San Francisco Symphony Goes Virtual Amid COVID-19

the san francisco symphony is ushering in a new era with a new music director and joining us now are james hermel and michael nguyen hormel thank you so much guys for talking with us now i know that you're hosting a virtual concert to welcome this new music director it's called throughline tell me all about it oh my goodness this is very novel to all of us because of the co-coven situation of course but it's novel in so many ways because we have a brand new music director for the symphony uh someone who is noted for his creativity and he's put together a collaborative group of eight people who will be working with him on all of the presentations that are new in this season so we're going to start off with a major piece on saturday night which will be broadcast and also broadcast the following week locally michael how has this been trying to you know create and produce these kinds of events in the middle of the pandemic i can assume it's been challenging i will say that it just reflects on the extraordinary nature of the san francisco symphony rising to meet the occasion seeing rather than the challenge but the opportunity um in in the moment we witnessed an organization come through some very difficult circumstances you know the arts and various institutions around the world are struggling and this was an opportunity that the symphony saw to seize uh the moment and to create to innovate and um to do something truly extraordinary in an extraordinary time and another feature about it is um is the the truly innovative aspect of this program to be completely virtual to be completely open to the public no barrier to entry and to be creating new work that is just so defining of the epicenter that is san francisco symphony okay so it's called through line right that's the name of this this program yes yeah so so somebody can get i mean tell me how this all works how through line works well through the line um so the name is a nod to one of the uh pieces in in the concert which is a world premiere of this piece and um it also reflects the idea of how um you know we are all threaded together through music and the idea that um that music is a uniter as is an element for bringing people together and so that was kind of the launching point for some of our creative um planning for the event side of this program we um looked at it as a sense of um constellations that was kind of the the operative word for our planning and constellations being the points of connection between all of us through music and so the concert itself is going to be live broadcast pardon me it's filmed already but it will be broadcast for the first time um on saturday evening completely open to the public it can be streamed um it will be televised and i believe it's also going to be shown the following day um and so it's open to absolutely anybody who can tune in james we know through lion is just part of the celebration to welcome this new music director you were talking about tell us about some of the other performances well as a becca saladin is a world famous for his work and we're delighted to have him uh this is the best way that we can welcome him under the circumstances but the program uh over the year is going to be filled with uh with creative pieces which i can't even identify yet some of them may even be in the process of being of being written and so the presentations will be novel um and uh the programs will be uh probably very um what's the word i want uh eclectic yes eclectic um yeah truly i would i would um say that it's gonna be an occasion that uh brings something for everybody um it's going to um um invite so many different genres elements um theories of music um you know it is really an opportunity for everyone to engage in what they love and to discover something new yeah because this really is the start of a new chapter right with this new music director because the former news music director michael tilson thomas he had been there for so many years well he had more than i think any other conductor the symphony has had 25 years and when he came it was quite an experience too because he brought with him a desire to present 20th century american music that had been pretty well ignored by the by the industry over the years and so he presented some concerts that were remarkably beautiful and focused on a show being a showcase for american music so it was it was a wonderful opportunity for the community to learn [Applause] and to develop its own sense of musical taste so now we we move on to a whole other experience well we will be on the lookout for uh you both of course but also for the new music director essa pekka salanine did i say that correctly [Laughter] okay good good you know it is always a joy talking to both of you james and michael thank you so much

Channel: KPIX CBS SF Bay Area

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Keywords: CBSN Bay Area interviews

Id: s93HtbItf24

Length: 7min 0sec (420 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 13 2020