In Tuesday’s (2/3) Bay City News, James Ambroff-Tahan writes, “Violinist Alexi Kenney, creating this week’s San Francisco Symphony SoundBox concert called ‘Dream Awake,’ centered the program around [Geörgy Kurtãg’s] 1987 song cycle called ‘Kafka’s Fragments’ based on writer Franz Kafka’s quotes and diary entries…. A portion of the 70-minute-long ‘Kafka Fragments’ and pieces by mostly living composers comprise ‘Dream Awake,’ a program depicting the delicate balance between dreaming and waking life that’s the theme of the first 2026 SoundBox…. Experimental SoundBox shows … take place in a club-like atmosphere backstage in Davies Symphony Hall. Works by Berkeley native Dylan Mattingly, Kronos Quartet cellist Paul Wiancko and University of California, Berkeley graduate Peter Shin are also on the program … Singer Lucy Fitz Gibbon, who’s joining him on ‘Kafka Fragments,’… joins a larger mixed orchestra ensemble [of San Francisco Symphony musicians] for a work by the late Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho … ‘Dream Awake’s’ lighting design is by Luke Kritzeck and video design is by Adam Larsen … Kenney says … ‘It’s really nice to have these multidisciplinary cross-collaborations happening.’ Kenney, who made his San Francisco Symphony Orchestral Series debut in December … maintains that innovative programming … is a creative, necessary way to broaden the appeal of classical music.”
