Courtesy San Diego Symphony

Rafael Payare knows what he's about.

The San Diego Symphony has announced their 2023-2024 Jacobs Masterworks Series. This season promises to be a turning point in the organization's evolution under CEO Martha Gilmer. The most obvious element is the grand opening of the revitalized Copley Symphony Hall at The Jacobs Music Center. In recognition of this $125 million project, the symphony claims to be pulling out all the stops. Let’s look and see if all the stops are pulled indeed.

It doesn’t take long to confirm that this is a stop-pulling season. I need look no further than Friday, January 26 & Saturday, January 27, 2024, when the symphony will be performing Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 with music director Rafael Payare conducting. Bruckner was the greatest organist of his day and knew all about pulling out all the stops. This inclusion of this symphony, alone, makes the season a victory for yours truly.

The second weekend of the season has a little piece known as Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2: The Resurrection. You may have heard of this one. This Symphony is a goliath of the symphonic repertoire and features something called The San Diego Symphony Festival Choir. This is a huge development.

For decades The San Diego Master Chorale has been the de facto chorus for the symphony. What is this new Festival Choir? Is it incorporating the Master Chorus? I’m more than intrigued and will be looking for more information on this topic.

Also making an appearance is Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9: From the New World. It feels as though the last time the symphony performed this piece Dave Mustaine of Megadeth was the featured soloist back in 2014 or so. It also feels as if the symphony has done Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8 at least nine times since then. I am looking forward to revisiting the new world.

There is one concert that almost seems like it’s too much. That concert is Jean Sibelius’s Violin Concerto with Pytor Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6: Pathetique. Holy hell. This is the Batman and Robin of post-romanticism. San Diego Augustin Hadelich will be performing the Sibelius.

Moving on down the line we get Richard Wagner’s Ring without Words as arranged by Lorin Maazel. Maazel has taken Wagner’s 14-hour Norse epic and boiled it down to just over an hour of music. That’s still a great, big, piece of music.

The final concert I’d like to mention is Tuesday, May 7, 2024. This is a “Masterworks Special Event”. Yeah, no kidding. The concert consists of Siegfried’s funeral music from Wagner’s *Götterdämmerung”, Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto with Yo-Yo Ma, and then Tchaikovksy’s Symphony No. 5.

I think we can confirm now that all the stops are pulled. Oh, and Michael Tilson Thomas is going to conduct in 2024 as well.