MTT: CAPUÇON PLAYS DANNY ELFMAN

November 11, 12 & 13, 2022

Overview

Cellist Gautier Capuçon joins Michael Tilson Thomas and the Orchestra for the U.S. premiere of the Cello Concerto by heralded film and concert composer Danny Elfman. The program is framed by showpieces for two sections of the SF Symphony: Igor Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments marries the composer’s flair for shock and drama with perhaps an even greater surprise, a supremely serene and understated finale. The string section gets the last word with Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s charming and sumptuously romantic Serenade for Strings.

Concert Extras

Post-Concert Q&A: A post-concert audience Q&A session with composer Danny Elfman and cellist Gautier Capuçon, moderated by SF Symphony CEO Matthew Spivey, will be presented from the stage following the concert on November 12. Free to all ticket holders.

At A Glance

Igor Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments is not really a symphony at all—let alone several of them together. Instead, this 10-minute piece returns to the literal meaning of the word as “a sounding together.” Stravinsky described it as “an austere ritual . . . of short litanies between different groups of homogenous instruments.”

Danny Elfman’s Cello Concerto is a San Francisco Symphony commission receiving its US premiere this week. Elfman has scored more than 100 films and is widely known for his collaborations with director Tim Burton. In recent years, he has turned increasingly to writing for the concert hall, and this evocative concerto was composed especially for Gautier Capuçon.

Though written at the same time as his 1812 Overture, Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings inhabits a completely different world—delicate, melancholy, and serene. He said he wrote it “from inner compulsion,” and though he was often self-critical, he held this work in high regard.

Artists

Michael Tilson Thomas

Conductor

Gautier Capuçon

Cello

San Francisco Symphony

Program

Igor Stravinsky

Symphonies of Wind Instruments

Danny Elfman

Cello Concerto
[San Francisco Symphony Commission, U.S. Premiere]

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Serenade for Strings

These concerts are generously sponsored by the Athena T. Blackburn Endowed Fund for Russian Music

MTT: CAPUÇON PLAYS DANNY ELFMAN

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.