When the San Francisco Symphony announced Esa-Pekka Salonen would take the helm from Michael Tilson Thomas as the orchestra's music director in 2020, the Finish conductor and composer told KQED that he wanted to go against the grain and work within the "anti-establishment part" of the performing arts world.
Today, the orchestra announced Salonen's inaugural season with a progressive slate of programming, much of which emphasizes classical works that resonate with today's social and political issues, plus several premieres of new pieces that echo those themes.
The program "On the Precipice: Music of the Weimar Republic" focuses on the ways art responded to the rise of fascism in pre-World War II Germany.