PHOTO CREDIT: LAUREN RADACK
FROM THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Dear Friends, To quote from Shakespeare’s ever-memorable A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we are “filled with joy and mirth” as we join together at this thrilling time to celebrate the beginning of Rafael Payare’s tenure as Music Director of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, a much-anticipated turning point in the life of the San Diego Symphony. It was this very idea of being filled with joy and mirth that inspired Mendelssohn to write his famous incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which Rafael has selected as the program for his second week of his inaugural season. In this play, Shakespeare’s kaleidoscopic imagination is focused on the rich variety and deep contrasts in the human condition – our vulnerabilities and our joys, and the darkness that surrounds us and the light. Talking of kaleidoscopic contrasts, Gustav Mahler once said, “A symphony should be like the world, it should have everything,” and his mighty Fifth Symphony certainly seems to embody this noble aspiration. Not so much a traditional symphony as something more like an epic or an opera in orchestral sounds, this great work really does seem to contain the whole world in its vast range and vivid emotional power. Mahler himself wondered how his first listeners in 1902 would hear this “foaming, roaring, raging sea of sound, these dancing stars, these breathtaking, iridescent, and flashing breakers?” The thrilling combination of these two masterpieces suggests well what I have come to know about Rafael Payare as an artist and a man. His personal warmth, his great love of life and his compassionate view of the world are connected to a deep hunger and passion for musical expression. He is a constant, quiet searcher after truth and fidelity in his ongoing learning and preparation for each performance. Or as he himself would be more likely to put it, he is relaxed and “chill” in working through the preparation of the music, and on fire in the performances. At the core of his being he serves the music, and embraces humanity. I have had the good fortune of traveling to hear Rafael in many places conducting a wide variety of programs. From London to Glyndebourne, from the Grand Tetons to Chicago, from Aspen to Detroit, I have experienced his work and his performances many times in the last four years. All of that great experience with so many orchestras and opera companies is now focused on his leadership of the San Diego Symphony! The energy of Rafael’s devotion to his forthcoming voyage with the San Diego Symphony and his tremendous excitement at the thought of connecting with San Diego audiences are palpable every time he and I speak together. Unquestionably, this is a new era for all of us which will take us to new vistas, new heights, and deep inside the human condition – through his music-making and his connection to our wonderful orchestra and our beautiful home in the San Diego region.
Sincerely,
Martha A. Gilmer Chief Executive Officer
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