We want to sing a happy birthday to San Francisco Performances, they start their 30th season tonight. Thirty years of bringing amazing chamber music ensemble and world class singers and talented recitalists to (mostly) Herbst theater: that's an accomplishment we can salute and be proud of. SF Performances is the brainchild of Ruth Felt, who is still running the organization, and whom you have seen on the front page of your Sunday Examiner a couple weeks back, on your doorstep whether you wanted that copy or not.

A special celebration requires a special guest, and it's singing mega-star and long time friend of SF Performances, baritone Thomas Hampson, who will be there to blow the candles. Hampson's list of accomplishments would make any singer proud: lauded recordings and performances with the SF Symphony and Michael Tilson-Thomas, superlative opera performances, a Merola program invitation, master classes and lectures at the conservatory, and his recurring recitals under SF Performances' auspices. And that's just in SF.

Hampson will sing tonight from his latest release, Wondrous Free, a part of his Song Of America project, an ambitious attempt to situate the American art song within its historical context. Phrased like this, it sounds intellectual and geeky, but Hampson's singing is as visceral as it gets. We chatted with Thomas yesterday. It's hard to describe, so listen to these interviews to get an idea of how fast he speaks, and how passionate he sounds about the project.