
San Diego Symphony Orchestra 2024-25 Review: Welcome Home
Rafael Payare Leads an Inspired Gala Filled with Top Soloists
By Francisco Salazar(Credit: San Diego Symphony)
On Sept. 28, the San Diego Symphony opened its 2024-25 season with a concert titled “Welcome Home.”
The special evening marked the orchestra’s return to its home, the newly redesigned Jacobs Center. The hall, which took four years to renovate, featured vivid changes from its cool blue/green chairs to a more natural curve and slope for sight lines, as well as a new air filtration system and ADA seating. A Green room was added, as were practice rooms, a music library, staircases, and elevators for the museums. And of course, the acoustics were improved as was the flexibility to the stage, which included a raised permanent choral terrace on the periphery. In total, the project cost $125 million.
The results are quite fascinating.
The hall’s acoustics are vibrant and the musicians are with crystal clarity. You can hear the hums of singers and the pianos of a cello with great precision, making for a unique and pleasant experience.
To celebrate the occasion the orchestra and its music director Rafael Payare brought together a program filled with joy, virtuosity, and just pure fun. It was also one that meant to show the different orchestral sizes and colors that the orchestra could produce.
The evening opened with the world premiere of Texu Kim’s “Welcome Home!!!” Fanfare for Brass and Percussion. The work is filled with jazzy rhythms and some Latin influences that showed off the trumpets’ virtuoso playing and also brought a bright sound from the entire brass section. In all, it was a celebratory piece that was perfect for this joyous occasion.
The second piece of the evening saw soprano Hera Hyesang Park in Villa-Lobo’s “Bachianas Brasilerias” No. 5. The soprano was accompanied by eight cellos with principal cellist Yao Zhao leading the main melody with a lush sound that melded well with Park’s soprano voice as she sang the vocalise opening with flexible legato lines. The lower parts of the voice sometimes lost the resonance but as she climbed to her soprano’s upper reaches, it rang with a gleaming sound into the hall. In the second part, Hyesang leaned into her darker chiaroscuro shades with the voice growing in size. During the repetition of the opening melody, she hummed the entire section with her sound blending with the eight cellos to create glorious serenity.
The following piece finally saw the orchestra on stage. That being said it was a smaller Rossini orchestra as Park performed “Una Voce Poco Fa” from “Il Barbiere di Siviglia.” Park took some time to get comfortable with the piece as the lower notes weren’t always strong. But as she arrived at the cavatina “Io sono docile,” she let the voice produce flexible coloratura and some virtuosic and unexpected roulades, particularly during the second repeat. The voice shone with bright high notes and carried into the hall with ease. Her stage presence was also quite incredible to watch as she moved about the stage flirting with the first violinist and even Payare, twirling and dancing at the end of her triumphant high note. Props as well to Payare who easily followed each rallentando that Park opted for, especially in the second repeat of the Cavatina.
The orchestra was increased for the following piece, Tchaikovsky’s “Variations of on a Rococo Theme.” Alicia Weilerstein was the soloist and performed with technical proficiency especially as the piece asks the cellists to play in all its extremes. But perhaps the moments that saw Weilerstein’s strongest playing were in Variations Two and Seven. Both the Andante and Andante sostenuto were played with such delicacy and lush sound that one heard the yearning and melancholic qualities of Tchaikovsky’s music. She took her time with each repeat and varied the colors. The coda and final variation was also exciting to watch as she played with great energy.
Up next was the Paganini Caprice 24, which concertmaster Jeff Thayer played from the balcony of the theater. While the tone was not always the crispest and sometimes lacked authority, Thayer played with precise harmonics, left-hand pizzicato, and precise octaves and tenths. The final arpeggio runs were also precise, full of demonic quality.
The program was immediately followed by Rachmanioff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” played by Inon Barnatan. The piece connected perfectly with the Paganini Caprice as Rachmaninoff derived the theme and variations for his opus from that very work. Barnatan was magnificent in this piece as he interacted with the orchestra and Payare to great perfection. You could see the excitement between both Barntan and Payare as they moved from one variation to the next. Barntan contrasted the virtuosic runs filled with a vivacious forte sound with a more meditative piano sound in the softer and Andante moments. Payare also followed perfectly, creating a perfect balance. At the climax of the piece, the orchestra crescendoed to fortissimo and back to the playful piano that ends the concerto. The result was a standing ovation at the end.
The evening ended with Ravel’s Suite No. 2 from “Daphnis et Chloé.” Divided into three movements, Payare’s conducting connected everything with smooth transitions from the vivid “Daybreak” movement which continuously crescendoed to the more subtle and reflective “Pantomime” that saw the orchestra bring back its sound. The final movement “General Dance” was filled with exciting rhythmic playing that brought out the entire power of the orchestra and resonated with force into the hall.
BD Wong hosted the evening as he introduced the pieces and gave audiences historical anecdotes of the hall. Meanwhile, Martha Gilmer, President and CEO of the San Diego Symphony, gave some emotional words about Joan Jacobs who has recently passed away.
In all this was an emotional evening that is sure to set the tone for the rest of the season.