Michael Tilson Thomas News

Louisville Orchestra Announces 2016-17 Season And Teddy Abrams Is An Unstoppable Force

SAN FRANCISCO, April 18 – The San Francisco Symphony announces its annual Summer with the Symphony series, which runs July 4-29 at Davies Symphony Hall and at other outdoor locations throughout the Bay Area. Led by Director of Summer Concerts Edwin Outwater, Summer with the Symphony features a festive lineup of concerts and events for all ages, beginning with the SFS's annual Fourth of July concert and fireworks spectacular at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View. On July 7, Outwater leads the SFS in The Music of John Williams—From Star Wars to Harry Potter!, which will include Williams's iconic music from such films as Star Wars, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Jaws, and others. 

Acclaimed pianist Yuja Wang, whose annual Carnegie Hall recital has quickly become one of the premier events of the New York concert season, performs on Saturday, May 14 at 8:00 p.m. for an audience in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, plus many more people around the world through a simultaneous live radio broadcast on WQXR 105.9 FM and online at wqxr.org, and webcast on medici.tv.

The San Francisco Symphony (SFS), led by guest conductor Pablo Heras-Casado, will be the first major symphony orchestra to use Facebook's live video streaming feature "Facebook Live" to webcast a world premiere to audiences around the globe, for free. Commissioned by the SFS, composer Mason Bates's latest work Auditorium, with Bates performing on electronica, will be streamed from Davies Symphony Hall on Wednesday April 27 at approximately 8:15 pm on the Symphony's Facebook page www.facebook.com/sfsymphony. The world premiere webcast will also be archived and available for on-demand streaming following the performance. To experience Auditorium, viewers should be followers of the SFS Facebook page, and will receive an automatic notification when the stream begins.  

The recording, a hybrid SACD is out today, Friday, April 8, 2016, is the second in an ongoing series by Music Director Thierry Fischer and the Utah Symphony for Reference Recordings. It follows the release of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 1 'Titan,' recorded live by the Utah Symphony and Mr. Fischer, issued in September 2015. DAWN TO DUST will be available from iTunes, Amazon.com, and other music retailers.

The St. Lawrence String Quartet returns to Segerstrom Center for the Arts today, Friday, April 8 at 8 p.m. in Samueli Theater.

PITTSBURGH - Be part of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's 2016 European Tour from the comfort of a seat at Heinz Hall! On May 22 at 2 p.m. EST, Pittsburghers can cheer on their home orchestra while watching a concert with a simulcast live from Berlin, Germany.

The California Symphony celebrates its 30th season in 2016-17 and its fourth season with Music Director Donato Cabrera, with a year of special programming that highlights the music by a Young American Composer-in-Residence program alumnus on each of its six concerts at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek. Throughout its 30-year history, the Orchestra has made American repertoire its special focus, nurturing and commissioning work from emerging American composers as well as performing the most revered core classical repertoire.

The Young Musicians Foundation (YMF) Debut Orchestra, under the direction of Yuga Cohler, presents YEETHOVEN, the premiere concert of an innovative programming concept entitled The Great Music Series. Mr. Cohler created the Series in order to "demonstrate the ways in which modern popular music can be fundamentally similar to classical music by highlighting the musical and cultural elements characteristic of all great music." For this, its first installment, the Series will consider the music of Kanye West and Ludwig van Beethoven.

The New York Choral Society will present Handel's biblical oratorio Israel in Egypt under the baton of Music Director David Hayes, on Tuesday evening, May 10th, 2016, 8pm at Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium. Composed entirely from selected passages from the Bible's Old Testament, Israel in Egypt relates the harshness of the Israelites' captivity in Egypt and their subsequent triumphant escape from the Pharaoh's oppressive regime. Israel in Egypt is atypical in Handel's choral output, as it contains little solo material and is dominated by large-scale virtuosic choruses that exhibit Handel's mastery as a musical storyteller.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts today announced details for NEW VOICES, OLD MUSES, the third performance in its innovative contemporary music series, KC Jukebox, curated by Composer-in-Residence Mason Bates, on Monday, April 18, 2016 at 8 p.m. in the Kennedy Center Atrium.

Following the success of their concert performances and subsequent recording of Bernstein's West Side Story, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Fransisco Symphony will present Leonard Bernstein's musical On the Town May 25-29. The concert production will feature the talents of many of the 2014-15 Broadway revival cast, including: David Garrison and Tyne Daly (narrators), Clyde Alves (Ozzie), Jay Armstrong Johnson (Chip), Tony Yazbeck (Gabey), Megan Fairchild (Ivy), Alysha Umphress (Hildy), Isabel Leonard (Claire), Shuler Hensley (Pitkin)

Miami City Ballet makes its Harris Theater Presents debut during its 30th Anniversary Season. Performing two distinct programs over two evening engagements, ballet greats from George Balanchine to ballet's current choreographic sensation Justin Peck are celebrated. The company will be accompanied by the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra in both performances on April 29 and April 30 at 7:30 PM.

The San Francisco Symphony returns to Carnegie Hall with Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas for two concerts on Wednesday, April 13 at 8:00 p.m. and Thursday, April 14 at 8:00 p.m. in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage. For the first performance, Mr. Tilson Thomas - widely considered the world's premier interpreter of the works of Aaron Copland - conducts music by the American master, including his Orchestral Variations and Inscape. The dynamic pianist Inon Barnatan joins the orchestra for a performance of Copland's Piano Concerto. The program concludes with Schumann's Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Op. 61. This season, Mr. Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony are performing and recording the complete Schumann symphonies for future release on SFS Media.

New World Symphony, America's Orchestral Academy, presents its Gala: 1000 tonight, March 12, celebrating the organization's milestone achievement of reaching 1,000 alumni in its 28th year. The event will honor the vision of co-founders Michael Tilson Thomas, a ten-time Grammy Award winner, and Ted and Lin Arison by welcoming back five innovative alumni who have advanced the world of classical music.

As part of its 75th-anniversary celebrations, the Utah Symphony releases Dawn to Dust, a new recording featuring live performances of orchestral works commissioned from three leading American composers: Augusta Read Thomas, Nico Muhly, and Andrew Norman.

New World Symphony, America's Orchestral Academy, presents its Gala: 1000 on Saturday, March 12, celebrating the organization's milestone achievement of reaching 1,000 alumni in its 28th year. The event will honor the vision of co-founders Michael Tilson Thomas, a ten-time Grammy Award winner, and Ted and Lin Arison by welcoming back five innovative alumni who have advanced the world of classical music.

Music director Manfred Honeck leads the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, guest vocalists and the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh in a BNY Mellon Grand Classics program featuring the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra premiere of Bach's St. John Passion oratorio tonight, March 4, and March 6 at Heinz Hall.

ANNAPOLIS, MD – World renowned cellist, Lynn Harrell, joins the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra in the next set of Lexus Classic Series concerts at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts tonight, March 4 and tomorrow, March 5, 2016 at 8pm. 

Lincoln Center and Ehrenkranz Artistic Director Jane Moss announced today the 50th Mostly Mozart Festival, one of the world's major music festivals and a beloved summer New York tradition, with events taking place across Lincoln Center July 22-August 27, 2016.