San Francisco Symphony musicians perform Esperanza Spalding’s Little Fly for the orchestra’s SoundBox series. Photo by Kim Huynh
“The San Francisco Symphony has a designated home for its digital offerings—one that Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen says will outlive the current constraints to become a regular part of the Symphony’s activities,” writes Joshua Kosman in Wednesday’s (1/20) San Francisco Chronicle. “The new on-demand streaming service, dubbed SFSymphony+, is scheduled to launch on Feb. 4 with a chamber program curated by Salonen as part of the orchestra’s SoundBox series. Programming will continue through Aug. 31…. The organization’s experience producing ‘Throughline,’ the hour-long virtual concert that dropped in November, had helped pave the way for the new spate of programming…. Programming will feature Julia Bullock’s tribute to Nina Simone, Salonen’s performances of the early minimalist classics ‘Clapping Music’ by Steve Reich and ‘In C’ by Terry Riley, and a commissioned world premiere from composer Lukás Janata…. Salonen also wants to use the digital platform to begin commissioning work from young composers with expertise in that area. But Salonen has even more ambitious plans in mind, involving entire virtual landscape…. There have been talks with representatives of the San Francisco game developer Unity Technologies about the possibilities for a performing arts platform.”
