Music@Menlo Names Next Directors

Dmitri Atapine (left, with cello) and Hyeyeon Park (right, at piano)

Cellist Dmitri Atapine and pianist Hyeyeon Park will be the next directors of Music@Menlo, succeeding cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han. Their first season will be 2027; Finckel and Wu Han will conclude with the 2026 season.

You can read the full press release here. DB at Kalimac's Corner has commentary as well.

Season Updates from San Francisco Symphony

Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

S.F. Symphony has announced some additions and updates to the 2025-26 season. As I had expected, the additions are mostly holiday concerts and pop-oriented programs. The exception is the annual chorus concert, which will certainly be worth hearing.

Here are the additions:

• Celebrating Hardly Strictly Bluegrass: Lyle Lovett and His Acoustic Group with the SF Symphony — Sep 13
• The Decemberists with the SF Symphony — Oct 10
• Danny Elfman’s Music from the Films of Tim Burton — Nov 13–14
• HOLIDAYS: Christmas with the Count Basie Orchestra — Dec 3
• HOLIDAYS: The Holiday—Film with Live Orchestra — Dec 10–11
• HOLIDAYS: Frozen—Film with Live Orchestra — Dec 13
• HOLIDAYS: A Charlie Brown Christmas—LIVE! — Dec 21–22
• Distant Worlds: music from FINAL FANTASY — Mar 17
• San Francisco Symphony Chorus Concert — May 31

The balance of the updates are after the break, but I see that once again I will be querying the orthography of a work to be performed: Jennifer Higdon's oft-performed orchestral work in memory of her brother is properly blue cathedral, not Blue Cathedral. (Previously: the correct orthography for Esa-Pekka Salonen's work for clarinet and orchestra.)

San Francisco Opera Pride Concert

San Francisco Opera's Pride Concert with projections by Tal Rosner, June 27, 2025.

Photo: Matthew Washburn/San Francisco Opera

Click to enlarge, which you should do because that little white rectangle is the pad on which I was scribbling.

SF Opera's Pride Concert - the first, but not the last - was a ton of fun.

• Tony Bravo, S.F. Chronicle
• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV
• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle (link to follow; he was there)

San Francisco Opera's Pride Concert with projections by Tal Rosner, June 27, 2025.

Photo: Matthew Washburn/San Francisco Opera

Nikola Printz with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, conducted by Robert Mollicone, and Caroline Corrales, Thomas Kinch, Georgiane Adams at the Pride Concert, June 27, 2025.

Photo: Kristen Loken/San Francisco Opera