MTT & Capuçon

Overview

San Francisco Mayor London N. Breed announced that War Memorial Performing Arts Center venues, including Davies Symphony Hall, will be closed for all public events for the next two weeks in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19. All San Francisco Symphony Concerts scheduled at Davies Symphony Hall through March 20 are canceled. Please see home page for details.

MTT conducts a luxuriant program by some of Russia’s finest storytellers and orchestrators. Charging out of the gate is Stravinsky's first large-scale work for orchestra and one of the most iconic scores of the ballet world: The Firebird. MTT brings personal insight into Stravinsky’s opulent masterpiece, having known and performed with the composer. Also on the program, the SFS welcomes the fiery virtuosity of San Francisco favorite Gautier Capuçon for a journey into the turbulent mindscape of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2. Opening the program is an original composition by MTT, Street Song, a jazz-inflected brass quintet piece that blends three song cycles into a memorable 5-note finale theme.

CONCERT EXTRAS
Inside Music: an informative talk by Elizabeth Seitz, begins one hour prior to concerts. Free to ticketholders. Learn More.

At A Glance

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS
Street Song
Michael Tilson Thomas initially wrote Street Song for brass quintet, but he later reconceived the work for the symphonic sheen of the London Symphony Orchestra brass section (MTT has a long association with the LSO where he currently serves as Conductor Laureate). Street Song interweaves three “songs” of varying character. MTT observes that the first movement is “about starting and stopping, the moments of suspension always leading somewhere else.” The second song is folk-like in character while the third song is something of a jazzy dance. Of the work’s close, MTT observes “There is a resolution, but it is the world of a musician who after many after-hour gigs greets the dawn.”—from notes by JAMES M. KELLER | Read More

SHOSTAKOVICH
Cello Concerto No. 2
Shostakovich wrote both of his cello concertos with the extraordinary expressive range of cellist Mstislav Rostropovich in mind. Yet when he began to conceive the Second Concerto, he considered taking it in the direction of a symphony, commenting to a friend, “It seems to me that the Second Concerto could have been called the Fourteenth Symphony with a solo cello part.” The Second Cello Concerto anticipates the leaner and sometimes oddly mercurial late style of Shostakovich’s last works. Moreover, the fact that this was a significant anniversary year for Shostakovich (his sixtieth) may have occasioned a desire to look inward. Yet the concerto’s enigmas resist facile translations into autobiography. This is very much a piece about music itself, albeit one in which the extroverted, virtuoso display so closely associated with a concerto is largely absent.—from notes by THOMAS MAY | Read More

STRAVINSKY
The Firebird
The first performance of The Firebird by Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes made Stravinsky a celebrity—for life. Its Parisian audience wanted a taste of the avant-garde, and with this ballet score the twenty-seven-year-old more than delivered. The company made a specialty of dancing works inspired by Russian folklore, and The Firebird was perfectly suited to Ballets Russes designs. The fantastical tale involves a dashing prince, an evil sorcerer, enchanted princesses, a magic egg, and, of course, the mythical and mystical titular creature. LISTEN FOR: Scored for an orchestra of luxurious size and richness, Stravinsky’s colorful work takes advantage of each instrument’s specific sound to enliven individual characters.—from notes by RONALD GALLMAN and MICHAEL STEINBERG MORE | Read More

Artists

Michael Tilson Thomas

Conductor

Gautier Capuçon

Cello

San Francisco Symphony

Program

Michael Tilson Thomas

Street Song for Symphonic Brass

Dmitri Shostakovich

Cello Concerto No. 2

Igor Stravinsky

The Firebird

Sponsors

MTT & Capuçon

Conductor

Michael Tilson Thomas is the Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, conductor laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra, and cofounder and artistic director laureate of the New World Symphony. He is a 12-time Grammy Award winner and has conducted the major orchestras of Europe and the United States.

Born in Los Angeles, he studied conducting and composition with Ingolf Dahl at the University of Southern California and as a young musician worked with artists including Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland. In his mid-20s, he became assistant conductor—and later principal guest conductor—of the Boston Symphony. He subsequently served as music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and principal conductor of the London Symphony.

In 1987 he cofounded the New World Symphony, a postgraduate orchestral academy in Miami Beach dedicated to preparing young musicians of diverse backgrounds for leadership roles in classical music. He has worked with more than 1,200 NWS fellows, many of whom have gone on to major musical careers.

MTT became Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony in 1995, ushering in a period of significant growht and heightened international recognition for the orchestra. He led the Symphony in championing contemporary and American composers alongside classical masters, and as Music Director Laureate, he has returned to conduct the orchestra each season.

His discography includes more than 120 recordings, and his television work includes series for the BBC and PBS, the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts, and numerous televised performances. “Michael Tilson Thomas: Where Now Is” aired on PBS’s American Masters series in fall 2020.

Throughout his career, he has been an active composer, with major works including From the Diary of Anne Frank, premiered with narrator Audrey Hepburn, and Meditations on Rilke. Both appear on SFS Media’s Grammy Award-winning recording of his music. In 2023, Yuja Wang released a recording on Deutsche Grammophon which included his You Come Here Often?
He is an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France, a member of the American Academies of Arts and Sciences and Arts and Letters, a National Medal of Arts recipient, and a 2019 Kennedy Center honoree.

Three major recording projects were released in 2024 in celebration of his 80th birthday: Grace: The Music of Michael Tilson Thomas on Pentatone; The Complete Columbia, CBS, and RCA Recordings on Sony Classical; and Complete Deutsche Grammophon & Argo Recordings on DG Eloquence.