MTT conducting SFS in Davies Symphony Hall (photograph by Stefan Cohen, courtesy of SFS)
In about a month’s time the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) and Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) will kick off their 25th season together with the usual Opening Night Gala. Traditionally, this event has featured a guest soloist; but this year’s program will celebrate the launch of MTT’s final season as Music Director. The selections will be drawn from personal favorites from MTT’s extensive repertoire.
The program will get off to a lively start with a performance of the overture to Mikhail Glinka’s opera Ruslan and Lyudmila. (This happens to be a personal favorite. The very first time I listened to this music in performance, rather than on recording, was at an outdoor concert SFS gave in Yerba Buena Gardens with MTT conducting.) Bass-baritone Ryan McKinny will join SFS to sing the orchestral version of two of the songs from Aaron Copland’s Old American Songs collections, “The Dodger” from the first set and “The Golden Willow Tree” from the second. Between these two selections the SFS Chorus (Ragnar Bohlin, Director) will sing Gordon Getty’s arrangement of “Shenandoah.”
The second half of the program will begin with another MTT favorite, Benjamin Britten’s Opus 34 set of variations on the “Rondeau” theme from Henry Purcell’s Abdelazer suite, best known as “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.” McKinny and the Chorus will then return, joined by soprano Susanna Phillips, mezzo Jennifer Johnson Cano, and tenor Jonathan Tetelman, to wrap up the program with the final movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 125 symphony setting Friedrich Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” poem. The entire program is planned to be supplemented by multimedia elements, including lighting design by Luke Kritzeck.
The performance of this program will begin at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, September 4. Prices for concert tickets range from $278 to $326. They include a complimentary pre-concert wine reception and access to the after-party in the Tent Pavilion set up on Grove Street between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. In addition there will be four unique Dinner Packages that include premium seating for the concert. The event page on the SFS Web site provides hyperlinks for the purchase of both concert tickets and Dinner Packages. Each of the four options has its own Web page describing both the offering and the prices. One can also learn more about these options by contacting the Volunteer Council at 415-503-5500. Tickets will also be available by calling the Box Office at 415-864-6000 or by visiting it at the Grove Street entrance to Davies Symphony Hall at 201 Van Ness Avenue, on the south side of the street (again between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street). Box Office hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, and noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday.
As usual, the Opening Night Gala will be followed by the All San Francisco Concert. This is an event presented for San Francisco social service and neighborhood organizations, in recognition and gratitude for the work these groups do to enrich the lives of and serve the citizens of San Francisco. Members of those organizations are invited to attend the concert as SFS guests. Those tickets that have not been distributed are sold to the general public. However, it appears that this year no such tickets are available.
The week will then conclude with S&M2, a revival of the concerts given by Metallica and SFS twenty years ago. The performance will held at the Chase Center at 8 pm. on Friday, September 6. According to the event page on the Chase Center Web site, tickets are no longer available.
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