Scheherazade

The Chinese-born New Zealand conductor Tianyi Lu makes her San Francisco Symphony debut with Rimsky-Korsakov’s cinematic orchestral showpiece Scheherazade, paired with the first Symphony performances of Iranian Canadian composer Iman Habibi’s Zhiân, dedicated to “the brave people of Iran, in the hope of better days ahead.” Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s side job as a film composer likely saved his life. In 1938, the Jewish former prodigy fled Vienna for Hollywood; five years later, he became a US citizen. His violin concerto, performed here by María Dueñas, was written for his neighbor, none other than Jascha Heifetz, who helped ensure that the violin writing was perfectly pitched between lyricism and virtuosity.