San Francisco Symphony Announces Centennial Highlights

The San Francisco Symphony will celebrate its Centennial in 2011-12 and today announced highlights for the Orchestra's milestone year.   Presenting an ambitious season of concerts, programs, and events, expanded education programs and Centennial media initiatives, the Orchestra's 100th season celebrates the American orchestra and its vibrant role within its community as an artistic leader and civic institution.  Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas and the SF Symphony will break new ground with a two-week American Mavericks Festival both in San Francisco and touring the country; an unprecedented presentation of the most distinguished major American orchestras in one series, in one season; unique concerts and heritage events celebrating the period of the Symphony's founding; artist and composer residencies featuring world premiere commissions; expanded music education programs including instrument training for public schools and an amateur music program for adults; and a variety of media projects that explore the living heritage of the Orchestra and its role within its community.
 
"In marking the Orchestra's first hundred years, this season is the moment to define what this Orchestra will be for its next hundred," said John D. Goldman, President of the San Francisco Symphony.  "We celebrate the role our Symphony plays, not just in the lives of those who enjoy our distinctive brand of music-making here at home, but in sharing this great art form with the world and in celebrating its impact on all of our communities."
 
 
ARTISTIC HIGHLIGHTS AMERICAN MAVERICKS FESTIVAL 2012 
For its centennial season, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony will present a two-week American Mavericks Festival in March 2012, building upon the iconic presentation of music that drew the world's attention to Davies Symphony Hall 10 years ago.   The 2012 festival celebrates the creative pioneering spirit and the composers who created a new American musical voice for the twentieth century and beyond.  These concerts will examine the music of iconoclastic, pioneering composers championed by MTT and the SFS in their 16-year partnership, such as John Cage, Morton Feldman, Carl Ruggles, Edgard Varèse, and Charles Ives, and expand the maverick roster through two world premiere commissions by Bay Area composers John Adams and Mason Bates. Concerts will feature performances by longtime SFS collaborators Jessye Norman, Emanuel Ax, Meredith Monk, and Jeremy Denk, and the St. Lawrence String Quartet, among others.  MTT and the SFS will also bring the music of the Mavericks to American audiences through a two-week U.S. tour featuring concerts, chamber program and educational events.
 
"San Francisco has always been known for its independent spirit," said Michael Tilson Thomas.  "Consistent with the city's character, the Orchestra has been daring in exploring a variety of musical territories.  In our Centennial Season, we celebrate this spirit by building on the American Mavericks Festival of 2000 with a provocative mixture of music by iconic pioneers, as well as works new to our audience.  We will also premiere commissioned pieces from Bay Area mavericks John Adams and Mason Bates."
 
AMERICAN MAVERICKS IN SAN FRANCISCO
Programs for the March 8-17 American Mavericks festival feature two world premiere commissions, works new to SFS audiences featuring renowned soloists, and works by composers that MTT and the SFS have championed in their 16-year partnership and past Mavericks concerts.
 
MTT will lead the Orchestra in John Adams' new co-commission for American Mavericks and the Orchestra's Centennial, Absolute Jest, featuring the St. Lawrence String Quartet.  The new work is based on fragments of Beethoven scherzos, particularly from the late string quartets.  Bay Area resident Adams and the San Francisco Symphony have enjoyed a strong artistic relationship that dates back more than 30 years, as the Orchestra's new music advisor in 1978 and then its first composer-in-residence in 1982, a relationship that created a model for composer residencies at Orchestras around the country.  In these three decades, through the end of 2010, the SFS has performed 22 of Adams' works in 217 concerts, including six world premiere commissions.
 
MTT will lead the SFS Chorus in the world premiere of Mass Transmission, a commission from Oakland-based Mason Bates.  Scored for electronica and chorus, Mass Transmission will, according to Bates, "place emblems of found sounds from earth that have been captured electronically side-by-side with scraps of a shattered hypothetical mass made up of excerpts of sacred human texts."  Bates credits the inspiration for his new work to the "Gemini in the Solar Wind" movement of his SFS commission The B-Sides, which utilized recordings from NASA.
   
Meredith Monk and legendary soprano Jessye Norman join forces with MTT and the Orchestra for a unique performance piece involving John Cage's songbooks.  Jeremy Denk joins the Orchestra for Henry Cowell's Piano Concerto and pianist Emanuel Ax joins the Orchestra for Morton Feldman's haunting work of abstract expressionism, Piano and Orchestra. 
 
American Mavericks programs also revisit works by composers that MTT and the SFS have championed: Carl Ruggles, Edgard Varèse, Aaron Copland's Orchestral Variations, and Charles Ives' A Concord Symphony as orchestrated by Henry Brant.  On February 8, 2011 the Orchestra's in-house label, SFS Media, will release a recording of MTT and the SFS' 2010 performance of A Concord Symphony. 
 
In addition to three Orchestral programs, the American Mavericks Festival 2012 will offer chamber music programs, a variety of symposia and panel discussions, extensive collaboration with university students in San Francisco and on tour, as well as interactive online media components that further the discussion and exploration of the music of these musical pioneers and of the uniquely American creative spirit they embody.  
 
AMERICAN MAVERICKS FESTIVAL TOUR
In bringing the music and spirit of American Mavericks to audiences beyond Davies Symphony Hall, MTT and the SFS will perform the festival repertoire on a three-city U.S. tour. Following performances in San Francisco, MTT and the SFS will perform one concert on March 21 at Orchestra Hall in Chicago, presented by the CSO's Symphony Center Presents: Visiting Orchestras series.  On March 22, 23, and 24, all three orchestral programs will be performed at Hill Auditorium on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  On March 28-30, Carnegie Hall and the San Francisco Symphony co-present American Mavericks programs in New York.  The American Mavericks tour residencies also include chamber music programs, symposia, educational events and close collaborations with university music students in tour cities. Full details and tour soloists will be announced at a later date.
 
THE AMERICAN ORCHESTRA SERIES
In an unprecedented celebration of the American orchestra, the country's seven most distinguished major symphony orchestras will perform on the same stage during the same season.  Performing two concerts each as part of the San Francisco Symphony's historic centennial celebration in 2011-12 are the Boston Symphony Orchestra, led by Music Director James Levine; the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Music Director Riccardo Muti; The Cleveland Orchestra, led by Music Director Franz Welser-Möst; the Los Angeles Philharmonic, led by Music Director Gustavo Dudamel; the New York Philharmonic, with Music Director Alan Gilbert, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, with Chief Conductor Charles Dutoit. Taken together with the San Francisco Symphony, led by Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, these seven orchestras, among the largest and oldest in the country, will perform music designed to showcase the artistic strengths of the contemporary American orchestra.
 
The SFS has invited each of the six visiting orchestras to perform music commissioned by their organizations and music closely associated with each orchestra's contemporary artistic identity. This repertoire will encompass commissioned works from some of the most distinctive voices in contemporary music, such as Thomas Adès, Mason Bates, Elliott Carter, Enrico Chapela, Anna Clyne, Magnus Lindberg, and Kaija Saariaho, music by John Adams and Iranian composer Behzad Ranjbaran, and music by core classical composers including Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Bartók, Ravel, Prokofiev, Berlioz, and Shostakovich.
 
 "As we considered the many ways to mark the milestone of the San Francisco Symphony's Centennial, we felt that one of the most significant things we could do was to celebrate the role that American orchestras have played, and continue to play, in our public life," said Brent Assink, Executive Director of the San Francisco Symphony.   "With this unprecedented gathering of orchestras, we invite everyone to join us on this journey to celebrate what orchestral music can offer, to expand the boundaries of what it can become, and cherish the meaningful connections that it makes."
 
The American Orchestra series opens October 23 and 24, 2011, with two performances by Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The programs include a new LA Philharmonic commission for electric cello written by Mexican composer Enrico Chapela and performed by Johannes Moser.  The orchestra also performs Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5, and two short pieces by John Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine and Tromba lontana.
 
On December 6 and 7, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Music Director James Levine perform two concerts with repertoire including Elliott Carter's Flute Concerto, a BSO commission featuring principal flutist Elizabeth Rowe, who was soloist in the American premiere performance by the BSO earlier this year. The orchestra also performs the Suite No. 2 from Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé, its recording of which won the 2010 Grammy for Best Orchestral Performance, Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K.503 with Richard Goode, John Harbison's Symphony No. 4, and Mahler's Symphony No. 1.
 
On February 14 and 15, 2012, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra makes its first appearances in San Francisco since 1987, led by Music Director Riccardo Muti. These are Muti's first conducting appearances in the Bay Area since 1990, when he led the Philadelphia Orchestra in Davies Symphony Hall.  Programs include two newly commissioned works by the CSO's two Mead Composers-in-Residence: Mason Bates' Alternative Energy and a new work by Anna Clyne. The orchestra also performs Franck's Symphony in D minor and Schubert's Symphony No. 9.
April 15 and 16, 2012 mark The Cleveland Orchestra's first two concerts in the Bay Area since 2005. Music Director Franz Welser-Möst leads the orchestra in two Cleveland Orchestra commissions: Kaija Saariaho's Orion, commissioned in 2002, and a co-commissioned orchestral suite of the Overture, Waltz and Finale from Thomas Adès' Powder Her Face, a 1995 chamber opera. The opera centers on the Duchess of Argyll's then-scandalous and explicit divorce proceedings. The orchestra will also perform Beethoven's Violin Concerto with soloist Nicolaj Znaider; Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3, Scottish; Shostakovich's Symphony No. 6; and three excerpts from Smetana's Má Vlast.
 
On May 13 and 14, 2012, the New York Philharmonic and Music Director Alan Gilbert make their first San Francisco visit together, as part of a major tour of the West Coast, and marking the orchestra's first performances here since 1999.  New York Philharmonic Concertmaster Glenn Dicterow performs Bartók's Violin Concerto No. 1, and Yefim Bronfman joins the orchestra in a new Magnus Lindberg piano concerto commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, where Lindberg is currently Composer-in-Residence. Also on the program are Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4, Debussy's La Mer, Ravel's La Valse, and Berlioz' Le Corsaire and Dvo?ák's Carnival overtures.
 
Concluding the series on June 9 and 10, 2012, is the Philadelphia Orchestra, led by Chief Conductor Charles Dutoit. The orchestra performs Iranian composer Behzad Ranjbaran's Saratoga, a work it premiered in 2005; Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances, written for and dedicated to the Philadelphia Orchestra; Ravel's Piano Concerto in D Major for the Left Hand, with Louis Lortie; Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5; Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes of Weber; Debussy's L'Après-midi d' un faune, and Scriabin's The Poem of Ecstasy. The Philadelphians last performed in San Francisco in 2007. 

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