother reared in Madrid, Maurice Ravel embraced a cross-cultural style. Rapsodie espagnole boasts Spanish-inflected castanets and tambourine, shadowy low winds, muted brass, and blazing instrumental colors.