Photo by Lisa Hirsch
The San Francisco Symphony, which bills itself as one of the most innovative orchestras in the world, came up with this for its opening gala:
Jaap van Zweden conductor
Yuja Wang piano
San Francisco Symphony
JOHN ADAMS Short Ride in a Fast Machine
PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 1
OTTORINO RESPIGHI Pines of Rome
Because there's nothing that says "innovative" like performing Pines of Rome for the third time since 2022.
Furthermore, here's a list of the composers they're performing in 2025-26 and the number of works by each.
Key: light green background is dead men, one of whom, Ellington, is Black. Pink background is dead women. Dark green is living men, several of whom are men of color. Blue is living women.
Of the 49 composers above, 46 are men. Eight of the men are alive; the other 38 are dead. There are works by three women, of whom one has been dead for a few hundred years, while the other two are alive. Two of the deceased men are American (Ellington, Gershwin) and several of the deceased spent a significant amount of time in the U.S. (Bartok, Korngold, Rachmaninoff, and Hindemith, of whom the first three died in the United States).
There's nothing that says "innovative" like a season with 53 works by dead white men and 12 works by everybody else. I'm reminded of the season that had four works by MTT and 1 by a living woman, or maybe it was 2 by living women.
I'm sure we can expect an onslaught of Bernstein, Copland, and other dead American men in 2026-27. Maybe SFS will take a look at the NY Phil's Project 19 and pick up a few works by living women commissioned by that orchestra.
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