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California-based French conductor Ludovic Morlot celebrates the music of his native land with two masterworks by his great 19th century compatriot Camille Saint-Saëns: the Third Violin Concerto, written for the great Spanish virtuoso Sarasate and brimming with sweet melodies; and the composer’s most famous symphony, known as the Organ Symphony for its sumptuous organ writing which dramatically extends and deepens the colors of the orchestra. It's the ideal music to celebrate the fabulous new sound of our own completely renovated Robert Morton pipe organ in Jacobs Music Center!

What a sumptuous feast of beautiful sounds and ravishing orchestral virtuosity! The celebrated composer Anna Clyne’s Color Field opens the concert with a delicious imagining of what mixing yellow and red would sound like.

Your family’s musical exploration starts here! San Diego Symphony musicians share their favorite sing-a-longs, rhymes, dances, and musical games in a series that introduces your youngest listeners to the instruments of the orchestra.

One of the most compelling conductors of his generation, Daniele Rustioni makes his Symphony debut in conducting this program of Italian-themed works. The evening begins with Berlioz’s rousing Roman Carnival Overture. Ferruccio Busoni was one of the great Italian musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century. As a pianist he was world famous; as a composer he worked in almost every style, from Brahmsian romanticism to the strangest most dreamlike modernism. Making her Symphony debut, violinist Francesca Dego will perform one of her signatures: Busoni’s wonderfully dark and lyrical but dazzlingly virtuosic Violin Concerto. The second half of the program features Tchaikovsky’s symphonic fantasy based on one of the greatest and most tragic love stories ever told, the fatal affair between Francesca da Rimini and her brother-in-law Paolo and their subsequent murder by her enraged husband. It was Italy’s greatest poet Dante who immortalized their tale in his Inferno [Hell], and it was from Dante that Tchaikovsky took the motto which he wrote on the first page of his score: There is no greater sorrow/Than a happy time remembered in a time of misery. The concert ends with Respighi’s exuberantly dramatic Roman Festivals depicting scenes from ancient and contemporary Rome, from the gladiators and the harvest festival to celebrating the Epiphany in the Piazza Navona.

Rising star Alexander Malofeev (“Truly remarkable” - Boston Classical Review) takes the Jacobs Music Center stage in Prokofiev’s muscular and demanding Piano Concerto No. 3, a work originally written for the composer himself to play as part of his many tours of the USA in the 1920s and 1930s. The program begins with the World Premiere of Los Angeles-born, GRAMMY® Award-winning composer Billy Childs’ Concerto for Orchestra, and ends with Music Director Rafael Payare leading the Symphony in Beethoven’s celebrated Eroica symphony, one of the most influential symphonies in the Western musical canon. Shocking in Beethoven’s own time for the unfamiliar vastness of its dimensions and its huge orchestral sound, this symphony ends with a mighty set of variations based on music from Beethoven’s ballet The Creatures of Prometheus, which celebrate the evolution of human beings from mere unfeeling creatures made of clay to living, breathing human beings, capable of liberty, equality, fraternity and love.

Richard Strauss’ Tod und Verklarung (Death and Transfiguration) is a monumental meditation on the journey of life, beginning in childhood, through the trials and joys of adulthood, and ending in the transfiguration of the spirit. Music Director Rafael Payare conducts the Symphony in Strauss’ powerful tone poem along with William Walton’s beautifully lyrical and nostalgic Viola Concerto, written when the composer was only 27 years old; the concerto was intended for the great soloist Lionel Tertis, who played an 18th century viola of enormous dimensions with a sound of extraordinary richness, almost like a cello. The result is one of the few widely played concertos for this instrument, demanding from the soloist the sweetest melodic playing with the most vigorous and athletic virtuosity. The concert ends with Brahms’ melancholy and hauntingly beautiful Second Symphony. This immortal work was written in one of Brahms’ favorite vacation retreats, in southern Austria on the beautiful lake of the Wörthersee. “Here," said Brahms, “the melodies grow so thick upon the ground that one must take care not to step on them as one walks.” In an equally humorous mood, he wrote to his publisher about his new symphony: “I have never written anything so sad, and the score must be published in mourning clothes.”

Rob Fisher, music director and piano, is joined by vocalists Ross Lekites and Bianca Marroquin to proclaim what "there’s just too little of...love, sweet love." Spend your Valentine's Day evening enjoying some of the world's most beloved love songs.

Beloved American conductor and composer Michael Tilson Thomas makes his SDSO debut in this special program that opens with his own Street Song for Symphonic Brass, a work reflecting Tilson Thomas’s love for all kinds of popular and street music of the past and especially music connected with his grandparents, the Yiddish theatre stars Boris and Bessie Tomashefsky. Rising star pianist Parker van Ostrand will join Tilson Thomas and the Symphony for Rachmaninoff’s demanding Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, based on Paganini’s most famous and familiar ear-worm, his 24th Caprice for solo violin. The program ends with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1, the Russian composer’s first large-scale orchestral work. Conceived and written when the composer was still in his mid-twenties, this symphony makes delightful use of motifs and phrases derived from Russian village-songs; in the last movement, one whole folk-melody, originally a wedding song for dancing, anticipating the coming of Spring and the resurgence of new young life:

Jean Sibelius once said of a summer sailing trip in the Baltic Sea: “If only foreigners could see the granite rocks emerging from the water here, they would understand why I write for orchestra as I do!”

They huff, they puff, and they blow all their air to make a sound! From birdsongs, to sneaky cats – you and your kiddos will experience the unique sounds that the flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon and French horn make together.