James Gaffigan conducts the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus in a program dedicated to late Music Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas. Works by Brahms and Ives—an MTT favorite—explore contrasting visions of spirituality, one comforting, the other questioning. Tilson Thomas’s own Agnegram, a lively march written in honor of an SF Symphony benefactor, brings his sense of humor to the fore. The program centers on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, a journey of transformation that explores themes of struggle and salvation, community and compassion.