It's French week at Davies Symphony Hall, with a cheese-eating conductor (Stéph Denève), soloist (Jean-Yves Thibaudet) and composers (Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, Roussel and Stravinsky during his Paris years). The orchestra in the pit is the SF symphony, back from their American Maverick tour, and in the wake of the Cleveland Orchestra visit, they sounded as good as ever. more ›

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 centenarian does not look any the worse for wear though, with a year-long celebration that kicks off in high gear featuring a grand gala with virtuosos Lang Lang and Itzhak Perlman. more ›

Donato Cabrera is currently the Assistant conductor of the SF Symphony, and the music director of the SF Symphony Youth orchestra. But this month, his main job will be to conduct a good chunk of the summer series concerts, starting tonight with a concert titled My Classic American Composers. He won't be conducting the intriguing Final Fantasy video game soundtrack concerts, but will lead the orchestra in a live accompaniment of Bernard Herrman score for Hitchcock's movie Psycho, and for more "classic" nights: an all-Beethoven fest and a wall-to-wall Tchaikovsky evening. more ›

The Dude came to town. Not Jeff Bridges, but Gustavo Dudamel, who shares with him the disheveled long hair. The conductor and music director of the LA Phil, a.k.a. The Savior of Classical music, (or not), filled up the hall for the first of two concerts at Davies Symphony Hall too. He filled up the stage too, with over a hundred musicians from the LA orchestra cramped around the podium so tightly, we imagined Dudamel flying in over them for his entrance. The man is supposed to have such supernatural abilities that we would not put it beyond him. more ›

The French pianist David Fray is currently performing Beethoven's second piano concerto with the San Frandisco symphony. The series started Wednesday, so you can already read the SF Chronicle's Joshua Kosman's review. Maestro Christoph Eschenbach, who just got named music director of the National Symphony in DC, has been conducting here for a few weeks, first with Lang-Lang and his iPad (he's the bald guy in the video), then in a lush (some say overpowering) Schumann-Zemlinsky series, and now with the piano concerto, Brahms' second symphony, and La Source d'Un Regard, by the living French composer Marc-André Dalbavie. Yep, the obligatory modern piece-concerto-symphony program. more ›

Despite having one of the best orchestras in the world right here at home, it was a treat to hear the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra in Davies Symphony Hall. The LGO, founded in 1743, is one of the oldest and most revered orchestras in the world. It has been led by Felix Mendelssohn, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Bruno Walter; it has performed all Beethoven symphonies while the composer was still alive, and brought the Seventh back to life on Monday night. more ›

Two distinguished visitors come to Davies Symphony Hall this week and the next. First, Herbert Blomstedt will conduct the San Francisco Symphony in a program of Haydn and Beethoven tomorrow through Saturday. Then in back-to-back series, the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra, one of the most venerable music institutions of the world, will follow on Sunday and Monday with performances of symphonies of Dvorak and Beethoven, led by conductor Ricardo Chailly. more ›

Are there red states and blue states for classical music? We thought, sure, there's most likely more classical events on the blue coasts than in the red flyover states. But Anne Midgette, in the Washington Post, draws a different line: red states who love "the mainstream canon: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and all the byways and tributaries of that stream," and blue state who feel that "what’s being done in new music is more vital and alive than a constant diet of works one and two and three centuries old, wonderful as those pieces are." If so, this week puts the San Francisco Symphony decidedly in the blue state camp. Shocker, we know. We welcome, starting tomorrow, the British composer George Benjamin as the second Phyllis C. Wattis Composer-in-Residence Program inaugurated last year by Sofia Gubaidulina. more ›

Russian violin superstar Vadim Repin chatted with us from Helsinki, quite appropriately, since he'll perform the violin concerto from Finnish composer Jean Sibelius this week with the San Francisco Symphony. He'll partner with another Finn, conductor Osmo Vänskä, who came a week earlier, and already garnered rave reviews for his lead in Tchaikovsky and Bruckner. more ›

The SF Symphony kicks off its Schubert and Berg journey with a mix-and-match of the Viennese composers. Tonight, and repeating through Saturday (the last show in Cupertino), we hear Berg's Seven Early songs, and Three Pieces for Orchestra, teamed up with Schubert's Rosamunde Overture and Unfinished Symphony. more ›

Yuja Wang will dazzle us this week at Davies Symphony Hall, playing the dastardly difficult Prokofiev piano concerto #2 with MTT. Here she plays the concerto's scherzo with the YouTube symphony orchestra. She is all of twenty-two, but already acclaimed as the future of classical music. She has performed with the San Francisco symphony three times already, earning accolade galore from the critics: "an artist of dazzling genius," says the SF Chronicle, surrounded by "an aura of greatness...Wang combines a practically superhuman keyboard technique with artistic eloquence that is second to none." That is some serious hyperbole to put on the shoulder of such a tiny "sparrow, (a very pretty sparrow)," drools the LA Times. more ›

Hilary Hahn has been a celebrated violinist for so long, you'd forget she hasn't even turned 30! We (as in our favorite philistine) caught her last time around when she was playing the Korngold violin concerto, and loved her. She's back in a more familiar piece, the Tchaikovsky concerto in D major, starting tomorrow night. How's that for some perfectly festive holidays! more ›

SF Symphony guest conductor Fabio Luisi did his best last week to steal the thunder of violin megastar Joshua Bell. He opened the program with a tone poem by Richard Strauss, Don Juan. Tone poem means a symphonic little piece which tells a story, and, more often than not, said story is rather hard to follow: the instrumental language of an orchestra, as powerful and evocative as it is, is still open to multiple conflicting interpretations. To each their own daydream. Not with Luisi's Don Juan: after a crisp, brilliant opening that said, here comes Don Juan, he does not fuss around, Luisi and the SFSO delivered a sexy, lush rendition of the piece. It was a propulsive, erect, fanfare-ish opening. The strings (and Barantschik in particular) were seductive, the brass blended with the orchestra. A oboe playfully riffed on a snake charmer melodic line. more ›

It's easy to interview someone who is an interviewer: we just ask her to ask the questions! Orli Shaham is the pianist who'll play Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini with the SF Symphony at Stern Grove this Sunday. Rachmaninoff, Paganini: you don't need to know much about music to know that this is all about sheer virtuosity and crazy technicity. But Orli also had her radio show, Dial-A-Musician, where she asked her pro friends in classical music to answer questions from the listeners. Orli is the best person to query: she knows the business from the soloist angle. Then she often plays accompanist to her brother, Gil Shaham, the violinist who visits frequently with the SF Symphony. And if she ever wanted to know the point of view of the conductor, she can ask her husband, David Robertson. Robertson leads the St Louis Symphony, and will be guest conductor of the SF Symphony (starting tonight!) to wrap up the 2007-08 program. As Orli says, "he closes the season, and I open the summer." more ›

Each year, the Symphony organizes a summer festival dedicated to a theme or a composer. Next year sounds pretty intriguing: Schubert/Berg, two Viennese schools, two different styles to contrast and highlight each other. We're looking forward to it. This year, not so much: the festival was dedicated to Brahms, and we were like, blah. Programming Brahms is as exciting as a dinner of mac'n'cheese: the League of American Orchestras computed the most performed pieces of the 2006-07 season, and Brahms pieces rank 1st, 4th, 6th and 8th. We feel, why set up a special extra Brahms session when you can't swing a bow without hitting one of his symphonies. It's not like we're Brahms-deprived and need an extra dose. And yet, we went, twice, and had a great time. more ›

Leif-Ove Andsnes should just stop traveling and move here. Looking back only a few years, we see a 2004 performance here with Ian Bostridge, a 2005 concert of a Rachmaninoff piano concerto with MTT/SFS, a solo recital in 2006. He'll be here on Sunday for a recital at Davies and again for the Brahms piano concerto No. 2 next month. Admit it, L.O., you like us, you can't live without us. more ›

Well, this sounds like the perfect (and perfectly frightening) holiday entertainment for both kiddies and adults. more ›

Why, it's take-your-kid-to-the-symphony day on Sunday (Saturday in San Jose), featuring a performance of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. And here's a little claymation preview: It's so darling, isn't it? Hopefully it'll be as much a blast as the opera for families. More after the jump! more ›

We caught the symphony on Thursday for a really cool program: Mostly Ives, with a Mendelssohn violin concerto squeezed in between for good measure. Those quicker than us with their opinions found the concerto rather pedestrian. But it's such a delicious yet cloying confection that even under the the jurisdiction of a particularly uninspired interpretation, is still satisfying. And the soloist, 22yo Sergey Khachatryan, did spark some fireworks in the final movement. more ›

-- Toshio Hirano: Local country music star -- alongside his trusty bassist, Kenan O'Brien -- croons tonight at 9 p.m. at Amnesia; free. more ›

It's the magic of music! The San Francisco Symphony comes back to Dolores Park for the fifth consecutive year for a free performance as part of their Summer In The City program. This year, it's kind of Spanish-themed, with Gershwin's Cuban Overture, composer Manuel de Falla's Three Cornered Hat, possibly some tangos, and Ravel's Bolero. Dum-da-da-da bump-bump, dum-da-da-da bump-bump. more ›

It's gotta be hard to perform at the symphony in the winter -- a number of musical sneezes and coughs periodically punctuated Wednesday's San Francisco Symphony movie-themed performances, helmed by guest conductor David Zinman. Get well soon, Wednesday night ticketholders! more ›

Our friends at the San Francisco Symphony want to give a couple of lucky SFist readers tickets for HK Gruber’s cabaret at Davies Symphony Hall. Listen to how crazy this show sounds: more ›

Tonight: at 6:30 there's the reception for the San Jose State University Junior and Senior Industrial Design Show, at the Santana Row Design Within Reach. "The presentation will feature concept projects ranging from product design to interaction design that explore the wide range of possibilities in materials and manufacturing, user analysis, and form development." more ›

Both the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Opera open their new seasons this week. more ›

We were as surprised as anyone when we received media accreditation to attend this Saturday's San Francisco Symphony's Black & White Ball, described as "one of the world's most extravagant black tie parties." We've been hitting Thrift Town, the yoga studio, and the self-tanner in anticipation of tomorrow's event, which runs at the Civic Center from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. more ›

Question: where does one go if one were to celebrate the birthday of an Orchestra Conductor? Why the Tosca Cafe, of course! Last Tuesday, San Francisco Symphony conductor Michael Tilson Thomas (that’s MTT for those not in the know) had his 60th birthday party thrown there in his honor by his partner of 30 years, Joshua Robinson. Robinson chose Tosca because Thomas had said he wanted to go someplace “very San Francisco” and what says “very San Francisco” more like an 85 year old bar known for it’s celebrity sightings and opera laden jukebox? SFist has been going to Tosca for years trying to hunt down celebrities (Bono hangs out there!), but sadly, we've mainly seen Euro-Trash and those striving to become Euro-Trash there. more ›