Music: SFSYMPHONY+ (San Francisco Symphony)

A NEW WAY TO EXPERIENCE YOUR SYMPHONY

Upping the virtual music concert spectrum, The San Francisco Symphony and Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen are presenting a new on-demand streaming service, SFSymphony+ (SFSymphony Plus). This membership-based service is now on sale at the cost of one ticket to a live concert! Priced at $120 for the entire season (February 4—August 31, 2021), memberships provide exclusive access to premium all-new SFS digital content.

The service will also offer select content free of charge (browse here), including previously released programs, newly recorded chamber music performances, and the SF Symphony’s 2021 Chinese New Year Virtual Celebration: Year of the Ox on Feb. 20. Hosted by Bay Area actor-director Joan Chen, the program focuses on themes that coordinate with the Year of the Ox — prosperity, unity, and growth. The first set of free chamber performance videos will be released on February 4 with the launch of SFSymphony+. These will include performances of Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Trio No. 3 in G major, Opus 9, no.1, Shinji Eshima’s Bariolage, Andrés Martin’s Synchronicity, and Florence Price’s Five Folksongs.

You also get seven new programs under the banner of SoundBox, which was launched in 2014 as an experimental, late-night concert series for culturally curious audiences. Kicking off the series on Feb. 4, Maestro Salonen curates and conducts an evocative SoundBox program titled Nostalgia, featuring works composed in the last decade including Freya Waley-Cohen’s Conjure, Missy Mazzoli’s Vespers for Violin, and Caroline Shaw’s Entr’acte. On March 11, soprano Julia Bullock presents a SoundBox program originally scheduled to take place last Spring and adapted her for live performance to a digital format: Lineage — an audio and visual snapshot of how lineage can inform, influence, impact, and express itself in a musical context. Entire series is listed below.

There will also be five new CURRENTS episodes. This is the video series launched in July 2020 that explores the intersections of classical music with varied musical cultures, illuminating the connections and ways that cultures influence each other and evolve together. On February 18 composer and tabla player Zakir Hussain explores the relationship between classical and Indian musical cultures, curated by tabla player; on April 1, composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate looks into the intersection of classical and Native American musical cultures. See the rest of the programs below.