San Francisco Symphony performs with MTT at Weill Hall this Thursday, September 12, 2013
Grammy award-winning pianist Yefim Bronfman, or “Fima,” performs with SFS at Weill Hall on September 12, 2013. No stranger to the Wine Country, the passionate pianist has a wine named after him—Fimasaurus—a blend of cabernet and merlot produced by John Kongsgaard in Napa Valley. Chocolate, cassis, and saddle leather lead its aromatic profile. Photo: Dario Acosta
As an appetizer to the delights that await us at Weill Hall in its second year, the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) heads North this Thursday, September 12, for “MTT conducts Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1,” the first in a four concert series at Green Music Center (GMC) scheduled for the 2013-14 season. In his only GMC performance this season, Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT), who became SFS Music Director in 1985, will lead SFS in a program that includes the highly-anticipated West Coast premiere of young Canadian conductor Zosha Di Castri’s “Lineage.” Di Castri, 28, is the first recipient of a New Voices Commission a program conceived of by MTT in collaboration with SFS, the New World Symphony Orchestra and publishing house Boosey & Hawkes. The headliner is renowned guest pianist, Yefim Bronfman, who joins SFS for Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, one of the musical icons of Russian Romanticism and one of Bronfman’s signature offerings. SFS also plays Prokofiev’s otherworldly, outrageous, and over-the-top Third Symphony, based on material from the composer’s daring opera The Fiery Angel.
Program—Michael Tilson Thomas conducts SFS, with guest artist Yefim Bronfman
Zosha Di Castri
Lineage (New Voices Commission)
Tchaikovsky
Prokofiev
Concert is approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes, including intermission
Inside Music at 7 PM: Composer Zosha Di Castri and Peter Grunberg, musical consultant to SFS and Musical Assistant to MTT, will give an informative talk. Free to ticketholders.
Yefim Bronfman— Affectionately known as Fima, Yefim Bronfman has been a frequent guest of the San Francisco Symphony since 1984. He last performed with MTT and the Orchestra at Davies Symphony Hall and the Green Music Center at Sonoma State University in December 2012 in concerts of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5. Among his recent recordings is one of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 with Mariss Jansons and the Bayerischer Rundfunk (2007) on Sony. He performed Magnus Lindberg’s Piano Concerto No. 2, commissioned for him, with Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic and released on the Da Capo label. This year The Wall Street Journal praised Bronfman as “a fearless pianist for whom no score is too demanding,” and added, “…a more poetic touch has lately complemented his brawny prowess.”
Zosha Di Castri talks with Jeff Kaliss of San Francisco Classical Voice about “Lineage.” Video by Beth Hondi
Zosha Di Castri— The inaugural New Voices composer, Zosha Di Castri is a Canadian composer and pianist living in New York. She is currently pursuing doctoral studies in composition at Columbia University, studying with Fred Lerdahl and teaching composition, electronic music, and music history. Her work has been performed in Canada, the US, and Europe by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the Internationale Ensemble Modern Akademie, L’Orchestre de la Francophonie, the NEM, JACK Quartet, L’Orchestre national de Lorraine, members of the L.A. Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Talea Ensemble. She has participated in residencies at the Banff Center, Domaine Forget, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne’s Forum, and the National Arts Centre’s summer program. She was named a laureate of the 3rd International Composer’s Competition for the Hamburger Klangwerktage Festival, won two SOCAN Foundation awards for her chamber music in 2011, and in 2012, tied for the John Weinzweig Grand Prize for her first orchestra piece Alba, commissioned by John Adams and Deborah O’Grady and premiered at the Cabrillo Festival in 2011. Recently, her work Cortège garnered her the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music.
Di Castri’s work includes interdisciplinary collaborations in the realms of electronic music, sound installation, video, performance art, and contemporary dance. Her latest mixed-media works include Akkord I for flute, piano, electronics, and large sculpture, and a collaboration with choreographer Thomas Hauert of the ZOO Contemporary Dance Company on a new piece for electronics and dance at Ircam in Paris. She is also creating a new evening-length work for ICE in collaboration with David Adamcyk for ICElab 2014.
Details: “MTT conducts Tchaikovsky” is September 12, 2013 at 8 PM at Green Music Center. Tickets $156-$20. Advance ticket purchase for SFS at Green Music Center must be made through the SFS Box Office Box Office at (415) 864-6000 or online here. You can choose your seat yourself only by phone; if you purchase tickets in advance online, best available seating will be assigned. Tickets can also be purchased on September 12 in person at the Green Music Center Box Office one hour before the performance. As of Tuesday morning, there was amply orchestra seating available.
For more information about San Francisco Symphony, visit http://www.sfsymphony.org/index.aspx
For more information about the Green Music Center, visit www.gmc.edu.
Let the Party Begin! San Francisco Symphony’s Open Night Gala is Tuesday September 3, 2013 with Broadway Superstar Audra McDonald as guest soloist
American soprano and Broadway and television star Audra McDonald is the guest soloist at San Francisco Symphony’s 2013 Opening Night Gala on September 3, 2013. McDonald, who hails from Fresno, is a 5-time Tony Award and 2-time Grammy winner. Photo: Autumn de Wilde
The San Francisco Symphony (SFS) opens its 102nd season with its always stellar, always glamorous Opening Night Gala at Davies Symphony Hall on Tuesday, September 3, 2013. This year, Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas and the SFS Orchestra will host guest soloist Audra McDonald for the evening’s concert of gems from the classic American songbook including hits from My Fair Lady and West Side Story. If you’ve never heard McDonald’s luminous soprano or experienced the way she energetically embraces an audience, you’re in for a treat. And glittering Davies on a party night is a spectacle to behold. The evening kicks off long before the concert—there’s a 5PM cocktail reception, followed at 6PM by four simultaneous dinners: the Patrons’ Dinner inside of Louise M. Davies Tent Pavilion (sold-out); the Wattis Room Dinner (accommodates 70); the Symphony Supper inside of the Grand Rotunda-City Hall (accommodates 300); and the Symphonix Dinner inside of City Hall’s North Light Court (accommodates 200). All of the dinner packages include preferred seating for the performance. Guests who don’t opt for those packages will have their choice of 1st Tier seating for $295 or 2nd Tier for $160 and will have access to complimentary wine reception in the stunning hall before the concert, and a hopping after-party (~ 10PM) in the Tent Pavilion and on Grove Street, with live music, dancing, food, and an open bar (all included in the ticket price). One of San Francisco’s most important social events, the gala’s proceeds benefit the Orchestra’s artistic, community, and education programs, which provide music education to more than 75,000 Bay Area school children each year.
2013 OPENING NIGHT GALA CONCERT PROGRAM:
Michael Tilson Thomas conductor
Audra McDonald soprano
San Francisco Symphony
Antheil Jazz Symphony
Bernstein/Comden & Green “A Little Bit in Love” from Wonderful Town
Bernstein/Sondheim “Somewhere” from West Side Story
Bernstein/Comden & Green “A Hundred Easy Ways to Lose a Man” from Wonderful Town
Bernstein/Lerner “My House” from Peter Pan and “Take Care of This House” from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (Medley)
Kander/Ebb “First You Dream” from Steel Pier
Edwards “He Plays the Violin” from 1776
Styne/Merrill “The Music that Makes Me Dance” from Funny Girl
Styne/Comden & Green “Make Someone Happy” from Do Re Mi
Loewe/Lerner “I Could Have Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady
Gershwin An American in Paris
Singer and actress Audra McDonald (now 42) became a three-time Tony Award winner by the age of 28 for her performances in Carousel, Master Class, and Ragtime, placing her alongside Shirley Booth, Gwen Verdon and Zero Mostel by accomplishing this feat within five years. She won her fourth in 2004 for her role in A Raisin in the Sun, a role she reprised for a 2008 television adaptation, earning her a second Emmy Award nomination. On June 10, 2012, McDonald scored her fifth Tony Award win for her portrayal of Bess in Broadway’s The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess tying a record held by Angela Lansbury and Julie Harris for most Tony Awards won by an actor. She also maintains her ties to classical repertoire with an active concert and recording career, performing song cycles and operas as well as concerts throughout the U.S.
McDonald first appeared with the SFS at the 1998 Opening Gala, performing songs by George Gershwin. A few weeks later, she joined the SFS on tour to open Carnegie Hall’s season with a special Gershwin 100th Birthday Celebration. The performance with the SFS marked her Carnegie Hall debut, and was both broadcast as a PBS Great Performances special and recorded for RCA Red Label.
McDonald’s recent television appearances include four seasons as fertility specialist Naomi Bennett on the ABC series “Private Practice.” Her film roles include Cradle Will Rock, Object of My Affection, It Runs in the Family, Best Thief in the World, and Seven Servants.
McDonald’s first solo album in seven years, Go Back Home, was released May 21, 2013 and includes songs by John Kander and Fred Ebb, Stephen Sondheim, Adam Gwon and other composers.
SFS FALL CONCERTS. The San Francisco Symphony’s fall concert season includes MTT and the Orchestra in Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 (Sept 18, 19, 20, 21) and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in January during the Beethoven-Bates Festival. Composer Thomas Adès will perform with members of the Orchestra on October 3, 2013 during the Mendelssohn-Adès Festival, in a new chamber music program featuring two of his own compositions. A Halloween week of Alfred Hitchcock films includes the first-ever screenings with live orchestra of the film Vertigo (November 1), and Psycho (October 30). In November, R&B balladeer Natalie Cole sings with SFS. There are a number of holiday concerts and chamber music programs as well. In March, the stupendous French soprano, Natalie Dessay, will appear in recital.
SFS at Weill Hall: MTT conducts Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 at Green Music Center’s Weill Hall on Thursday, September 12, 2013. Stay-tuned to ARThound for subsequent coverage of SFS at Weill Hall. Due to the popularity of performances conducted by MTT, this concert, the only appearance of MTT at Weill Hall this season, is expected to sell-out, so advance ticket purchase is highly-recommended. In addition to special guest pianist Yefim Bronfman playing Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, one of his signature offerings, the concert also features the West Coast premiere of “Lineage” by young Canadian composer Zosha Di Castri. The work was commissioned as part of the SFS New Voices partnership with the New World Symphony and Boosey & Hawkes. Tickets need to be purchased through SFS.
Details: The SFS 2013 Opening Gala is Tuesday, September 3, 2013. Dinner packages can be purchased from the SFS Volunteer Council at (415) 503-5500. All dinner reservations should be made by Saturday, August 31, 2013. Concert tickets are $160 and $295 and include a complimentary pre-concert wine reception, as well as access to the after-party in the Tent Pavilion and on Grove Street. These tickets can be purchased by calling the box office at 415-864-6000 or in person at the SFS box office located on Grove Street at Franklin Street.
Getting to Davies: Davies Symphony Hall is located at 201 Van Ness Avenue at Grove Street, in San Francisco’s Civic Center, just across the street from City Hall. The main entrance is on the south side of Grove Street between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. Driving to San Francisco and Parking: Be sure to allow AMPLE time when driving into San Francisco and crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. This is the first operational day of the Bay Bridge and there may still be heavy traffic. Arrive early at your parking garage of choice because those also fill up gala week. Recommended Garages: Two garages are very close to Davies— the Performing Arts Garage (1/2 block)(Grove Street between Franklin and Gough Streets) and Civic Center Garage (roughly 2 blocks) (McAllister Street between Polk and Larken Streets) (both have flat $15 pay cash as you enter policy on performance nights)
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