Overview

The acclaimed British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor performs Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto. Soundtrack scorers and pop musicians love to borrow its tunes, so don’t be surprised if you find yourself humming along. The Austrian composer Alexander Zemlinsky began his Technicolor orchestral fantasy Die Seejungfrau in 1902, in the wake of a painful breakup. The music might have been loosely inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, but the subject is just an excuse for the composer to express his own feelings of betrayal, alienation, and hopeless longing. Opening this program conducted by Juraj Valčuha is a new SF Symphony commission by Kyle Rivera, winner of the Emerging Black Composers Project.