Music I'm Listening To: The San Francisco Symphony

I attended the Friday, March 20 performance of the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Symphony Hall. On the program were Overture to Euryanthe (Carl Maria Von Weber), Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 9, an early work that I have surely heard before but didn't really recognize, and Dvorak's Symphony No. 7, perhaps my favorite of them (but it's hard not to like No. 8 and No. 9 as well). The soloist in the Mozart was Jan Lisiecki, a Canadian-born pianist that appears to be well known, but I hadn't been aware of him. The guest conductor was Andrés Orozco-Estrada. 

Orozco-Estrada was a lot of fun to watch. Some conductors barely move. Orozco-Estrada was virtually dancing on the podium, and with great energy, his baton seemingly a wizard's wand. It was a uniformly excellent concert, but I thought his reading of the Dvorak was particularly good. The audience seemed to agree with me. The concert ended with a prolonged standing ovation. 

According to the program notes, Orozco-Estrada will take over as director of the Swedish Radio Symphony next season. He has in the past been the music director of the Houston Symphony, and conducted the Hesse Radio Symphony and the Vienna Symphony.