The San Francisco Symphony will usher in its 2022-23 season with two performances of Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in collaboration with the African-American Shakespeare Company. And both performances, conducted by music director Esa-Pekka Salonen, will be cause for celebration — on Thursday for the annual All San Francisco concert that honors community groups and regional nonprofits, and on Friday for the company’s Opening Night Gala concert.
As Cole explained, the All San Francisco concert is a high-profile part of the symphony’s outreach program to community partners, which, though by invitation only, is affordably priced at $12 per ticket. And the symphony’s decision to turn to the African-American Shakespeare Company as its performing partner for the two concerts was an obvious choice.
“Sherri got us this lovely space on Gough Street, and everyone would walk by and see our posters,” said AASC’s artistic director, L. Peter Callender. “A young lady was at our open house, and I struck up a conversation because, of course, that’s what artistic directors do. She told me she was a member of the San Francisco Symphony and welcomed us to the neighborhood.
The mission of the AASC, which was founded in 1994, has always been to making classical theater more accessible to diverse audiences and providing more opportunities for actors of color to perform and master classical theater roles. “It’s like any story,” Callender said. “I can sit here and in 20 minutes I can talk about, say, ‘A Tale of Two Cities.’ Dickens wrote that amazing piece, and it’s long, epic and beautiful. I can tell you about that story in about 20 minutes. And what I left out, I would love for you to pick up the novel and read.”
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