Sunday, July 12, 2026 | Stern Grove Festival
by Dave Golden
There is something nourishing about sitting beneath towering eucalyptus and redwood trees while listening to the San Francisco Symphony. Somehow, even surrounded by thousands of people, Stern Grove still manages to feel intimate.
On a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon, the Symphony returned to the grove, opening with Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide before filling the amphitheater with the sounds of Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. The Symphony’s sound seemed perfectly at home in the open air, echoing through the trees and across the hillside.
The second half began with Samuel Barber’s The School for Scandal Overture before the audience welcomed banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck to the stage for George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Rather than simply adapting the familiar work, Fleck made it feel as though the banjo had always belonged there. To celebrate Béla Fleck’s recent birthday, the audience sang “Happy Birthday”. The concert concluded with Aaron Copland’s exuberant Hoedown from Four Dance Episodes (Rodeo). If there is a classical piece guaranteed to get a crowd moving, it is Hoedown.
Stern Grove Festival
June 14-August 16, 2026
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