The Bernstein Experience

Jahja Ling, conductor

Two towering masterpieces of Russian classical music dominate this concert, led by Jahja Ling, who makes his debut as the San Diego Symphony’s first Conductor Laureate. After a brief, jazzy opening excerpt from Leonard Bernstein’s On the Town, Ling leads a performance of that “Everest” of piano concertos, Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Third, with rising young Uzbek sensation Behzod Abduraimov as soloist. The concert concludes with Dmitri Shostakovich’s enigmatic, intensely dramatic Symphony No. 5.