BRACING PROGRAM, EMERGING COMPOSERS
A minority conductor on the way up and a provocative modern program of novelties were the hallmarks of this week’s bracing San Francisco Symphony concerts. I’m happy to look past their bizarre whack-a-mole adaptation of “Carmen” music, as the night’s positives outweighed that musical aberration. The musical gem of the night was Carlos Simon’s six-minute “An Elegy: A Cry from the Grave” (2015). This is a thoroughly moving, aphoristic and harmonious statement emphasizing the low strings. Simon had been motivated…