San Diego Symphony wraps up summer season launch with Dolly Parton

The San Diego Symphony Orchestra is concluding its 2025 summer launch weekend with “Dolly Parton’s Threads: My Songs in Symphony” on Sunday.

The Tennessee Mountain Home performance will be conducted by Enrico Lopez-Yañez and the symphony orchestra will be joined by nine Americana musicians, including Dean Berner on banjo and mandolin, Derek Drye on both acoustic and lap steel guitar with Katelyn Drye, Hollie Hammel and Julie Williams providing vocals.

While Parton will not be in San Diego in person, the concert will feature her songs “in an innovative multimedia symphonic experience with Dolly on screen, leading audiences in a visual-musical journey of her songs, her life and her stories,” according to a statement from the organizers.

“The threads of my life are woven together through my songs,” Parton said. “That’s why this project, Threads: My Songs In Symphony, is so special to me. It’s all about sharing my music and my musical journey with audiences in a new way.”

The Symphony opened its fifth summer season Friday with conductor and symphony Music Director Rafael Payare leading the orchestra and trumpeter Paul Merkelo through a program featuring Ginastera’s Four Dances from “Estancia,” followed by a trumpet concerto written by lauded trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. Dukas’

“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” bringing the magic made famous by Disney’s “Fantasia,” and Debussy’s ode to the sea, “La mer,” rounded out the Friday’s opening night.

On Saturday, the symphony featured “Music of the Knights,” also conducted by Lopez-Yañez.

The event included the works of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Paul McCartney and Elton John — all of whom were knighted by the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Vocalists Chris Blem, Scott Coulter and Blaine Krauss and pianist John Boswell were featurding during the “Sir-prising” night of music with works including:

• Webber’s “Memory” and “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina;”
• John’s “Crocodile Rock,” “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” “The Circle of Life” and “Your Song;” and
• McCartney’s “Yesterday,” “Hey Jude” and “Maybe I’m Amazed.”

Performances by the orchestra continue on the Fourth of July with “America in Song” and “The Music of ABBA” on July 5th. A full list of the symphony’s Rady Shell performances can be found here.

The San Diego Symphony Orchestra performs year-round at the Jacobs Music Center in downtown San Diego.