Arts & Entertainment SF Symphony Music Director Michael Tilson-Thomas Announces Retirement Michael Tilson-Thomas, the music director for the SF Symphony, has just announced today that he will step down from his post after the 2019-20 season. That season will be the 25th in this
Arts & Entertainment SF Symphony Opening Night Gala Features Yo-Yo Ma, And A Rousing 'Bolero' The SF Symphony Gala kicked off the orchestra's season on Thursday night, later in September than usual as MTT was on tour with the Vienna Symphony orchestra. Often enough, classical music is a
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: SF Symphony's Semi-Staged 'das klagende Lied' Lotfi Mansouri, when he ran SF Opera, had persistently tried to convince MTT to conduct an opera there. It never happened. To hear MTT leading vocal works in SF, we had to settle
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews Andrea Chenier, Dream of the Red Chamber and more The SF Opera seasons continues now with Don Pasquale and opening this week-end, The Makropulos Case in the same excellent production as a couple years ago. Previously, the company presented the Chinese-themed opera
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Violinist Gil Shaham, Plus Reviews Of <i>Partenope</i> And <i>Tosca</i> At SF Opera First, a few classical music items: After 38 years of companionship, SF Symphony musical director and most famous acronym MTT has tied the knot with his partner Joshua Robison. Congratulations, Michael! It looks
Arts & Entertainment Photo Gallery: Marissa Meyer, Nicky Hilton and Nancy Pelosi at the SFS Gala The SF Symphony Gala happened two weeks ago, but that won't stop us from going all Us Weekly on you with pictures of the well-heeled at the glamorous party. These patrons dropped up
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: The SF Symphony Britten Festival If the opera is named after your character, you better be up for the task. Stuart Skelton delivered big time as Peter Grimes. A search on this website for Stuart Skelton yields a
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: Re/Current At The SF Symphony To all the gifts Steve Jobs gave us, the iPhone, the iPad, and most importantly, Toy Story, we must add Mason Bates' B sides, performed last Wednesday by the composer on the stage
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: Zosha Di Castri with the SF Symphony The New Voices project, a collaboration of the New World Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony (both MTT-led) and the music publisher Boosey & Hawkes to get young composers to write for large orchestra,
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: SF Symphony Opening Night We expect a good time from an opening gala at the SF Symphony. After all, there's an open bar, fancy (or "fancy," in some cases) attire, and everyone rejoices over the new musical
Arts & Entertainment Picture Gallery: Last Week's SF Symphony Gala Because we took the pictures at the SF Symphony Gala with our cell phone, we must offer you a second, higher definition glimpse at the swells in their Gucci and De La Renta
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: The SF Symphony 101st Season's Gala Take your pick of a party at Civic Center on Wednesday night: either the Red Hot Chili Peppers headlining the Salesforce convention social event, or the SF Symphony Gala. From the balcony of
Arts & Entertainment Sfist Interviews: Multimedia Artist Nick Hillel Hungarian composer Béla Bartók does not shy away from controversy. As part of the 100th anniversary season of the SF Symphony, we heard the Miraculous Mandarin played in December by the visiting BSO,
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: American Mavericks We caught the second orchestral program of the American Mavericks Festival at the SF Symphony and what an eclectic, puzzling, and overall exhilarating show it was. (The third program repeats tonight through Saturday)
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: the American Mavericks Festival Countering your Tom Cruise, Mark Cuban and John McCain for the short list of American mavericks, MTT and the SF Symphony offer their own selection: Aaron Copland, Lou Harrison, Charles Ives, in the
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien The Martyre de Saint Sebastien, a play by Gabriele D'Annunzio with music by Claude Debussy, was, according to its original producer, "bad." Says the program notes of the SF Symphony. The run which
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interview: Violinist Christian Tetzlaff At the San Francisco Symphony it's new year, new stuff. The 1992 Ligeti violin concerto will be heard live in San Francisco for the first time ever tomorrow through Sunday. You may recall
Arts & Entertainment Happy 100th Birthday, San Francisco Symphony As the audience in the classical music hall gets grayer and grayer, the San Francisco Symphony does what it can to stay ahead. But it too gets older too, turning 100 tonight. The
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: Kurt Masur at the Symphony A grab bag of a few items about classical music in the bay: Kurt Masur with the SF Symphony Zheng Cao with the Philharmonia Baroque Tanya Tomkins performs Bach Cello Suites Magnificat Baroque's
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: Lang-Lang at Davies Symphony Hall. Lang-Lang is the antidote to recessions and deaths of classical music. There are only a few others than the Chinese piano superstar who can sell out Davies Symphony hall on a Tuesday evening
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: Terfel, Aida, Bronfman A few performances we caught, before the Thanksgiving holidays distracted us from writing them up: Bryn Terfel at Cal Performances, Aida at SF Opera and Yefim Bronfman with the SF Symphony Few performers
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: Elza van den Heever at the SF Symphony Richard Strauss Four Last Songs form a coda to the composer's career, who was over eighty when he wrote them, and selected texts of falling leaves, crepuscular vibe and mournful elegy. They're however
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: Varèse, Villa-Lobos and Beethoven There's MTT the evangelist, advocating for rarely heard works and composers. And there's MTT the maestro, conducting old chestnuts with fresh vigor. Both were in full display last night, with a first half
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: Copland's Organ Symphony We attend Davies Symphony Hall for the visceral experience of a full orchestra performing: You hear it, but you feel it too, it resonates within you, it echoes off the walls and reverberates.
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Pianist Extraordinaire Yuja Wang Yuja Wang became an overnight sensation when piano legend Martha Argerich cancelled a performance with the Boston symphony and Yuja stepped in and was so electrifying she brilliantly saved the evening. The next