In This Program
The Concert
Sunday, November 16, 2025, at 7:00pm
Gautier Capuçon cello
Jérôme Ducros piano
San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra Cellists
Timothy Huang · Anthony Jung · Melissa Lam · Ethan Lee · Claire Topper · Cara Wang
World premiere concert performances
Max Richter
Sequence for Gaïa
Armand Amar
Boreas
with SF Symphony Youth Orchestra Cellists
JB Dunckel
Wake
with SF Symphony Youth Orchestra Cellists
Gabriela Montero
Sur le lac du Bourget
Olivia Belli
Tàmâr Mĕtūshelāh
Missy Mazzoli
The Usual Illusion
Joe Hisaishi
Prélude
Ludovico Einaudi
Air
with Melissa Lam cello
Xavier Foley
Ambition
Nico Muhly
Side Piece
Bryce Dessner
Towards the Light
Abel Selaocoe
Toro Tsa Kwa
Michael Canitrot
Never Say Never
Ayanna Witter-Johnson
Forever Home
with Ayanna Witter-Johnson cello and vocals
Quenton Blache
Of Wind and Rain
with Quenton Blache cello
and SF Symphony Youth Orchestra Cellists
Jasmine Barnes
Life in Sunshine
with SF Symphony Youth Orchestra Cellists
This concert is presented without intermission.
Presenting Sponsor of the Great Performers Series
From Gautier Capuçon
This project—I’ve been carrying it within me for some years now. It originated in the early stages of a conversation that I had with my friend Michèle Corash one evening after a concert with the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas.
It was just before the world toppled into the pandemic. From this spark a wish was born: to bring together 16 composers from a range of different backgrounds, aesthetic approaches, cultures and musical genres around a single idea: that of Gaïa.
Here, the cello becomes a messenger, a heart beating to the rhythm of nature. In each piece we hear the Earth expressing herself through music: sometimes fragile, sometimes majestic, always essential.
This intimate link with nature, I draw it from my roots in the Savoy region. A land of mountains and snow, of inhabited silences, this is where my perspectives were formed. It was also here that my childhood dream took shape: to climb Mont Blanc, cello on my back, and to play in the pure echoes of the highest peaks, guided as ever by the impish light of that legendary cellist and mountaineer Maurice Baquet.
Today, the Mer de Glace glacier is retreating year after year, slowly, inexorably, exposing naked rock and raw earth. This album is also a song of warning, a hymn to this threatened beauty, a prayer for the future generations.
I extend my thanks from the bottom of my heart to everyone who believed in this musical human adventure so deeply inspired by nature.
—GC
About the Music
Sequence for Gaïa
MAX RICHTER
Since we moved my studio out of the city and into the woods a few years ago, I’ve become very interested in how an active experience of the natural world can elevate, or maybe even deepen, our creative projects. Therefore, I was very happy that Gautier asked me to contribute to this collection of works centered on our relationship with the Earth.
My own piece is both a journey and a destination. The structure of the work recapitulates an idea I read in the journals of Hermann Hesse when I was a teenager (Hesse’s idealism makes him a perfect writer for teenagers).
Commenting on an experience he had when hiking in the Alps, Hesse, having toiled up the mountain on foot, was surprised to see at the summit a group of tourists having made the same trip by cable car. Reflecting on the different impacts these two ways of making the same journey might have on us, he remarks, “The view is the same, but the vision is different.”
—MR
Commission made possible by
Solomon B. Cera & Toby Fischer Cera
Boreas
ARMAND AMAR
The word Boreas comes from Greek mythology, where it designates the god of the North Wind. Boreas embodies elements that are both powerful and wild, with icy breaths, often associated with winter and Nordic landscapes. In art and literature, Boreas represents a raw and unwavering force, symbolizing the contrast between winter tranquility and the raging elements.
In this piece it is these images of cold landscapes, sometimes violent, sometimes mysterious that inspired me, with powerful rhythms to translate the vigor of the north wind, interspersed with calmer and suspended passages, recalling the frozen nature of winter.
—AA
Commission made possible by
Deirdre and Chris Hockett
Wake
JB DUNCKEL
Wake is the sound of the forest. When I was a child, I lived next to a wood, and the forest told us about the seasons and variations in weather.
The piece becomes smaller as when the forest darkens with clouds or when bad weather makes trees wobble. I think that the sounds of nature contain a lot of music and that there is only to make his ear dream to translate his song.
—JBD
Commission made possible by
Jerome Guillen & Jeremy Gallaher
Sur le lac du Bourget
GABRIELA MONTERO
In writing this short piece for my dear friend and colleague Gautier, I wanted to evoke the “old world charm” and romanticism that Gautier has in spades. I sought to honor the lake he grew up next to and loves within the sound world reminiscent of 1960s French cinema. I know Gautier loves sweeping, long romantic musical lines, and that is what my little piece is made of.
—GM
Commission made possible by CSC
Tàmâr Mĕtūshelāh
OLIVIA BELLI
In my piece, I did not want to focus on men’s disasters, on gloomy scenarios, but on the resilience of nature, on its unstoppable vitality: it is on this strength that we can base hope in the future. Men, the new generations, will have to solve enormous problems, and will have to draw on all their incredible resources, material and spiritual. To put all these resources into motion we need hope, I think, and not fear.
Another source of inspiration was Hannah. It was sprouted from a 2,000-year-old seed and pollinated by another ancient Judean date tree. Dr. Elaine Solowey, director of the Center for Sustainable Agriculture of the Arava Institute, and Dr. Sarah Sallon, director of the Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Research Center of Hadassah Hospital, harvested these ancient dates in the culmination of an ambitious, decades-long experiment to raise the biblical-era Phoenix dactylifera—date palm—from the dead.
—OB
Commission made possible by
Diane & Harry Greenberg
The Usual Illusion
MISSY MAZZOLI
The Usual Illusion is a musical illustration of a Fata Morgana mirage, a natural atmospheric phenomenon that distorts the horizon beyond recognition; boats seem to float in midair, strange islands emerge out of nowhere, cargo ships and mountains suddenly appear upside-down.
Most common in polar regions and deserts, the Fata Morgana has inspired tales of sirens, ghost ships and lost continents for centuries.
Composed for Gautier Capuçon, this work for solo cello embodies the mystical, fantastical and “upside-down” properties of this haunting illusion.
—MM
Commission made possible by NSC
Prélude
JOE HISAISHI
This piece was composed with Gautier Capuçon in mind as the performer.
A short motif, followed by an arpeggio-like figure, is played solely by the cello, while the piano accompanies with a contrasting rhythmic pattern that runs in parallel yet remains detached.
Subtle variations in the musical figures create the impression of harmonic shifts, offering the performer the freedom to interpret the piece with either emotional intensity or restrained coolness.
—JH
Commission made possible by
Linda Wenstrand & Bruce Winterhof
Air
LUDOVICO EINAUDI
Ludovico Einaudi is an Italian pianist and composer who studied with Luciano Berio and Karlheinz Stockhausen. A prolific composer of ballet and film scores, he has also often composed works about nature, including Elegy for the Arctic, commissioned by Greenpeace and performed on a floating platform in the Arctic Ocean, and a 2021 series of concerts given in “national parks, nature reserves, creeks, valleys, lakes, and pristine mountain meadows—reachable only on foot, at dawn, at dusk, and under starry skies.”
Commission made possible by
Dr. Gladys Monroy & Larry Marks
Ambition
XAVIER FOLEY
Ambition for cello and piano captures the drive and emotional intensity behind striving toward something greater.
Through fiery passages and sweeping, lyrical moments, the piece explores the tension between determination and vulnerability
—XF
Commission made possible by
Lawrence Maisel & Susan Grant
Side Piece
NICO MUHLY
Side Piece is a short piece obliquely related to the flow of liquid: both predictable (expressed here by patterns) and not (expressed by odd hiccoughs or changes in tack).
There is also a sense of something elusive, and out of place: the way things lurk beneath the water, and the way we blithely take it for granted. The piece ends with a kind of hollow effervescence.
—NM
Commission made possible by
Fred Levin, the Shenson Foundation
Towards the Light and Towards the Forest
BRYCE DESSNER
Towards the Light and Towards the Forest are two short pieces I have composed for the outstanding cellist Gautier Capuçon.
Each one is a reflection on nature and explores simple kinetic and circular patterns on the cello while leaving room for interpretation. The title comes from paintings by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch which I saw last year in Oslo. While most famous for his anguished painting The Scream, of which there are many versions, the Munch museum in Oslo currently has an exhibition titled Trembling Earth with hundreds of beautiful paintings of landscapes and trees by Munch.
These simple natural paintings hold so much beauty and meaning and energy and in many ways are a more modern statement around the importance and generosity of nature than that of The Scream itself.
—BD
Towards the Light commission made possible by Camilla Miner Smith
Towards the Forest commission made possible by Michèle & Laurence Corash
Toro Tsa Kwa
ABEL SELACOE
Toro Tsa Kwa is about our gratefulness for being born, the small probability of being alive, and taking care of the very land that feeds us.
—AS
Commission made possible by
Christine & Frank Currie
Never Say Never
MICHAEL CANITROT
(Lyrics: Sarah Rebecca)
When Gautier invited me to collaborate with him on his album, my immediate thought was: “Never Say Never.”
I suggested this particular song to him because it has a great sensitivity, which is enhanced here by Sarah Rebecca’s mesmerizing voice. It has a depth, fragility, and a lightness that I tried to capture in the studio. I immediately saw what Gautier could bring to it: his delicate touch and his unique way of making each note vibrate. I knew he would elevate it to a new dimension.
On a more personal level, this collaboration has been a magnificent adventure. It has allowed me to free myself from the norms of electronic music to focus on what matters most: the emotion and pure beauty of the music. I sincerely hope that this piece will move you as much as writing it moved us.
—MC
Commission made possible by
Patrick McCabe & Andrew Macllrath
Forever Home
AYANNA WITTER-JOHNSON
Forever Home is a reminder that home isn’t a physical place but the sense of community, when we come together to honor our environment and take the time to listen and care for one another on this precious journey of life.
—AWJ
Commission and Ms. Witter-Johnson’s appearance made possible by
Marla Miller & David Kremer
Of Wind and Rain
QUENTON BLACHE
This new work, titled Of Wind and Rain, strives to emulate these two sounds of nature, which has been proven capable of calming the mind and making humans one with the natural environment.
—QB
Commission made possible by
Gail Covington & John Murray
Life in Sunshine
JASMINE BARNES
The piece is titled Life in Sunshine. The title of the piece is a play on a lyric in Roy Ayers’s song “Everybody Loves the Sunshine.” Life in Sunshine explores the concept of what being carefree feels like. I experimented with themes of neo soul, gospel, and jazz, all which bring a sense of nostalgia to me—a state of carefree ease that I vividly remember from childhood.
—JB
Commission made possible by
Patricia Lee-Hoffmann & Steven Hoffman
About the Artists
Gautier Capuçon
Gautier Capuçon is one of the foremost cello ambassadors in the 21st century. Performing worldwide with leading conductors and instrumentalists, he also created the Fondation Gautier Capuçon in 2022, dedicated to supporting outstanding young musicians.
Recent orchestral highlights include performances with the Vienna Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Hong Kong Philharmonic, as well as tours with the Filarmonica della Scala Milan, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, and the Rotterdam Philharmonic.
Capuçon recently toured Europe with Evgeny Kissin, concluding with a performance at Carnegie Hall. He also embarked on a separate tour with Rudolf Buchbinder, Renaud Capuçon, and Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider. His chamber music partners have included Nicholas Angelich, Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Frank Braley, Jérôme Ducros, Daniil Trifonov, Yuja Wang, Renaud Capuçon, Augustin Hadelich, Leonidas Kavakos, Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Menahem Pressler, and the Artemis, Ébène, Hagen, and Modigliani Quartets.
In the 2025–26 season, Capuçon tours with the Berlin Philharmonic and serves as artist in residence with the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden. Further orchestral engagements during the season include appearances with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, as well as concerts across Asia.
An exclusive recording artist for Erato (Warner Music), Capuçon has a rich discography that has earned numerous awards. Following Intuition, his 2020 release Émotions reached gold status in France, topping the charts for over 30 weeks. His next album, Sensations (2022), became the first classical recording to reach No. 1 in France’s all-genre charts, followed by Destination Paris (2023). Prior to Gaïa, his most recent release featured Elgar and Walton concertos with the London Symphony.
Capuçon made his San Francisco Symphony debut in November 2009 as a Shenson Young Artist, and returns next April for Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto.
The Gaïa video is made possible by support from Danuta Pieter and Bérengère Primat.
Jérôme Ducros
Pianist and composer Jérôme Ducros is a multifaceted artist, performing a very broad repertoire, and is a regular recital partner of Gautier Capuçon and Renaud Capuçon, among many other string players and singers. He has performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Berlin Philharmonie, Musikverein, Vienna Konzerthaus, Wigmore Hall, Barbican Centre, Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, and Mariinsky Theatre, among other venues. His substantial discography includes more than 20 albums on the Erato, Harmonia Mundi, Decca, and Virgin Classics labels.
Ducros won the Umberto Micheli International Piano Competition, organized by Maurizio Pollini at La Scala in Milan, and has performed as a soloist with Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Orchestre National de Lille, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Orchestre Français des Jeunes, and the Rotterdam Philharmonic. He makes his debut at the San Francisco Symphony with this performance.
Quenton Blache
Quenton Blache is a cellist and composer based in Los Angeles. He has performed nationally and internationally as a soloist and chamber musician and is a current member of the Sphinx Virtuosi. He has won several competitions, including the University of Southern California Bach Competition and Strings Concerto Competition. He performed the Dvořák Cello Concerto with the Peninsula Symphony in 2022, and Bloch’s Schelomo with the USC Thornton Symphony in 2023. A frequent session musician, he has played on soundtracks for Moana 2 and Sinners. Last January, he performed at the Grammy Awards with Best New Artist nominee Teddy Swims. A winner of the Emerging Black Composers Project, he makes his debut at the San Francisco Symphony with this performance.
As a composer, Blache has written works for the Little Orchestra Society, North Carolina Chamber Music Institute, MYCO Youth Chamber Orchestra, and Sphinx Organization, among other groups. His string orchestra work Visions of Peace was recently performed by the Sphinx Virtuosi at Carnegie Hall. He has also scored several films, including Shape of Money and the documentary The Gospel According to Bill Pannell.
Blache holds bachelor’s degrees from USC in cello performance and composition, a minor in Chinese, and a master’s degree in screen scoring. He plays on a modern cello made by Paris-based luthier Michael Fazio.
Ayanna Witter-Johnson
Ayanna Witter-Johnson is a multi-talented singer, songwriter, pianist, and cellist who crosses the boundaries of classical, jazz, reggae, soul, and R&B. A second-generation Jamaican born in Britain, she has collaborated with Anoushka Shankar, Nitin Sawhney, Andrea Bocelli, and Jools Holland. She has also toured extensively across the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States, most recently with Peter Gabriel.
After graduating from the Trinity Laban Conservatoire and Manhattan School of Music, Witter-Johnson participated in the London Symphony’s Panufnik Young Composers Scheme. Soon after, as an emerging artist in residence at London’s Southbank Centre, she performed as a featured artist with Courtney Pine’s Afropeans: Jazz Warriors. Later, she became the only non-American to win Amateur Night Live at the Apollo Theatre. As a composer, Witter-Johnson has been commissioned by the London Symphony, Güerzenich Orchestra, Ligeti Quartet, Kronos Quartet, and Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company. She has released three EPs and a debut album, Road Runner. She makes her San Francisco Symphony debut with this performance.
Cellists of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra
The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra is recognized internationally as one of the finest youth orchestras in the world. Founded by the San Francisco Symphony in 1981, the SFSYO’s purpose is to provide an orchestral experience of preprofessional caliber, tuition-free, to talented young musicians.
Timothy Huang is a student of Adelle-Akiko Kearns. He has also played with the Young People’s Symphony Orchestra and San Jose Youth Symphony. He has won first place in the US Open International Music Competition, second place in the Korean American Music Society Association, and is a VOCE competition state finalist and a recipient of the Irene Sharp Scholarship.
Anthony Jung is a student of Jonathan Koh. He has also played in the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra, California Youth Symphony Senior Orchestra, and 2025 California All-State High School Symphony Orchestra. He won first place in the 2024 GDYO Concerto Competition, among other awards, and has participated in the Idyllwild Arts Academy and Heifetz International Music Institute.
Melissa Lam studies with Sergei Riabtchenko and is a Co-Principal Cello of the SFSYO. She won grand prize in the 2025 Antonín Dvořák Competition, as well as first prizes in the 2025 Pacific Musical Society & Foundation Competition, 2024 American Virtuoso Competition, 2023 US Open Music Competition, 2022 International “The Muse” Competition, and the 2022 International JSFest Music Competition.
Ethan Lee is a student of Jonathan Koh at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Pre-College and is a Co-Principal Cello of the SFSYO. He has been invited to perform for the California Chapter of the American String Teachers Association, the Bay Area Creative Foundation, and the Junior Bach Festival. His summer festival experiences include the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Heifetz Institute, and Aspen as a scholarship recipient.
Claire Topper is a cellist at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Pre-College, where she studies with Eric Sung, and a Co-Principal Cello of the SFSYO. She was invited to perform at the 2025 Junior Bach Festival and was selected to perform at the festival’s honors concert. She was previously a member and principal cello of the Young People’s Symphony Orchestra, with whom she toured to Europe and Japan. She has attended the Boston University Tanglewood Institute’s Young Artists Orchestra Program and String Quartet Workshop.
Cara Wang is a student of SF Symphony Assistant Principal Cello Amos Yang. She has won the Khuner Young Artist Competition, Livermore-Amador Symphony Competition, SFCM Pre-College Concerto Competition, DVC/HNU competition, and Korean-American Music Supporters’ Association. As a soloist, she has appeared with the Central Oregon Symphony, Castro Valley Orchestra, Symphony Parnassus, Livermore-Amador Symphony, and Prometheus Symphony.
San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra
The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra is recognized internationally as one of the finest youth orchestras in the world. Founded by the San Francisco Symphony in 1981, the SFSYO’s musicians are chosen from more than 200 applicants in annual auditions. The SFSYO’s purpose is to provide an orchestral experience of preprofessional caliber, tuition-free, to talented young musicians. The more than 100 musicians, ranging in age from 12 to 21, represent communities from throughout the Bay Area. The SFSYO rehearses and performs at Davies Symphony Hall under the direction of Radu Paponiu, who joined the San Francisco Symphony as Wattis Foundation Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra in the 2024–25 season. Jahja Ling served as the SFSYO’s first Music Director, followed by David Milnes, Leif Bjaland, Alasdair Neale, Edwin Outwater, Benjamin Shwartz, Donato Cabrera, Christian Reif, and Daniel Stewart.
As part of the SFSYO’s innovative training program, musi-cians from the San Francisco Symphony coach the young play-ers each Saturday afternoon in sectional rehearsals, followed by full orchestra rehearsals with Radu Paponiu. Youth Orchestra members regularly meet and work with world-renowned artists: Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Tilson Thomas, Herbert Blomstedt, Kurt Masur, John Adams, Yo-Yo Ma, Valery Gergiev, Isaac Stern, Yehudi Menuhin, Wynton Marsalis, Midori, Joshua Bell, Mstislav Rostropovich, Simon Rattle, and many others have worked with the Youth Orchestra. Of equal importance, Youth Orchestra members are able to speak with these prominent musicians about their professional and personal experiences, and about music. The ensemble has toured Europe and Asia, given sold-out concerts in such legendary halls as Berlin’s Philharmonie, Vienna’s Musikverein, Saint Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater, and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and won first prize in Vienna’s International Youth and Music Festival.
