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 ›

Jennifer Higdon's blue cathedral will make its first appearance tonight on the program of the SF Symphony (at Flint in Cupertino, tomorrow through Saturday at Davies Symphony hall, along with a Mozart piano concerto and Debussy's Iberia); which comes at a surprise to us since we heard about her so much, from chamber music, to concertos. Indeed, our own SF Opera commissioned an opera from her for 2013. So we jumped on this opportunity to phone her up. more ›