Dmitri Shostakovich – San Diego Story

Rafael Payare and Strings of the San Diego Symphony Offer Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Elgar Online

By Ken Herman | May 6, 2021 |

In a laudable effort to keep musicians of the San Diego Symphony playing together and audiences engaged with the orchestra, Music Director Rafael Payere offered another streamed online concert Friday, April 30, from the stage of Copley Symphony Hall.

Rafael Payare Announces Exciting 2020-21 Season for the San Diego Symphony

By Ken Herman | April 8, 2020 |

If the current absence of live symphonic music at the Jacobs Music Center can be assuaged, I suggest contemplation of San Diego Symphony Music Director Rafael Payere’s recently released 2020-21 season of the Jacobs Masterworks Series is just what the doctor ordered.

Music Organizations Turn to the Internet for Performance Possibilities During the Quarantine

By Ken Herman | March 25, 2020 |

With theaters and concert halls darkened, local arts organizations have decided to put their product to online.

Stefan Jackiw Illuminates Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Rafael Payare Unleashes a Heady Shostakovich Symphony No. 11

By Ken Herman | February 23, 2020 |

Having heard the amazing young American violinist Stefan Jackiw play in last season’s La Jolla SummerFest, I was excited to encounter him again Sunday as soloist with the San Diego Symphony under Music Director Rafael Payare in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. He did not disappoint!

The Danish String Quartet Opens Its Musically Probing Prism Project at The Conrad

By Ken Herman | November 17, 2019 |

The Danish String Quartet returned to La Jolla Saturday, November 16, bringing a joyful, sonically resplendent Beethoven String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 127, and the smoldering intensity of Dmitri Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 15 in E-flat Minor, Opus 144.

Payare Celebrates Shostakovich and Britten in Second Festival Performance

By Ken Herman | January 12, 2019 |

Culinary comparisons may be approximate at best, but if Music Director Designate Rafael Payare’s Thursday San Diego Symphony program was a buffet of tantalizing appetizers, his Friday program (January 11) at Copley Symphony Hall was clearly the substantial main course.