Rafael Payare and the San Diego Symphony reached a new milestone this season when they returned to their home concert hall, the newly renovated Jacobs Music Center, on September 28.
The transformation of the Jacobs Music Center represents a critical component of CEO Martha Gilmer’s vision for the SDS, coupled with the hiring of Payare and the 2021 opening of the Rady Shell, the $85 million venue that now serves as the orchestra’s summer stage and was cited this summer by the New York Times as prime evidence of San Diego’s rising cultural profile. The Jacobs Music Center project began in early 2022 to enhance the musical and performance experience for artists and audiences alike while honoring the legacy of the nearly 100-year-old Fox Theatre. Designed by architectural firm HGA in collaboration with acoustician Paul Scarbrough of Akustiks and theater planner Schuler Shook, the renovation included substantial alterations to the stage and main seating level to elevate the hall’s acoustics, as well as new seating and finishes; restored architectural details; modernized lighting, sound, video and recording equipment; updated and expanded support spaces for musicians; and enhanced audience amenities.
The inaugural performance in the renovated Jacobs Music Center on September 28 featured the world premiere of Texu Kim’s fanfare Welcome Home!! along with music of Paganini, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Rossini, and Ravel. A full roster of soloists was also on hand: pianist Inon Barnatan, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, SDS concertmaster Jeff Thayer, and Korean soprano Hera Hyesang Park.
The San Diego Union-Tribune praised the return of Payare and the SDS, raving of their opening night performance: “Now, almost 40 years later with their new hall, San Diego Symphony finally has a San Diego venue that permits it to sound like the world-class orchestra they’ve been since Payare took over. What a grandly thrilling, promising way to usher in the new season.” Read the full review here.
Rounding out the weekend’s festivities, which also included ” A Day of Music” as part of the opening celebrations, on September 27 Rafael Payare was presented with his US citizenship by US Circuit Judge Margaret McKeown in a short ceremony following the civic dedication and official ribbon cutting of the Jacobs Music Center.
Learn more about the new venue and the orchestra’s upcoming season here.
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Arnold Schoenberg, and Rafael Payare, a passionate advocate for that composer’s music, serves on the Artistic Honorary Committee of Schoenberg 150, dedicated to the worldwide celebration of the occasion. An all-Schoenberg album that includes Pelleas und Melisande and Verklärte Nacht is due for release in October. It marks Payare and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal’s third on Pentatone.
Anticipating the new album, Payare and the OSM opened their season in Montreal with performances of Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder featuring soprano Dorothea Röschmann, tenor Clay Hilley, mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill, tenor Stephan Rügamer, baritone Thomas E. Bauer, and tenor Ben Heppner performing the sprechstimme role. The September 13 performance – falling on Schoenberg’s exact birthday – was broadcast live on Mezzo, celebrating ten years of partnership with the orchestra (Sep 11, 13).
Rafael Payare embarks on a banner season in 2024–25 as Music Director of California’s San Diego Symphony (SDSO) and Canada’s Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (Montreal Symphony Orchestra/OSM). Payare inaugurates San Diego’s newly renovated Jacobs Music Center with an Opening Night concert featuring pianist Inon Barnatan, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, SDSO concertmaster Jeff Thayer, and Korean soprano Hera Hyesang-Park as soloists, plus a world premiere composed for the occasion by Texu Kim (Sep 28).
Payare continues his fall season in San Diego with three separate programs in the month of October. The first features the San Diego Symphony co-commissioned Time by Austrian composer Thomas Larcher sharing the bill with Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”), the latter featuring soprano Angela Meade and mezzo-soprano Anna Larsson and marking the debut of the San Diego Symphony Festival Chorus (Oct 4–6). The following week, Payare and the orchestra return with a program that juxtaposes Brahms’s sole Violin Concerto – performed by celebrated young Armenian violinist Sergey Khachatryan – with Schoenberg’s Pelleas und Melisande, in recognition of the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth (Oct 12, 13). Yet another unique program is presented the week after that, when Payare and the SDS are joined by Emanuel Ax for a performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 in C, paired with a new musical-theatrical reimagining of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet that incorporates projections and Shakespeare’s original text, directed by Gerard McBurney (Oct 18–20).
An all-Schoenberg album that includes Pelleas und Melisande and Verklärte Nacht and marks Payare and the OSM’s third on Pentatone is due for release in October. Anticipating the new album, Payare and the OSM open their season in Montreal with performances of Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder featuring soprano Dorothea Röschmann, tenor Clay Hilley, mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill, tenor Stephan Rügamer, baritone Thomas E. Bauer, and tenor Ben Heppner performing the sprechstimme role. The September 13 performance – falling on Schoenberg’s exact birthday – will be broadcast live on Mezzo, celebrating ten years of partnership with the orchestra (Sep 11, 13). Other upcoming highlights of Payare and the OSM’s season in Montreal include the world premiere of an OSM-commissioned work by Canadian composer Michael Oesterle (Sep 18, 19); an all-Latin American program featuring OSM principal trumpet Paul Merkelo (Nov 6, 7); and pianist Bruce Liu playing Scriabin’s sole Piano Concerto ((Nov 13, 14).
Celebrated Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov joins Payare and the OSM for performances of Schumann’s Piano Concerto (Sep 18) and Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto (Sep 19) in Montreal as a lead-in to a high-profile European tour the following month (Nov 19–30). Focusing on cultural capitals, the tour takes in London, Luxembourg, Paris, Hamburg, Berlin, Amsterdam, Munich, and Vienna. On tour, Trifonov performs the Schumann and Beethoven concertos in repertory, with other rotating repertoire including Iranian-Canadian composer Iman Habibi’s reflection on the climate crisis, Jeder Baum spricht (“Every tree speaks”), also composed to celebrate Beethoven’s 250th birthday; Berlioz’s Roman Carnival Overture and Symphonie fantastique; and Richard Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony.
Also in high demand as a guest conductor, this fall Payare returns to the New York Philharmonic to lead Anthony McGill in Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique” Symphony, and Sofia Gubaidulina’s Fairytale Poem, inspired by Miloš Macourek’s The Little Piece of Chalk, an allegory of artistic perseverance (Oct 23–25).
Rafael Payare kicks off the summer making his Berlin State Opera debut conducting Puccini’s Turandot (July 6–14). Philipp Stölzl’s production stars soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska (title role), tenor Arsen Soghomonyan (Calaf), soprano Adriana González (Liù), and bass René Pape (Timur).
As Music Director of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM), Payare leads the ensemble at two Quebec festivals in Mahler’s Seventh Symphony and more at the Festival de Lanaudière (July 19–August 3) and repertoire ranging from Verdi’s Requiem to works for the Middle Eastern oud and orchestra at OSM’s own “La Virée classique” (August 14–18).
In late August, Payare returns to The Rady Shell with the San Diego Symphony for a “Tchaikovsky Spectacular” featuring Juno-nominated violinist Blake Pouliot in the composer’s Violin Concerto, and the iconic 1812 Overture accompanied by a pyrotechnic firework display over the bay (August 30).
