San Francisco Symphony Will Present SUMMER WITH THE SYMPHONY at Davies Hall & Beyond
Conductors Nicolas Ellis and Chloé Van Soeterstède lead programs featuring violinists Paul Huang and Geneva Lewis
From July 1 to August 1, the San Francisco Symphony's summer season includes two classical programs with violinists Paul Huang and Geneva Lewis, two film concerts with the Orchestra playing the scores of Matilda and West Side Story live-to-picture; and a program celebrating the movie music of James Bond.
The summer lineup also features San Francisco Symphony performances with Andrew Bird and St. Vincent, an evening of music and storytelling with Sutton Foster and Kelli O'Hara, and an orchestral program featuring A.R. Rahman.
Ted Sperling conducts the Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular at Shoreline Amphitheatre with vocalists Morgan James, Bryonha Marie, and Noah Ricketts; Edwin Outwater conducts a concert at Sigmund Stern Grove featuring banjo player Béla Fleck, and the Symphony brings a classical concert conducted by Nicolas Ellis and a program of movie music from James Bond to Stanford Live's Frost Amphitheater.
CONCERTS AT DAVIES SYMPHONY HALL
The San Francisco Symphony presents nine programs at Davies Symphony Hall this summer, including concerts with classical repertoire, performances featuring exciting guest artists, and unique film programs.
Classical programs
Guest conductors Nicolas Ellis and Chloé Van Soeterstède lead classical programs at Davies Symphony Hall with performances by violinists Paul Huang and Geneva Lewis.
On July 1, Chloé Van Soeterstède makes her conducting debut with the San Francisco Symphony with the first SF Symphony performance of Concert Overture in D major by Elfrida Andrée, a 19th-century composer and activist who fought for gender equality in her home country of Sweden. Paul Huang performs Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1, which the composer dedicated to violinist Joseph Joachim, who not only helped revise the concerto, but also performed the premiere in 1868. The program closes with Felix Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 5 in D major, Opus 107, Reformation, written for the 300th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession, a major document of the Protestant Reformation.
On July 17, Nicolas Ellis leads the Orchestra in Richard Wagner's Forest Murmurs from Siegfried, making his conducting debut with the SF Symphony. Violinist Geneva Lewis also makes her debut with the SF Symphony, performing Ralph Vaughan Williams's tranquil The Lark Ascending and Franz Waxman's fiery Carmen Fantasy. The second half of the program features Shakespeare-inspired works: music from Felix Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's passionate Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy-Overture. The San Francisco Symphony will also bring this program to Stanford Live's Frost Amphitheater as part of the Stanford Live Arts Festival on July 16.
Special programs
On July 2, the San Francisco Symphony presents a symphonic celebration of music with the global icon A.R. Rahman. A Grammy and two-time Academy Award winner, Rahman is one of the world's most prolific composers and the musical genius behind the soul-stirring music of Slumdog Millionaire. He brings his genre-spanning compositions—ranging from Eastern classical, pop, world music, and rap—to new heights in his first-ever appearance with a symphony orchestra in the United States.
On July 18, Tony Award-winning performers Sutton Foster and Kelli O'Hara join the San Francisco Symphony for a special tribute to Broadway and beyond, inspired by the 1962 CBS special “Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall.” With conductor Michael Rafter and pianist Dan Lipton, Foster and O'Hara pay homage to icons of stage and screen Julie Andrews and Carol Burnett by performing favorites from their Tony Award-winning and Tony-nominated shows with stories in between.
Grammy Award-winning musician, singer, and songwriter St. Vincent makes her debut with the San Francisco Symphony and conductor Jules Buckley on July 30. St. Vincent has been regarded as one of the most innovative and fascinating presences in modern music for nearly 20 years, constantly reinventing her audio and visual personae over the course of a kaleidoscopic catalog and winning six Grammy Awards along the way. This orchestral performance will feature a selection of favorites and deep cuts from her acclaimed albums, including Marry Me, Actor, Strange Mercy, St. Vincent, MASSEDUCTION, Daddy's Home, and All Born Screaming.
With a distinctive sound that resists categorization, Grammy Award-nominated violinist, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird makes his debut with the San Francisco Symphony with conductor Sarah Hicks on August 1. Balancing swelling sounds with jazz, folk, and pop melodies, Bird celebrates the 20th anniversary of his acclaimed record The Mysterious Production of Eggs. Featuring a top-to-bottom album performance with orchestral arrangements, Bird caps off the performance with a suite of fan-favorite tunes from his near 30-year repertoire.
Films & film music concerts
On July 9–10, Sarah Hicks conducts Leonard Bernstein's score to the 1961 film West Side Story live with the San Francisco Symphony, while the remastered film is shown in high definition on the big screen with the original vocals and dialogue intact. The 10-time Academy Award-winning romantic tragedy was directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins and featured Robbins's choreography, a screenplay by Ernest Lehman, a book by Arthur Laurents, and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.
On July 24, Steven Reineke leads the Orchestra in James Bond Forever, a celebration of more than 60 years of 007 at the movies. The program features Broadway star Lena Hall and iconic Bond hits from Goldfinger, Skyfall, Thunderball, and more. The Symphony will bring this program to Stanford Live's Frost Amphitheater on July 23. This concert will not feature film clips.
On July 25–26, director and star Danny DeVito joins the SF Symphony to host and narrate the film Matilda live, as composer David Newman conducts his enchanting score live-to-picture. Based on the book by Roald Dahl, Matilda tells the larger-than-life story of a little girl gifted with genius intelligence and magical powers, which she uses to survive her self-absorbed parents and an evil headmistress.
FOURTH OF JULY FIREWORKS SPECTACULAR
Kicking off the summer season on July 4, Ted Sperling leads the San Francisco Symphony in the annual Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular concert at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View. The program “Summer of 1969, The Soundtrack of a Generation,” originally created and commissioned by the San Diego Symphony, features performances by vocalists Morgan James, Bryonha Marie, and Noah Ricketts. The concert features iconic songs including “Proud Mary,” “Here Comes the Sun,” “Blackbird,” and “Purple Haze,” and concludes with a spectacular fireworks display. Shoreline Amphitheatre will also host a full evening of family fun beginning at 5:00pm, including kids' activities, American food favorites, frozen treats, and more.
STERN GROVE FESTIVAL
On July 12, conductor Edwin Outwater leads the San Francisco Symphony in a concert featuring banjo player Béla Fleck at the 89th Stern Grove Festival—the admission-free performing arts series that takes place every summer in the natural outdoor amphitheater at Sigmund Stern Grove. The program includes Leonard Bernstein's Overture to Candide, Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Samuel Barber's The School for Scandal Overture, and George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (for Banjo and Orchestra). On May 31 at 10:00am, Stern Grove will open an online lottery for free tickets, and it will be open for one week. In addition to giving annual performances at the Stern Grove Festival since the festival's formation in 1938, the San Francisco Symphony also played the very first concert in the Grove in 1932, a year after Rosalie M. Stern purchased Stern Grove and gave it as a gift to the City of San Francisco in memory of her husband Sigmund, a prominent civic leader. This concert is presented in partnership with the San Francisco Arts Commission.
TWO PERFORMANCES AT STANFORD LIVE'S FROST AMPHITHEATER
The San Francisco Symphony performs two Thursday evening concerts at Stanford Live's Frost Amphitheater, featuring programs also presented at Davies Symphony Hall. The concerts are part of Summer@Live, a series of outdoor performances over the summer presented by Stanford Live at Frost Amphitheater on the Stanford University campus. On July 16, Nicolas Ellis conducts a concert of Shakespeare-inspired works also featuring violinist Geneva Lewis, and on July 23, Steven Reineke leads the SF Symphony and Tony Award-winning, Grammy Award-nominated Broadway and TV star Lena Hall in a program of music from James Bond films. This summer marks the seventh season of SF Symphony at Frost, presented by Stanford Live. The series was inaugurated in 2019 when the SF Symphony partnered with Stanford Live to present concerts annually in the newly renovated Frost Amphitheater.
Stanford Live presents a wide range of the finest performances from around the world, fostering a vibrant learning community and providing distinctive experiences through the performing arts. With its home at Bing Concert Hall, The Studio, and Frost Amphitheater, Stanford Live draws on the breadth and depth of Stanford University to connect performance to the significant issues, ideas, and discoveries of our time. Crucially, Stanford Live supports the university's focus on placing the arts at the heart of a Stanford education.
ADDITIONAL PROGRAMS ON SALE NOW
Two recently announced 2026–27 programs are on sale now at sfsymphony.org. On September 8, jazz singer Samara Joy performs with conductor Anthony Parnther and the Orchestra. On September 26, Oakland native and multi-Grammy Award–winning artist Fantastic Negrito joins the San Francisco Symphony and conductor Jonathan Taylor Rush for a striking collaboration that brings his bold, genre-defying sound into a symphonic setting. Another recently announced 2026–27 program will go on sale on Thursday, May 14, at 10:00am. On September 15, folk and indie rock musician Gregory Alan Isakov performs with conductor Christopher Dragon and the SF Symphony.
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