The San Francisco Symphony will host its 19th annual Día de los Muertos celebration on Saturday, November 7, at Davies Symphony Hall, bringing altars, visual art and live music together to honor life, remembrance and Mexican heritage. Festivities open at 1:30 p.m., with the concert itself beginning at 3 p.m.
According to KTVU, the celebration is curated once again by Martha Rodríguez-Salazar, who the station notes offered insight into the event. Per the San Francisco Symphony, Rodríguez-Salazar is described as the event's longtime collaborator and curator, and she has held that role since the celebration began in 2008.
Casa Círculo Cultural, the Symphony's artistic partner on the event, has collaborated on the Día de los Muertos celebration since 2010, the orchestra's website states. That nearly two-decade partnership has helped shape a tradition that now spans an afternoon of altar installations, family activities and a formal concert program.
Tlaxcala Takes Center Stage This Year
This year's celebration is dedicated to Tlaxcala, the Symphony says in materials published on encoreplus.app, the ticketing platform hosting the event's bilingual program notes. The dedication carries through both the visual exhibit and the live concert program, which is conducted by José Luis Gómez and blends traditional music with contemporary works, according to the Symphony's own event page.
Audiences can expect the world premiere of El baile de la Catrina, a new piece for two salterios and orchestra by Tlaxcalteca composer and arranger Luis Farfán Carrillo, per the program notes on encoreplus.app. The afternoon will also feature a live performance by the Ensamble Típico de Tlaxcala as part of the pre-concert festivities, the Symphony notes.
Altars, Sugar Skulls and Family Activities
Before the concert begins, the plaza and lobby areas fill with art installations and altars created by local artists, alongside family-friendly activities such as sugar skull decorating, craft-making and Day of the Dead face painting, the Symphony's ticketing page details. Those installations and artworks are scheduled to remain on display through November 11, giving visitors several extra days to view the exhibit beyond the concert date itself.
The Symphony describes this year's exhibition as one that explores themes of remembrance, resilience, renewal and hope, with altar installations and visual artworks meant to honor loved ones and ancestral connections. That framing echoes the broader purpose of the holiday itself, which the tradition marks each year with color, music and communal gathering rather than mourning alone.
With nearly two decades of history behind it, the celebration has become a fixture of the Symphony's fall calendar, rooted in a collaboration between Rodríguez-Salazar and Casa Círculo Cultural that has stretched from the event's earliest years to this year's tribute to Tlaxcala.
