Why he decided to choose San Francisco: Salonen chalks it up to fate

In 2012, before Esa-Pekka Salonen was to lead London’s Philharmonia Orchestra at Symphony Center, he was asked about a possible return to a permanent post in the United States.

Salonen, formerly music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, did not rule out the possibility, but said it would be difficult for any American conducting position to top what he called the “unbelievable ride” he had in Los Angeles from 1992 to 2009. “It’s very hard for me to imagine having another experience like that in terms of being a music director in the States,” he said in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times. “But on the other hand, who knows what happens in life?”

Just six years later, what Salonen had a hard time previously imagining came to pass. He was appointed music director of the San Francisco Symphony, taking over in September 2020 and succeeding his longtime predecessor, Michael Tilson Thomas.

No doubt other major American orchestras would have loved to have landed the much-respected maestro for their music director vacancies. But Salonen, who is guest conducting two sets of concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on May 26-28 and 31 and June 2-4, chose San Francisco for multiple reasons.

Salonen had already decided to step down from his music directorship of the Philharmonia after a 13-year tenure. His two younger children live in California, and he missed what he called the “California thing.” And then, the San Francisco Symphony began making overtures to him. “I thought, ‘OK, so maybe this could make sense.’ ”

He pointed out that it is a “very good orchestra,” and San Francisco is the kind of city where he believed he could do the experiments with music and technology that he has carried out in London and elsewhere. 

In addition, he thought it would make sense for him to succeed Tilson Thomas, who, much like Salonen, has emphasized modern and less conventional repertoire. In 2012, for example, Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony undertook a project called American Mavericks, a survey of works by daring American composers in the 20th and 21st centuries from Morton Feldman and Charles Ives to Meredith Monk and Mason Bates. 

“It wouldn’t mean a 180-degree turn in terms of the orchestra culture,” Salonen said of his thoughts then. “It would be more like continuing his work. And I know Michael, and we are good friends.”

All these reasons persuaded him to take the job. “As I said in that [Sun-Times] interview,” he said with a chuckle, “you never know.”

“I’m not revolutionizing anything. I’m just trying to figure out how we can be a symphony orchestra that communicates with its environment and has some kind of foothold in the now, the world we live in.” — Esa-Pekka Salonen

At San Francisco, one of Salonen’s primary innovations has been Collaborative Partners, a groundbreaking artistic leadership program. It consists of eight artists and thinkers from multiple cultural disciplines, including jazz bassist Esperanza Spalding, computer scientist and robotics innovator Carol Reiley and composer-pianist Nicholas Britell.

“The idea is that each one would be more than just a discussion partner and a letterhead figure,” Salonen said. “I felt that orchestras, even before the pandemic, were facing a challenging time, especially in this country but also globally. The funding model needs to be rethought. The audience development needs to be rethought. The outreach needs to be reanalyzed.”

In addition, he said, with heightened discussions surrounding race and gender after the death of George Floyd in 2020, orchestras are being challenged to put a much greater emphasis on inclusion and diversity. “All that became really urgent,” he said. “It’s obviously been on everybody’s mind for a long time, but it really became very urgent during the Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Across the board, we understood that this was a very acute problem that needs addressing. And words don’t do it. We also need action.”

To tackle all these issues and create a strategy and identity for an organization like the San Francisco Symphony is a complex task, and Salonen realized he didn’t have all the knowledge and connections necessary to achieve these goals alone. So he devised the idea of a team of “young thinkers, shakers and movers,” who are skilled in their fields but also think more broadly.

“Those were some of the most fun telephone conversations I’ve had, calling these people out of the blue and saying, ‘I’m so-and-so, would you like to join my team in San Francisco?’ And the response was like, ‘Yeah, of course.’ There was so little hesitation, and I really liked that. It encouraged me, because I was expecting a more reserved response: You want me to do what?” 

Salonen started his San Francisco tenure in 2020-21, but he was not able to lead his first in-person concert as music director until May 2021 because of the COVID-19 shutdown. Thus, 2021-22 has essentially served as his debut season. “My farewell season in London didn’t happen,” he said. “My opening season in San Francisco didn’t happen. In the global perspective, worse things happened, obviously. But, still, personally, it felt very strange and frustrating.”

The San Francisco Symphony announced its 2022-23 season in March; it contains plenty of classical stalwarts, but it also includes the kind of adventurous offerings associated with Salonen. These include three world premieres, including one by Trevor Weston, winner of the 2021 Emerging Black Composers Project; two weeks of October programs dedicated to “myth, magic and horror,” and the beginning of a four-year partnership with acclaimed stage director Peter Sellars.

“I’m not revolutionizing anything,” Salonen said. “I’m just trying to look around and figure out how we can be a symphony orchestra that communicates with its environment and has some kind of foothold in the now, the world we live in. We are facing all kinds of problems that have been structural but have been amplified and accelerated by the pandemic, and now, of course, the war in Europe. We can’t keep playing the same old things the way we always played them endlessly, because it wouldn’t work. We need new ideas.”