“As Jahja Ling’s last year as music director of the San Diego Symphony approaches, he is looking both forward and back,” writes Beth Wood in Thursday’s (4/21) San Diego Tribune. “ ‘The upcoming season will be very exciting,’ Ling said. ‘I have invited exceptional soloists and guest conductors. This coming year, the orchestra is featuring American music, past and present.’ In a number of key ways, the San Diego Symphony is—as we know it today—the house that Jahja built.” Ling was appointed the orchestra’s music director in 2003. For the coming season, “ ‘I chose pieces I feel very deeply in my heart,’ he said. ‘One is Mahler’s Third Symphony … also Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony.… It lifts me up, and I hope it lifts other people up.” Among the season’s offering are a screening of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone with live orchestral accompaniment, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9, Ives’s Symphony No. 2, and Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. Eleven guest conductors will appear, as the SDS continues its search for a new music director. Said CEO Martha Gilmer, “Together with the orchestra, he created this great ensemble with multiple generations of musicians.”
Posted April 22, 2016
Pictured: Jahja Ling leads the San Diego Symphony’s Centennial Gala Concert, 2010. Photo by John R. McCutchen / San Diego Union-Tribune / Zuma Pre
