Alexander Malofeev has been gathering accolades ever since his triumph at the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in 2014, when he was 13. “Contrary to what could be expected of a youngster,” a critic for the German music magazine Amadeus opined, “he demonstrated not only high technical accuracy but also an incredible maturity. Crystal clear sounds and perfect balance revealed his exceptional ability.” Ten years on, Malofeev keeps earning his stripes every day. His party piece for San Diego is Prokofiev’s durable Piano Concerto No. 3, which cannily combines lyricism, technical razzle-dazzle, and jolting shifts of mood. Prokofiev tailored the solo part to his own formidable keyboard skills, blazing a trail countless virtuosi have followed (discographies list over 100 recordings). The challenges are made to order for a talent on the order of Malofeev’s, who will no doubt bring down the newly restored and renamed Jacobs Music Center. As bookends to the Prokofiev, the San Diego’s charismatic music director Rafael Payare leads the world premiere of a new concerto for orchestra by the much-decorated Los Angeles jazz composer Billy Childs and that crypto-Napoleonic cornerstone of the classical repertoire, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, the Eroica. —Matthew Gurewitsch