San Diego Symphony Conductor Says Farewell, Plus Highlights From The New Season

This is KPBS midday edition I'm Maureen Cavanaugh. The San Diego Symphony previous its lineup for next season tonight at an event called tastings. Is the last season featuring music direction a link is been the conductor of the San Diego Symphony since 2004. Some of the highlights of the upcoming season include violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman a woman a jazz concert and the Vienna Boys Choir. Joining me is Martha Gilmer she is CEO of the San Diego Symphony. It's great to be back. Not he may tie is also here he is the concert commentator. Martha how is the Symphony Mark are the special events planned? There will be a number celebrations as we go through the season but right now we are celebrating his relationship with the orchestra and the programs he selected. We're marking what he feels the hallmark of his time and his tenure here. Now the was the feeling at the Symphony about Diane Ling's departure? I think it's very bittersweet. The majority of the players and their concert today were all hired by younger Ling. A lot of them cut their teeth on great repertoire sometimes for the very first time taught great pieces of him leading the way. It marks a very big turning point and I think it's very to bittersweet turning point. Martha I mentioned a couple the highlights of the season can you tell us about some others and maybe even mentioned one or two that you think puts that stamp on Jahja Ling tenure as me the director. Jahja Ling legacy and I don't use that word lightly . Is legacy of the hiring of these players. He also shaped the sound of the orchestra how they play together. He will be doing works of Moeller, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Brahms cost Sibelius all works that helped form that sound. He also has invited wonderful friends of his to appear with him. The end of the season is Jahja Ling the wonderful pianist that is come many times to San Diego in the season starts with Gail Sean another good friend and right in the middle on Super Bowl Sunday we have long long returning for Rachmaninoff's piano Concerto at 1:00. Many San Diego to remember that Longwell was a soloist and Carnegie Hall in 2014 when the arc as you went for its first appearance in New York. All of them have that piano in, and because of course Yahoo has inched -- You are known for your commentary on the Symphony broadcast but you do that before the Symphony performances and there's a concert this season that is all about the back story of that particular Symphony. Tell us about the beyond the score. There are two beyond the score is in fact this season opening the season are very close the beginning of the season is beyond the score for and MacWorld Symphony. P.m. the scores created for Chicago Symphony and Martha was incher mental starting that. The travel of the company now we get our first one last year. The beyond the score Mary's such wonderful information from the composers in their own words with visuals, with the orchestra chiming in. Is a very special thing to see big screen to do here the narrators and the actors do it and Dvorak's New World Symphony is a remarkable work because in the middle the season we have an American Festival but then of the beginning is this Dvorak's New World Symphony where he was asked to come over Sibley because he had been able to identify a check style and music. He was invited by Jeanette to come to New York and to instill in our composers and American sound because really were doing European-style at the time. There was a lot of interesting thing that were going on when he stepped off the bulk and how is he going to wrap his head around what Americans should be writing. It's very fabulous and funny story and very intricate. Of the creation of one of the great masterpieces of all time. As you mentioned there are two concerts dedicated to American music. His Americans in Paris and LA and New York. Why did you -- why the focus on American music? This past January we started the idea January Festival. That continues next year and is called American variation. I think is important for us to own our American music in the water comes from because Americans of had a lot of influence on European composers as well many have come here we've settled here Los Angeles was teeming with composers that came to write for film and we will certainly feature many of those during the season as well but it is important to celebrate our American composers of the many from the state of California including John Adams this year will be celebrating the age of 70. Are to believe. The San Diego Symphony offers many music series during a season and one of them is about the home alone copy Wizard of Oz copy Harry Potter Cobbe family events that you have to bring to the Symphony. Tell us more about that. We are starting a Fox theater series. So many orchestras now are taking front and center in this genre that composers have been writing for years the orchestra they take away the film score from the film and its played live but the orchestra. We have done film concerts on an ad hoc basis this year we are making that into a series. Is a great opportunity for families the, especially this one Wizard of Oz. We are doing all eight Harry Potter films of the next four years and this launch is it with sorcerer's Stone cost score by John Williams. I think it's a wonderful play for young people to realize there's an orchestra playing be some scores that we see in the film. That's when an orchestra dozen now we can see as well as here at. That is important. We've only been able to touch the service here when everyone to know that tastings is a musical sound play of a Symphony's new season. It takes place tonight at 730 at Copley Symphony Hall. At the come as you are pay what you wish event. I've been speaking with Martha Gilmer she is CEO the San Diego Symphony and Nuvi Mehta the San Diego Symphony's concert commentator .