In This Program
The Concert
Saturday, February 14, 2026, at 2:00pm
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser conducting
Kyle Gordon
L is For Love
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet
Fantasy-Overture (1880)
Giacomo Puccini
“O mio babbino caro” from Gianni Schicchi (1918)
Vuyiswa Sigadi soprano
Léo Delibes
Pavane from Le Roi s’amuse (1882)
Sergei Prokofiev
The Ridiculous Fellows from The Love for Three Oranges Suite, Opus 33b (1921)
Leonard Bernstein
“Maria” from West Side Story (1957)
Sid Chand tenor
Sergei Prokofiev
Excerpt from The Montagues and the Capulets from Romeo and Juliet Suite No. 2, Opus 64 (1938)
Edward Elgar
G.R.S. from Enigma Variations, Opus 36 (1899)
George Gershwin
“Bess, You Is My Woman Now”
from Porgy and Bess (1935)
Vuyiswa Sigadi soprano
Elijah Cineas bass-baritone
Richard Wagner
Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde (1865)
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Reunion from Hiawatha Suite, Opus 82a (1900)
The Music for Families Series is supported by
Welcome to the Orchestra!
Welcome to your San Francisco Symphony! We are so glad you are here with us! Today is Valentine’s Day, and we have chosen to bring you music that is all about love and stories of love. Some you will be familiar with and some will be new! Something special happens in this concert—sometimes it is just the orchestra alone, but sometimes there will be singers as well!
Kyle Gordon is an Los Angeles–based composer. In addition to writing music for big Hollywood movies, he also writes orchestral music for the concert hall. His piece L is For Love is one such example, a romantic love song in the old, grand Hollywood style.
Romeo and Juliet by Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–93) is based on Shakespeare’s play about two teenagers in love who can’t be together because their families are enemies. This music depicts the famous love theme and also the clash of swords when the two families fight.
Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924) was an Italian opera composer. This aria, “O mio babbino caro,” is sung by a young woman, begging not to be separated from her love. It is one of the most famous songs in opera.
Pavane by Léo Delibes (1836–91) is a slow and stately dance. It is often sung with the French words “Belle qui tiens ma vie,” which mean “Beauty, who holds my life.”
We promised this concert was about all different types of love. This next piece is from an opera by Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953). It is all about love. But a surprising one. It’s called The Love for Three Oranges!! And who doesn’t love oranges?
“Maria” is from the famous musical West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein (1918–90), which was inspired by Romeo and Juliet. Maria is a version of Juliet, with whom Tony (singing this song) is in love.
Prokofiev also wrote a ballet version of Romeo and Juliet. This movement shows the two warring families. You can see their swords dancing in the strings of the orchestra as they go up and down.
Edward Elgar (1857–1934) was an English composer who wrote a big piece about all his friends! One of his friends had a dog, and Elgar wrote music not for his friend… but for the pup they both loved, the beloved bulldog named Dan. See if you can hear Dan woof in this short piece!
Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin (1898–1937) is an American opera set in Charleston, South Carolina. This is the most famous love duet between the two main characters.
Liebestod comes from the opera Tristan und Isolde by Richard Wagner (1813–83), about a magic love potion. This is the climax of the opera, where Isolde dies, but her love for Tristan is transformed into something beautiful and everlasting.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912) was a British composer who was very interested in Native American legends. In this scene from his Hiawatha Suite, the Native leader rows his canoe into the sunset. It is called Reunion and is about being reunited with those you truly love!
—Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser
SFSKids.org
The San Francisco Symphony has launched the next generation of its award-winning, free online music education resource, SFSKids.org.
The new website, which was created by Rolling Orange and features artwork and animations by Bay Area artist Jesse Hernandez, is designed to be a fun online music education resource for children 8–13. Students can use the website for self-directed learning, while teachers or parents can use the site for group learning in the classroom, homework assignments, or cooperative learning projects.
SFSKids.org is accessible on desktop and mobile devices and is intended as a resource to support several of the learning targets outlined in music standards documents at national, state, and local levels. Active listening, responding to music, developing personal preferences, fostering awareness of the expressive characteristics in music, creating music, and making creative decisions about music are some of the music content areas the website supports.
The original SFSKids.org launched in March 2002 as one of the first music websites for children. The Symphony launched the second generation of the website in 2014. Since its debut, the site has reached more than five million users. The current SFSKids.org—the third iteration of the site—features an updated design and content to engage a new generation of users.
Lead sponsorship for SFSKids.org was provided by the Sakurako & William Fisher Family.
About the Artists
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser
A passionate communicator, Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser brings clarity and meaning to the concert hall, fostering deep connections between audiences and performers. He has been the San Francisco Symphony’s Resident Conductor of Engagement and Education since 2021, and recently extended his contract through the 2026–27 season. Bartholomew-Poyser is concurrently the Barrett Principal Education Conductor and Community Ambassador of the Toronto Symphony, Artist in Residence and Community Ambassador of Symphony Nova Scotia, and Principal Youth Conductor and Artistic Partner of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra. He previously served as assistant conductor of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and associate conductor of the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra. Bartholomew-Poyser has performed with the Detroit Symphony, Carnegie Hall Link-Up Orchestra, Canadian Opera Company, Vancouver Symphony, Edmonton Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Chicago Philharmonic, was cover conductor with the Washington National Opera in 2020, and was music director of the Kennedy Center Summer Music Institute in 2022.
Recently, Bartholomew-Poyser debuted with the New York Philharmonic and New Jersey Symphony in addition to making his debut at the Hollywod Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in an all-Tchaikovsky program. Host of the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s weekly radio show Centre Stage, he also serves on the board of the Conductor’s Retreat at Medomak in Michigan. He is the subject of a multi award-winning CBC documentary Disruptor Conductor, focusing on his efforts to extend the boundaries of the orchestral music world through concerts for neurodiverse, incarcerated, African diaspora, and LGBTQ2S+ populations.
Bartholomew-Poyser earned his bachelor’s degree in music performance and education from the University of Calgary and his master of philosophy in performance from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England.
Vuyiswa Sigadi
American and South African soprano Vuyiswa Sigadi was born in Des Moines, Iowa, spent much of her early musical training in Dallas with her father, and began vocal studies with her mother. During her high school years, she discovered a deep passion for opera and classical singing. Sigadi has won multiple awards from the Texas Music Educators Association and State Solo and Ensemble Contest, and was a gold medalist in the NAACP’s ACT-SO competition, a National YoungArts winner, and a first place winner of the 2025 American Protégé Competition, which led to a debut at Carnegie Hall.
Sigadi earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with César Ulloa and was selected for Craig Terry’s Beyond the Aria concert. She was a finalist in the Schmidt Vocal Competition and has appeared in operatic productions, including Acis and Galatea as Galatea. This spring, she will make her role debut as Lisette in La rondine with the SFCM Opera Theater. She makes her San Francisco Symphony debut with this concert.
Shiddharth Chand
Shiddharth (Sid) Chand is a tenor of New Zealand Fijian-Indian heritage. Most recently, he performed the title role in Leonard Bernstein’s Candide with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Opera and was named a Manetti Shrem Opera Program Fellow at Festival Napa Valley.
Chand won first place in the inaugural Auckland Opera Studio Aria Scholarship Competition, and was a finalist in the Nicholas Tarling Aria Competition and Lockwood New Zealand Aria Competition, where he was honored with the John Bond Award for Most Promising Voice.
Shiddharth is supported by the Dame Kiri te Kanawa Foundation, Circle100 Foundation, New Zealand Opera Foundation Trust, and Mardell Cosgrove Trust. He makes his San Francisco Symphony debut with this concert.
Elijah Cineas
Elijah Cineas is a baritone from Southern California. He has performed in both opera and musical theater, with companies including Opera Santa Barbara, Lyric Opera Orange County, and Opera Italia, among others. His most recent credits include The King of Spades in Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges and Paris in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette.
Cineas is an alumnus of the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University, Long Beach, and is currently studying at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut at the Deck the Hall concert last December.
