Saturday, February 22, 2025

This Week at San Francisco Symphony.

On the left, a half-smiling young Black man wearing glasses in a black suit, his hands over the top of his bassoon. On the right, a balding, bearded white man wearing glasses, in a black shirt. He is smiling and holding a handful of sticks for playing percussion instruments, business ends pointing at the viewer.

Bassoonist Joshua Elmore, left; Percussionist Stan Muncy, right.
Photo courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

I reported on the appointment of Joshua Elmore as principal bassoon and Stan Muncy as section percussionist, as well as reviewing last night's banger of a program:
Various details that I could not fit into my review:
  • Daniil Trifonov's encores were Samuel Barber, Mvt II from Piano Sonata, Op. 26, and Prokofiev, Gavotte from Cinderella, Op. 95 No. 2
  • Xavier Muzik used a mirrorless Fujifilm X-Pro3 digital camera and a vintage Yashica Electro 35 film camera, mostly with Kodak Gold film, for the photos in the slideshow accompanying Strange Beasts
  • There was a brief pause between Parts I and II of The Rite of Spring, planned by Esa-Pekka Salonen. The pause was also for principal trombone Timothy Higgins and guest associate principal trombone Gracie Potter to change places so that Higgins could play bass trumpet trombone.
Elswhere:


Previously:
  • Joshua Kosman on Salonen's first Rite of Spring performance with SFS. I completely agreed with him about the weirdly soft-focus Stravinsky on the program, which I didn't find effective.
  • Joshua Kosman on timpanist Elayne Jones. As it happens, SFS had a Black player before Jones, bassist Charles Burrell. Subsequently, these Black musicians were members of the orchestra:
    • Violist Basil Vendrys, now principal viola of the Colorado Symphony
    • Bassoonist Rufus Olivier, now principal bassoon of the SF Opera and SF Ballet Orchestras
    • Nicole Cash, former associate principal horn


 

5 comments:

The Bobbler said...

Close: Tim switched to bass trumpet. It's only used in the second half of the Rite.

Lisa Hirsch said...

You know, that is what the email from SFS said, and assumed it was a.....type...for bass trombone. Thank you and I'll fix it right away. (I mean....I could have consulted my score!)

Gretchen said...

Can you tell us what the two encores were? Thank you.

Lisa Hirsch said...

They're under "Various details I could not fit in the review," above.

Josh Williams said...

Gracie Potter is a rising star on the trombone. She was just appointed principal in Detroit, and I think she's only 23.