Explore the Festival
Cal Performances
Cal Performances—the performing arts presenter of the University of California, Berkeley— presents, produces, and commissions renowned and emerging artists of the highest caliber. Serving the entire San Francisco Bay Area, the organization aims, through ambitious programming, to cultivate future audiences for the arts and to connect the most innovative and accomplished artists in the world with the intellectual capital of UC Berkeley. Cal Performances reaches nearly 120,000 people each year through its artistic programming and education and community outreach efforts.
*Programming and artists subject to change, please refer to the participating organization’s calendar listing for the most up-to-date program.
Events
San Francisco Symphony Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor
Carey Bell, clarinet
The program includes the world premiere of a new work by Jens Ibsen, the most recent winner of the Emerging Black Composers Project, a collaboration with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music to foster the creation and performance of new music from early-career Black American composers. Salonen also conducts his own Kínēma, a showcase for principal clarinetist Carey Bell; and Stravinsky's cinematic and propulsive Symphony in Three Movements.
Piece(s)/Composer(s)
KÍNĒMA
Esa-Pekka SALONEN
DROWNED IN LIGHT (world premiere)
Jens IBSEN
SYMPHONY IN THREE MOVEMENTS
STRAVINKSY
Program Notes
The dynamic and versatile San Francisco Symphony returns to Berkeley with music director Esa-Pekka Salonen in a one-of-a-kind program showcasing the unique musical chemistry between the orchestra and the conductor.
The program includes the world premiere of a new work by Jens Ibsen, the most recent winner of the Emerging Black Composers Project, a collaboration with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music to foster the creation and performance of new music from early-career Black American composers.
Ibsen focuses a wide range of life experience and influences into his music—he's a classically trained, Ghana-born metalhead who sang as a principal soloist in the Vienna Boys Choir—and the panel that selected him praised his music for its "enthralling balance of rhythmic drive, elegant tonality, and beautiful settings of words."
Salonen also conducts his own Kínēma, a showcase for principal clarinetist Carey Bell; and Stravinsky's cinematic and propulsive Symphony in Three Movements.