Michael Tilson Thomas And The San Francisco Symphony Nominated To Celebrate 70 Years At Carnegie Hall, 4/7-8

Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas leads the San Francisco Symphony in two consecutive concerts in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage this April, marking 70 years since the orchestra first performed at Carnegie Hall. The program on Friday, April 7 at 8:00 p.m. presents three visionary 20th-century composers' approaches to the classic forms of ballet and the concerto. The charismatic Gautier Capuçon joins the orchestra for Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1, performed alongside John Cage's The Seasons and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra. This concert is being broadcast live on Classical 105.9 FM WQXR, and streamed on wqxr.org and carnegiehall.org/wqxr as part of the Carnegie Hall Live radio and digital series.

The following evening, on Saturday, April 8 at 8:00 p.m., the orchestra presents an all-Mahler program, featuring Symphony No. 1 in D Major and the Adagio from Symphony No. 10 in F-sharp Major. Michael Tilson Thomas has earned seven Grammy Awards for recordings of Mahler's symphonies with the orchestra, and he recently led an acclaimed semi-staged production of Mahler's Das klagende Lied with an internationally renowned cast at Davies Symphony Hall.

About the Artists
Gautier Capuçon is a true 21st-century ambassador for the cello. Performing each season with many of the world's foremost conductors and instrumentalists, he is also founder and leader of the 'Classe d'Excellence de Violoncelle,' based at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris designed by Frank Gehry. He is acclaimed internationally for his deeply expressive musicianship and exuberant virtuosity, as well as for the glorious sonority of his 1701 Matteo Goffriller cello.

During 2016-2017, he returns to perform as soloist with such orchestras as the London Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker, Russian National Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Münchner Philharmoniker, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and San Francisco Symphony-and is being re-invited for concerts in Japan, China, and Korea. Conductors with whom he continues to regularly work include Charles Dutoit, Semyon Bychkov, Gustavo Dudamel, Lionel Bringuier, Andris Nelsons, Christoph Eschenbach, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

In recent seasons, Capuçon has also performed with ensembles such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Wiener Philharmoniker, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, New York Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, and Sydney Symphony Orchestra, as well as with all of the major orchestras across France.

Michael Tilson Thomas celebrates his 22nd season as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony during the orchestra's 2016-2017 season. He is currently the longest-tenured music director at any major American orchestra and has surpassed Pierre Monteux as the longest-tenured San Francisco Symphony Music Director. Maestro Tilson Thomas assumed his post as the orchestra's 11th Music Director in September 1995, consolidating a strong relationship that began two decades earlier with his San Francisco Symphony debut at age 29.

Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony have been praised for innovative programming, enhancing the orchestral concert experience with multimedia and creative staging, showcasing the works of American composers, and attracting new audiences for orchestral music, both at home in Davies Symphony Hall and through the orchestra's extensive media projects. In the 2014-2015 season, he and the Symphony launched SoundBox, a new, experimental concert space and live music series backstage at Davies Symphony Hall that was received with capacity crowds and national critical acclaim. In 2012, Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony presented a landmark two-week American Mavericks festival, a celebration of America's maverick musical heritage of the 20th century; following the festival, Tilson Thomas and the Symphony toured nationally with the American Mavericks repertoire, including four concerts at Carnegie Hall. Tilson Thomas has also led the orchestra in internationally acclaimed explorations of the music of Mahler, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Beethoven, Wagner, and Weill and semi-staged productions including Britten's Peter Grimes, Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle, Debussy's Le martyre de Saint Sebastian, music from Grieg's Peer Gynt, Robin Holloway, and Alfred Schnittke; Rimsky-Korsakov's opera-ballet Mlada, and The Thomashefskys, celebrating his grandparents, Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky, who were pioneers of the American Yiddish theater.

The San Francisco Symphony is widely considered to be among the most artistically adventurous and innovative arts institutions in the U.S. The orchestra was established by a group of San Francisco citizens, music-lovers, and musicians in the wake of the 1906 earthquake and played its first concert on December 8, 1911. Almost immediately, it revitalized the city's cultural life. The San Francisco Symphony has grown in stature and acclaim under a succession of distinguished music directors: American composer Henry Hadley, Alfred Hertz (who led the American premieres of Parsifal, Salome, and Der Rosenkavalier at the Metropolitan Opera), Basil Cameron, Issay Dobrowen, the legendary Pierre Monteux (who introduced the world to Le Sacre du printemps and Petrushka), Enrique Jordá, Josef Krips, Seiji Ozawa, Edo de Waart, Herbert Blomstedt (now Conductor Laureate), and current Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas. The San Francisco Symphony presents more than 220 concerts annually and reaches an audience of nearly 600,000 in its home of Davies Symphony Hall, through its multifaceted education and community programs, and on national and international tours.

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