San Francisco Symphony

Surrender to the musical macabre, and bask in the sumptuous strings, ominous winds, and foreboding brass of the San Francisco Symphony in a special Halloween season concert conducted by Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen. The imagery is haunting and the sounds are unforgettable in these three spooky masterpieces—pagan witches dance maniacally in Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain; piano soloist Bertrand Chamayou grapples with the foreboding Dies Irae in Liszt’s blistering Totentanz (Dance of Death); and the protagonist in Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique witnesses his own funeral during a demonic and surreal nightmare. Join us in welcoming Salonen back to Berkeley in his first Cal Performances appearance leading the San Francisco Symphony, a musical chemistry the San Francisco Chronicle has already praised as “magnificently vibrant.”