| Conductor Juraj Valčuha returns to lead the San Francisco Symphony in music by Hannah Kendall, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Sergei Prokofiev, November 3, 4 & 6, 2022 at Davies Symphony Hall. Opening the program is the SF Symphony premiere of Hannah Kendall’s The Spark Catchers, commissioned and premiered at the BBC Proms in 2017. The work takes inspiration from a poem of the same title by Lemn Sissay and depicts the lives of women who worked in match factories in 19th-century Britain, always having to stay alert to catch any stray sparks that could ignite the factory. Next up, pianist Behzod Abduraimov — truly one of the world’s greatest — joins Valčuha and the SF Symphony in a performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Composed in 1912, the original version of the concerto was lost during the Russian Revolution, but Prokofiev rewrote it from memory and the work finally got its premiere in 1924, with Prokofiev performing the solo part. The second half of the program is dedicated to Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances — the composer’s final work — completed in 1940 and premiered a year later by the Philadelphia Orchestra. 
Tickets ($20–165): sfsymphony.org San Francisco Symphony Box Office or 415-864-6000.
Davies Symphony Hall is located at 201 Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco. | 
