More of the Same: SFS in 2017-18

[I obviously started this back in March and never finished it. Here goes.]

San Francisco Symphony's 2017-18 season announcement came out today, and what can one say beyond headtable?

As I predicted, there's lots of Lenny.

It's white men all the way down, most of them dead, with the exception of one (1) work by Kaija Saariaho (Lanterna Magica), which just happens to be on the one (1) program conducted by a woman, Susanna Mälkki, and one (1) work by a composer with a Chinese name, which just happens to be on the program of the China National Centre for the Performing Arts Orchestra.

There are some living white guys in the new music category: Penderecki, Poznanski (coming with the Israel Philharmonic/Mehta), Salonen (on PH-C's program), Meyer (with St. Martin in the Fields), Wuorinen (that's a surprise, really), Norman (on Valcuha's program), Connesson (on Dèneve's program), and Dean (on Robertson's program). The thing is, these new works are all curtain-raisers, which you can tell because they're mostly the first work on programs with two big pieces.

Also, living male film music composers including Williams and Elfman.

There are plenty of concerts I'd like to see, such as Urbanski's program with the wonderful Lutoslawski Concerto for Orchestra, MTT's with Bartok 2nd piano concerto (Denk) and the Symphonie fantastique, not the mention Boris Godunov in concert and the two Ives symphonies. There's some Sibelius, too, and I almost never mind hearing his music. (Although - why not Nielsen?) And some Shostakovich and Prokofiev.

When I started this post in March, the LA Phil had just announced its genuinely astounding season, and SFS seemed just plain dreary and more of the same. With a little distance, it's much better than I'd thought; I was genuinely surprised at how many concerts I checked off as must-see or nice-to-see. Still, we are in the shadow of the orchestra to the south.