Sunday, July 29, 2007

"Bon Voyage" to the San Francisco Symphony!

One of the advantages of being invited to "Bloggers' Night" at the San Francisco Symphony was the opportunity to learn about the European tour that the Symphony will be making beginning at the end of August. I was particularly interested in the performances at the Edinburgh Festival and the BBC Proms, because I can now anticipate reading reviews of them through my RSS feed for the Telegraph (and perhaps hearing at least one of the Proms concerts on the BBC World Service). Today's San Francisco Chronicle further tweaked my interest with an advertisement for a "Bon Voyage" concert at Davies on August 23. Here is the program with some extra information about the soloist (omitted in the ad but culled from the Symphony press release) and which works will be performed that the two venues that interest me the most:

John Adams Short Ride on a Fast Machine (Edinburgh, August 29)

Charles Ives Symphony No. 3 (Proms, September 1)

Richard Strauss Final Scene from Salome (Deborah Voigt, soprano; Edinburgh, August 30; Proms, September 1)

Dmitri Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 (Proms, September 1)

So basically the San Francisco audience gets to hear the September 1 Proms concert with the Adams thrown in for good measure. I was also pleased to note that the Symphony will be performing a second Proms concert, consisting entirely of the Mahler seventh symphony. This was of particular interest, not only because Michael Tilson Thomas has done so much to build an audience for Mahler here but also because he seems to be doing the same in London with his performances with the London Symphony Orchestra. My guess is that the Telegraph will have a lot to write about, and I look forward to reading all of it!

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