Kurt Masur proved why he is a conducting legend. We caught him leading the SF Symphony on Thursday night, and, even at 80, the man can conduct. Yep, eighty year old. He looks so not octogenarian we thought it was a typo in the program, until we found a list of celebrations for his big birthday this year. But who cares about his age: he is not working on the senior tour, he is still......

Both the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Opera open their new seasons this week. Tomorrow, the symphony kicks it off with a gala, celebrating three anniversaries: Michael Tilson Thomas's, aka MTT, 10th anniversary at the baton, Shostakovich's 100th birthday next year, and the 25th anniversary for Davies Symphony Hall. Yo-Yo Ma at the cello would be our second best choice to perform Shostakovich's first cello concerto for tomorrow's performance. The first choice of......