San Francisco Symphony Last Week

Michael Tilson Thomas

Photo: Brandon Patoc, courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

I didn't review SF Symphony's Concert for MTT, a concert in honor of and in memory of the late conductor, whose leadership over his 25 years as music director was truly remarkable. It was as you might expect, a varied program of music that was important to him, sung or played or conducted by those who were close to him.

Of course, I had some favorites; Sasha Cooke singing, Jamie Bernstein's amazing recollections of the young MTT and their long friendship (and his friendship with her father Leonard), Teddy Abrams and Edwin Outwater's conducting, the Symphony Chorus in a brief marvel by Meredith. Monk, reminisces by bass Chung-Wai Soong and piccolo player Catherine Payne (she was hilarious!). I wish Flicka had been there; at MTT's 80th birthday concert, she was riveting in a Debussy song.

I did review the Strauss program the day before, with Santtu-Matias Rouvali and Renée Fleming. 

Media round-up of both:

• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV and SF Chronicle. Despite what I note about her singing, Fleming did get a standing ovation from a loving audience. If you're looking for a great performance of Vier Letzte Lieder, try Soile Isokoski, who is about perfect. Historically, Kirsten Flagstad is amazingly grand and beautiful. Jessye Norman's recording is eccentrically slow, magnificently sung.
• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle, Strauss concert and MTT concert. I agree with him about Fleming, on all counts. I was never a fan, but I loved Ruth Ann Swenson, whose career roughly paralleled that of Fleming. Swenson was not much of an actress, but she sang with such joy and liveliness, and, to my ear, a much more beautiful voice.
• Jeff Kaliss, MTT concert, SFCV
• Matthew Travisano, Parterre Box

 

MTT and Joshua Robison's Home for Sale

2670 Pierce Street, San Francisco

Michael Tilson Thomas and Joshua Robison called the house in the photo above their home for 30 years. They're both gone now, MTT in April, of glioblastoma, and Robison in February, in his sleep, presumably of the effects of a fall some months previously.

Now it's on the market, for nearly $10 million. It has seven bedrooms, 4 full and three half baths, a gorgeous kitchen, and various reception rooms, all over about 7,000 square feet. Note that it was last sold in 1994, for $1.4 million. That certainly gives you a glimpse of what has happened in SF real estate.

It is a gorgeous house, and you'll see from the photos that it has been carefully staged. There's a crib in the photos but no sign of dogs. I'm guessing that it has also been repainted, as I would expect a certain amount of blue, MTT's favorite color on the walls somewhere in the house.

Big sigh. They're really gone, always to be missed.

 

Exciting Times at Davies

Davies Symphony Hall, S.F.

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

Exciting, yes, in good and not so good ways. Perhaps most importantly, I interviewed San Francisco Symphony music director designate Elim Chan for SFCV the day the announcement of her appointment went out. Yes, you could say that I'm happy about this! She is an excellent conductor and I think will be a good fit with the orchestra and the city. She was also a lot of fun to talk to. (I never interviewed Michael Tilson Thomas or Esa-Pekka Salonen, her immediate predecessors, which I greatly regret.)

The day after, Cristian Mǎcelaru led the orchestra in an incendiary performance, including Embers, by Tyler Taylor, winner of the Emerging Black Composers Project award, Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 1, with Simon Trpčeski, and Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, "From the New World." Trpčeski is not only a terrific pianist, he is a classy guy: he dedication one encore to Elim Chan – who was in Loge A with SFS CEO Matthew Spivey – and the other, which included associate concertmaster Wyatt Underhill, to MTT.

I also reviewed conductor laureate Herbert Blomstedt's program, which consisted only of Mahler's Symphony No. 9, and which turned out to be an unfortunate occasion. Blomstedt arrived in S.f. in a sufficiently exhausted state that he spent several days in the hospital, with David Robertson taking over rehearsals. By the day of this concert, he had recovered enough that, it seems, he insisted on leading the last rehearsal and conducting the concert.

It did not go well. He was escorted in a wheelchair to the podium, where several people helped him onto the podium and the piano bench from which he was conducting. During the third movement, he started listing to the right and it appeared he might fall off. The music stopped; the helpers came out; they swapped the bench for an armchair. The music went on, but it was scary for the audience (and I'm sure the musicians) and not entirely clear how in charge of the performance Blomstedt was. 

He withdrew from the remaining two performances, which Robertson conducted, and has subsequently withdrawn from scheduled performances in Sweden, which Alan Gilbert led.

There was a lot of discussion about Blomstedt on Facebook, both before and after the concert, by members of the public and members of the orchestra. This kind of situation – reviewing a concert where a performer is very old, or ill, or merely getting to the end of their career – needs to be handled carefully. If the performer is a Herbert Blomsted, who is nearly 99 years old, or a Michael Tilson Thomas, who performed after surgery for a brain tumor, their performances are occasions, not just concerts, and should be reviewed with that in mind.

I attended most of MTT's post-diagnosis performances, and, well, were they the best performances I heard from him? Mostly not – but it didn't matter, because they were as much about who he was and what he meant to the audience as about the quality of the performances. Similarly with any performances by Herbert Blomstedt, an honored and much-loved past music director of the orchestra.

Joshua Kosman discusses the same performance on his Substack.

 

MTT Update

Michael Tilson Thomas

Photo by Brandon Patroc, courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

My post on the occasion of MTT's death has grown by quite a bit since April 23, as I've located more obituaries and tributes to him. I think that every orchestra he conducted has posted a memorial to him; I saw tons on social media and didn't grab all of the links.

I want to note Mark Swed's Los Angeles Times article (now behind a paywall) and Tim Page's Washington Post obit (gift link has expired), which go into some detail about MTT's personality and, well, why there's a period in his life when he didn't have a music director job. He was impetuous and somewhat arrogant; Peter Pastreich's comments in my NPR obituary mention that in 1985, when SFS hired Herbert Blomstedt, MTT wasn't ready for the top job, but he was a decade later. 

 

Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas visits Google

November, 2008

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

(I took many photos that day, but most of them are a little blurry because MTT was perpetually in motion.)

Knowing this day would come did not make it any easier: Michael Tilson Thomas, universally known at MTT, died last night at his home in San Francisco, nearly five years after a diagnosis of glioblastoma multiforme. I am tremendously saddened by his passing and especially by his illness. I'd hoped he would have a long and happy retirement, guest conducting, composing, and dreaming up all sorts of wonderful things.

I wrote an advance obituary for NPR, commissioned the week he announced he had a brain tumor and updated many times since owing to his amazing survival. (Huge thanks to Steve Smith for commissioning the piece.)

While researching the obit, I turned up some numbers numbers that describe his sheer impact on the San Francisco Symphony, of which he was music director from 1995 to 2020:

• He conducted around 1,800 concerts with SFS, from 1974 to 2025.
• His first concert showed the shape of things to come: it included Mahler's 9th.
• During his tenure, SFS presented 41 world or U.S. premieres.
• He appointed about 60 musicians, conductors, music librarians.
• He led festivals devoted to Beethoven, Bates, Stravinsky; Yiddish theater and its impact on Broadway and American music; the Barbary Coast; Mendelssohn and Ades; Schubert and Berg; Sofia Gubaidulina; George Benjamin; Leonard Bernstein; Russian music, and more.
• He conceived SFSoundBox and helped found SFS Media, the orchestra's own record label, which was among the first of any U.S. orchestra. (The Louisville Orchestra, I have learned, started its own label in 1950.)

In addition to all of that, he made more than 120 recordings with a number of orchestras and was awarded 12 Grammys. 

He and his late husband, Joshua Robison, were very much a part of San Francisco, and MTT was loved throughout the city. The block of Grove that runs between Davies Symphony Hall and the War Memorial Opera House was renamed MTT Way in honor of him.

Be sure to check out the amazing collection of photos of MTT, Joshua, their beloved dogs, and more at his website.

On KQED's Forum, Alexis Madrigal spoke with Mark Leno, former California state senator and longtime friend of MTT and Joshua Robison, classical music critic Joshua Kosman, composer John Adams, soprano Julia Bullock, and conductor Donato Cabrera about MTT. You can listen to the archived broadcast.

Obituaries and memorials:

• Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle obit (gift link)
• Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, a beautiful appreciation (gift link)
• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle
• Joshua Kosman, The Gramophone, originally published in 2024
• Tony Bravo, SF Chronicle, a beautiful appreciation of MTT's life as a gay man and what he and Joshua Robison meant to gay people in classical music (gift link)
• Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle, From the Archive, about MTT's first SFS performance (gift link)
• Lisa Hirsch, NPR
• Janos Gereben, SFCV
• Gabe Meline, KQED
• Emily Shugerman, S.F Standard
• David Bratman, Kalimac's Corner
• Mark Leno remember his friends MTT and Joshua Robison, SF Standard
• Various tributes to MTT, S.F. Chronicle
• San Francisco Symphony remembers MTT
• Barbara Bogatin, SFCV
• Sharon Su, "What I learned from MTT"
• Mark Swed, LA Times (MTT as an Angeleno and California)
• Nardine Saad, LA Times
• Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise
• Elaine Fine, Musical Assumptions
• Chicago Symphony Orchestra, "Remembering Michael Tilson Thomas"
• Tim Page, Washington Post (gift link)
• Anthony Tomassini, NY Times (gift link)
• Hannah Edgar, NY Times (gift link), on how MTT worked with and developed young musicians
• P.J. Grisar, The Forward
• The Times, unsigned
• The Telegraph, unsigned
• Richard Fairman, Financial Times
• New World Symphony
• Amanda Rosa, Miami Herald
• Ronald Blum, AP
• Bachtrack, unsigned
• Leonard Slatkin
• Dave Hurwitz, Classics Today

Joshua Robison obituaries:

• Tony Bravo and Aidin Vaziri, San Francisco Chronicle, a heartfelt appreciation of MTT's husband, his partner of 50 years (gift link)
• Gabe Meline, KQED
• MTT's website
• London Symphony Orchestra

MTT 80

Davies Symphony Hall

April 26, 2025

Back in 2021, MTT announced that he was being treated for a brain tumor, and followed up in 2022 to say that it was a glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive and extremely serious cancer.

He has conducted at SFS and elsewhere since the fall of 2021, and when he led Mahler's Fifth Symphony in January, 2024, it seemed those would be his last concerts with SFS, an orchestra that he built into a great ensemble over the course of 25 years as its music director.

But now he's retiring from conducting, owing to a recurrence of the brain tumor. On April 26, the San Francisco Symphony held a concert in honor of his 80th birthday. It was a bittersweet occasion, marked by great love and affection for MTT and sadness at his farewell to conducting and to this orchestra. The conductor is frail and I was deeply touched to see the care with which Joshua Robison, MTT's husband (and partner since the 1970s), Edwin Outwater, and Teddy Abrams accompanied MTT on and off stage. It's what anyone would have been honored to do, I feel.

But MTT's sense of humor and determination are what they always have been–he called for a drumroll, to much laughter, as he mounted the podium for Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. 

The program didn't have any Mahler or Stravinsky–composers he conducted with such flair over so many years–but nonetheless it was a program that suited him. The Respighi and Britten were predictably excellent, full of color and spirit and fun for him.

I loved hearing various songs he's written over the years, deeply influenced by Broadway and the Great American Songbook, with marvelous performances by Sasha Cooke, Ben Jones, Frederick von Stade, and Jessica Vosk. The singers were all wonderful, and nearing 80 herself, Flicka remains a great artist. It was a special pleasure to hear her again, her patrician phrasing and beautiful French in Debussy's "La flute de Pan," from Cahnson de Bilitis, with an equally great contribution from pianist John Wilson.

The concert closed with a lot of clapping and chanting "MTT" rhythmically to MTT's arrangement of the Bar Mitzvah Waltz. And then there was a balloon drop, of blue balloons.

Here are the program and participants:

Michael Tilson Thomas conductor

Teddy Abrams conductor 

Edwin Outwater conductor 

Sasha Cooke vocalist 

Ben Jones vocalist 

Frederica von Stade vocalist

Jessica Vosk vocalist  

San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Jenny Wong director  

San Francisco Symphony

BENJAMIN BRITTEN The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra  

JOSEPH RUMSHINSKY (arr. Michael Tilson Thomas) Overture from Khantshe in Amerike 

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS “Immer wieder” from Meditations on Rilke 

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS (orch. Bruce Coughlin) “Not Everyone Thinks That I’m Beautiful” 

CLAUDE DEBUSSY “La flûte de Pan” from Chansons de Bilitis  

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS (orch. MTT/Bruce Coughlin) “Drift Off to Sleep” 

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS (orch. MTT/Bruce Coughlin) “Answered Prayers” 

FRANK LOESSER “Take Back Your Mink” from Guys and Dolls 

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS (orch. MTT/Larry Moore) “Sentimental Again”  

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS “Grace” 

LEONARD BERNSTEIN Finale from Chichester Psalms 

OTTORINO RESPIGHI Roman Festivals  

"Some Other Time" from Leonard Bernstein's On The Town (lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green)

 

MTT's arrangement of Arnold Perlmutter and Herman Wohl's Bar Mitzvah March, which was part of MTT's The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater

Elsewhere:

• Tony Bravo, SF Chronicle. Wonderful reporting, capturing the spirit of the concert perfectly.
• Michael Zwiebach, SFCV
• Gabe Meline, KQED
• Mark B., 48Hills

"It's a Wrap"

Michael Tilson Thomas

Photo by Brandon Patoc (c), 2019

Courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

Sad news: Michael Tilson Thomas's brain tumor has returned and he is retiring from performing. His 80th birthday concert on April 26, 2025, at San Francisco Symphony, will be his last appearance as a conductor.

• Announcement on his web site, a tender and very sweet note from MTT
• Tony Bravo, S.F. Chronicle
• Javier C. Hernández, NY Times

He has had a great run–something approaching 60 years of music-making, starting in his student days–but I wish he'd had even more years of conducting, composing, and spending time with his husband Joshua Robison and the pups.

 

Where Has Mark Elder Been All Our Lives?

Davies Symphony Hall

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

The literal answer is that Mark Elder spent the last 25 years, from 2000 to 2024, as the music director of the renowned Hallé Orchestra, in Manchester, England, UK. His career in the United States has been sparse, as far as I can tell: he conducted Die Meistersinger at SF Opera in 2015; he led 14 performances between 2004 and 2024 at the Boston Symphony; he didn't conduct the NY Philharmonic at all, and he conducted 79 performances at the Metropolitan Opera between 1988 and 2019.

He made his San Francisco Symphony debut last week in a concert that was absolutely sensational, one of the most exciting of the current season.

On paper, it was a distinctly odd-looking program:

• Berlioz, Overture to Les francs-juges
• Debussy, Prélude à L’Après-midi d’un faune
• Berlioz, Overture to Le Roi Lear
• R. Strauss, Also sprach Zarathustra
• Adams, Short Ride in a Fast Machine

And...it all worked, even that bit where there was a four-minute piece following the evening's biggest work.

I was not real happy when Elder picked up a microphone as soon as he got on the podium; I've seen too many conductors who, well, blathered or just repeated what was in the program. But Elder kept it brief and was dryly humorous. He talked about the really weird items on the program, that is, the two Berlioz overtures. The last time Les francs-juges was heard at Davies was in 1988. The King Lear overture had never been played here before.

It was good to hear them –– they are slightly oddball, because they are Berlioz –– and they both got shapely performances. In between came a truly magnificent performance of the Debussy, which was last played by SFS in 2023 with MTT conducting.

Reader, I'm here to tell you: this was better than MTT's performance of it and right up there with the best Debussy I have heard. That Yubeen Kim, the orchestra's fabulous principal flute, was playing, made a big difference, of course. His gorgeous sound, and his personal and insightful phrasing, went a long way toward making the performance stand out from all others, but there was still more. The performance was scaled so that you felt you were listening to chamber music, and the interplay among the various instruments in the orchestra –– the two harps and the oboe in particular –– rounded out that sensation. The sheer sound of the orchestra was rich and yet transparent, a hard balance to achieve. 

Honestly, I should have known how good this would be from a purely sonic perspective. Elder's Meistersinger was also something special. It was amazingly slow, coming in at 5 hours and 45 minutes, which must be some kind of record. And yet, and yet, it never lost shape or momentum, and the sound? Well, I have never heard the SF Opera Orchestra sound better. As good, yes, but never better.

Now, Also sprach Zarathustra is by no means my favorite Strauss and not my favorite of Strauss's tone poems. But this performance was something special. The last time I heard it at Davies, Esa-Pekka Salonen was conducting, and –– I can only half believe that I'm saying this –– this was better than that performance.

It was coherent, which is tough to do in a work that opens like the sun rising and eventually becomes Viennese frippery, where you're sure you've been dropped into uncredited outtakes from Der Rosenkavalier, which, of course, wouldn't be composed for some years. But the orchestra played like it was the greatest piece of music ever written, and you know, that kind of fervor isn't common and isn't easy to elicit, even from a great group like SFS. Even I was convinced that I was hearing the greatest piece of music ever composed, and I know perfectly well that it is not. 

And it sounded fantastic. Elder didn't overload the hall; even at its loudest, there was no bombast or blaring or bad taste. (I'm imagining certain conductors in Also sprach and....there would have been a lot of bombast and bad taste.) The orchestra was in perfect balance and so beautifully layered. I mean, Strauss gives you the ingredients, right? He was a consummately great orchestrator! But not every conductor can make his music sound this good.

The audience applauded wildly; lots of people got solo bows; Elder left the stage when the applause was still going on. He came back on, picked up the microphone again, and said something like "I've always felt that some works need a bit of a chaser after them. We've just drunk four big steins of German beer, and here is the chaser." He then led a banger of an account of Short Ride, and you know what? He was absolutely right that it was a great end to the evening.

Two final comments: first, it was a bit like the old days, when MTT would pull an orchestral encore out of his hat at the end of an already-satisfying concert. I miss those days, I really do. Second, if I weren't a reasonably responsible adult, I would have bagged the concert I reviewed Saturday night and come back to hear this one a second time.

Elsewhere:

• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle. Comes down on Rebecca's side rather more than mine. Probably I'm wrong or missed problems in the performances.
• Rebecca Wishnia, SFCV and SF Chronicle. The review is rather the opposite of mine.
• Stephen Smoliar, The Rehearsal Studio

 

MTT is 80!

Michael Tilson Thomas

Photo by Brandon Patoc (c), 2019

Courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

MTT turned 80 today! What a great life and career he has had, from southern California to Boston and Buffalo to London to the Bay Area. I had my beefs with programming at SFS during his last five years as music director of SFS, but whatever: he's a great conductor and a deeply loved person in San Francisco.

SFS has just scheduled a concert in honor of his 80th birthday - for April! - and tickets go on sale on January 28 at 10:00 a.m. The concert will include Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (Variations on a theme of Henry Purcell) and Respighi's Feste Romane Festi Romani.

MTT, Here and There

 

Michael Tilson Thomas

Photo by Brandon Patoc (c), 2019

courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

I'm pleased to see that MTT continues to be as active as he can possibly be, given his current health. He's just been appointed a distinguished professor of music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he will "work individually with selected conducting and piano students, participate in readings with the orchestra and lead master classes", according to Joshua Kosman's article from earlier this week. I am sure that he'll be great at this.

Further, he's on the schedules of several American orchestras during the 2024-25 season:

• New York Philharmonic, Mahler Symphony No. 5 and Mozart Piano Concerto No. 14 (Emmanuel Ax), opening the season in September
• LA Philharmonic, Celebrating MTT, February 1, 2025 (program TBD)
• Philadelphia Orchestra, May, 2025

He also has upcoming appearances at the New World Symphony in Miami, in London at the London Symphony, and in Copenhagen with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra.

Really, it seems odd that he's not on the SFS schedule for 2024-25, given the above. As always, wishing MTT the very best.

MTT Lovefest

Michael Tilson Thomas

Davies Symphony Hall, SF

January 26, 2024

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

Michael Tilson Thomas conducted Mahler's 5th symphony with the San Francisco Symphony last week, 50 years, more or less, after his first concert with the orchestra, in which he conducted Mahler's 9th. The concert represented a full circle, a mission completed, an acknowledgement of where MTT and SFS are right now.

As I expect anyone reading this knows, MTT was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2021, and the following year he disclosed that it's glioblastoma multiform, an aggressive tumor with a poor prognosis. That he's still here and still conducting is a marvel. SFS has announced that these are his last subscription concerts, leaving open the possibility of a spontaneous addition to the schedule in the future, if MTT remains able to conduct.

The concert was very much a lovefest and tribute to MTT, as much as it was a concert that he led. The audience gave him a standing ovation when he came on stage and a standing ovation at the end of the concert. In the right-hand terrace, a couple of fellows in rainbow garb unfurled a handmade sign saying "We Love MTT". 

Damn right we do. This 50-year relationship, which included many guest appearances before, and a few after, his amazing 25 years as music director, has been an incredibly fruitful one. His leadership did a great deal to make the orchestra what it is today, building on the work of Herbert Blomstedt to make it one of the country's and world's great orchestras.

The Mahler I heard on Friday night wasn't the best I've heard from MTT - the symphony was on the slow side, could have used more tension, and had loose ensemble at points - but it didn't matter. We were there for Michael Tilson Thomas, and so glad to hear Mahler from him, very possibly for the last time.

• Joshua Kosman, SF Chronicle; a most beautiful tribute
• Rebecca Wishnia, SFCV
• John Rockwell, FT (paywalled)

 

Update on MTT's Upcoming SFS Programs

 

Michael Tilson Thomas

Photo by Brandon Patoc (c), 2019

courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

MTT has withdrawn from two of his three scheduled concerts with San Francisco Symphony and reduced the program on the remaining concerts. I am not surprised, and I'm glad that he'll be leading the Mahler, but I am sad. As always, wishing him the best.

From the press release:

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—San Francisco Symphony Music Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas is reducing his upcoming conducting schedule with the Orchestra and has withdrawn from his upcoming January 18–20 and February 23–25 programs in order to focus on his health. 

  

MTT will remain on the January 25-27 program, conducting the SF Symphony in Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. Arnold Schoenberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra will no longer be performed on this program so MTT can focus his energies on the Mahler. These concerts mark MTT’s final subscription series conducting the San Francisco Symphony. Further information about the concerts will be announced in early January. 

  

Dalia Stasevska will conduct the San Francisco Symphony January 18–20. The first half of the program—Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 featuring Seong-Jin Cho—remains the same. Following intermission, Stasevska will conduct Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World, which replaces Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4. 

 

The February 23–25 program will be conducted by SF Symphony Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen. The new program will feature Julia Fischer in Brahms’s Violin Concerto in place of Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 and Beethoven’s Romance No. 1 in G major. Fischer and Salonen recently performed Brahms’ Violin Concerto with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra as part of the Nobel Prize Concert earlier this month. Stravinsky’s Pulcinella will remain on the program, featuring mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, tenor Nicholas Phan, and baritone Luca Pisaroni. Mozart’s Overture from Le nozze di Figaro, K.492 will also no longer be performed.  

Stuff I Expect to See in SF

Walt Disney Concert Hall Garden

March, 2017

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

Between this year's and next year's goings-on at the LA Phil, I would bet a few bucks that we will be seeing works or programs like these in San Francisco sooner or later:

• Felipe Lara, Double Concerto for Flute and Bass, because Susanna Mälkki is conducting it with SFS Collaborative Partners Claire Chase and esperanza spaulding.
• Bryce Dessner, Double Concert for Two Pianos, because the composer is a Collaborative Partner
• Esa-Pekka Salonen, Fanfare, which apparently features Collaborative Partner Pekka Kuuisisto
• Nico Muhly, Shrink by another Collaborative Partner
• Esa-Pekka Salonen, Karawane
• Herbert Blomstedt conducts Schubert 6 and Beethoven 7
• Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the Sibelius violin concerto (Lisa Batiashvili) and John Adams Naive and Sentimental Music....with the San Francisco Symphony, on a weird one-day runout to Los Angeles.
• MTT conducts Tchaikowski 5 and Stravinsky Petroushka

Also guessing that there's a Ring revival coming at the Paris Opera because Gustavo Dudamel is conducting a well-cast semi-staged Das Rheingold in January, 2024. It's part of the orchestra's celebration of Frank Gehry, architect of Walt Disney Concert Hall, and he's the scenic designer.

And the SFS program feature about Gabriella Smith discloses that "The Symphony will present Breathing Forests [Smith's organ concerto] next season as part of the California Festival: A Celebration of New Music."

New Music at the NY Phil

David Geffen Hall

Photo courtesy of the NY Philharmonic (I think)

In today's SF Chronicle Datebook, Joshua Kosman speculates about who's next as the LA Philharmonic music director, and like everyone else, reaches no conclusion. He has linked to my own speculation on the subject.

I want to add just one thing to what he says about orchestral innovation elsewhere in the United State:  over the last 14 years, the NY Philharmonic has done more than you might think, if you're not reading orchestra season announcements. 

From the orchestra's web site, here's a bit from Alan Gilbert's bio about his eight years as music director:

Gilbert’s tenure as Music Director at the New York Philharmonic was defined by the expansion and redefinition of the symphony concert experience. In 2010, the Orchestra performed the New York Premiere of Ligeti’s avant-garde opera Le Grand Macabre. In 2012, Gilbert led the Philharmonic 360 performance at the Park Avenue Armory. Gilbert was also responsible for CONTACT! and the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, two new-music series that together unveiled 92 World Premieres.

When Gilbert left the orchestra, the CONTACT! series was in danger of being cancelled (and I think eventually was). Sadly, the NY Times reported that, for all the new music in the series, it didn't reach many people because so many of the premieres were for small ensembles and were performed in small venues.

Here is some information from outgoing music director Jaap van Zweden's bio about his new music efforts:

Highlights from recent Philharmonic seasons include the launch of Project 19, the multiyear initiative marking the centennial of the 19th Amendment with commissions by 19 women composers, including Tania León’s Stride, which was awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Music; the new, staged production of Schoenberg’s Erwartung and Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle; his first Young People’s Concert; and works by Barber, Beethoven, Bruckner, Philip Glass, Mozart, Steve Reich, Ellen Reid, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Nina C. Young, and more, including the school-age participants in the New York Philharmonic Very Young Composers Program.

Jaap van Zweden’s most recent recording is the 2020 release of the World Premiere of David Lang’s prisoner of the state, following the 2019 release of Julia Wolfe’s Fire in my mouth,

Yeah, this isn't on the scale of what MTT and Esa-Pekka Salonen did and are doing at their respective orchestras, but these efforts at the NY Phil were certainly forward movement from the days of Mehta, Masur, and Maazel. 

Previously: Speculation: LA Philharmonic's Next Music Director

MTT Here and There

Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

Michael Tilson Thomas, Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, gave concerts in the last few weeks with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and SFS. One of the programs (Debussy, Messiaen, Villa Lobos) was the same at the both orchestras. Jean-Yves Thibaudet played piano in both the Messiaen and Debussy Fantasy. Here's some of the reporting.

• Joshua Kosman, SF Chronicle (Debussy, Messiaen, Villa Lobos in SF). Here's why we heard essentially no Messiaen from MTT over the years: "Where [JK] and other listeners heard vibrant orchestral colors and rapturous expressiveness, Thomas claimed to detect cheap theatrical tricks, easy to pull off and not really worth the effort." The first and only previous performances of Trois Petites Liturgies with SFS were in 1979, with Jeffrey Kahane as pianist, conducted by.....Michael Tilson Thomas.
• Richard S. Ginell, SFCV (Debussy, Messiaen, Villa Lobos in LA)
• Richard S. Ginell, SFCV (Mahler 9 in LA)
• Alex Ross, The New Yorker (Both concerts in LA. The illustration gave me a bit of a start because MTT's glasses are blue, his favorite color, not red.)

 

MTT at SFS

MTT is in residence at SFS last week and this week. I reviewed last week's program (Stravinsky, Elfman, Tchaikovsky) and so did Joshua Kosman:

• Joshua Kosman, SF Chronicle
• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV

We're on the same page about the Elfman: there's a lot of wandering around and no structure to speak of in the composer's new cello concerto. The Chron review is particularly eloquent and gets into more detail about the Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky than I do, particularly in terms of the structure of those works.

MTT on the East Coast

Michael Tilson Thomas

Photo by Brandon Patoc (c), 2019

Courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

MTT visits Massachusetts, and more articles get written and more interviews take place than usual, owing to the gravity of his glioblastoma diagnosis.

• David Allen, NY Times, writes about MTT at Tanglewood and reviews a program of his.
• Javier C. Hernandez, NY Times, interviews MTT and writes about his career.
• Jeremy Eichler, Boston Globe, talks with MTT.
• Christopher Benfy, Boston Globe, reviews one of his Tanglewood programs.
• Kevin Wells, Bachtrack, reviews LvB 9th.

 

Update on MTT

Michael Tilson Thomas

Photo by Brandon Patoc (c), 2019

Courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

Well, damn. MTT, who was diagnosed last year with a brain tumor, is stepping down as the artistic director of the New World Symphony. He has released a moving letter with some details of his diagnosis and treatment:

Dear Friends,

My return to performing these last months has been very special. The 20 concerts with the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony were heartwarming. Making music with these great artists and for so many friends in the audience felt like coming home, like coming back to life. I couldn’t have been happier.

It takes strength to meet the demands of the music and to collaborate on the highest level with the remarkable musicians who so generously welcomed me. I now see that it is time for me to consider what level of work and responsibilities I can sustain in the future.

I have not publicly discussed my medical diagnosis. I have Glioblastoma Multiforme, a type of aggressive brain cancer. I had an operation to remove what was visible and had radiation and chemotherapy. Currently the cancer is in check. But the future is uncertain as Glioblastoma is a stealthy adversary. Its recurrence is, unfortunately, the rule rather than the exception.

I’m taking stock of my life and will be reducing my administrative responsibilities. I have decided that, after 34 years, I will be stepping down as the Artistic Director of the New World Symphony. This organization, which I co-founded with Lin and Ted Arison, has been and will continue to be a vital and ever-growing resource for musicians. I’m proud of what we have accomplished and very proud of our 1,200 alumni. I will soon assume the role of Artistic Director Laureate and will dedicate myself to working with the NWS Fellows and Alumni on adventurous projects that have long been close to my heart.

I look forward to my work the remainder of this season with orchestras in the United States and Europe and to the many musical collaborations planned for next season. I intend to stick around for a bit. Creating and collaborating to make great music is what it’s all about for me. Every moment on stage with my colleagues is memorable. I want to thank all who have been supportive during this time, especially my husband Joshua Robison. He has always been by my side and is, as ever, my hero.

I will continue to compose, to write, and to mull over your thoughts and mine. I’m planning more time to wonder, wander, cook, and spend time with loved ones – two legged and four. Life is precious.

I send affection and gratitude.

Michael TT

Affection and profound gratitude back at you, Michael TT. Wishing you the best.

• Joshua Kosman, SF Chron
• Javier C. Hernandez, NY Times
• Emmalyse Brownstein, Miami New Times
• Neda Ulaby, NPR

One Does Not Quite Know What to Say.

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS

Photo by Brandon Patoc, courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

A San Francisco Symphony press release that gives some cause for concern: Ludovic Merlot to conduct the first half of Michael Tilson Thomas's program next week, with Ma Mere l'Oye replacing William Grant Still's Patterns. As always, wishing the best for MTT.

LUDOVIC MORLOT JOINS MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS TO CONDUCT THE SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY NOVEMBER 18–20

 

Morlot conducts Tim Higgins’ Trombone Concerto and Maurice Ravel’sMa Mère l’Oye (Mother Goose) Suite (replacing William Grant Still’s Patterns); Tilson Thomas conducts Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—Ludovic Morlot joins Music Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) to conduct part of the November 18–21 San Francisco Symphony concerts at Davies Symphony Hall. Morlot will conduct the first half of the program, including Maurice Ravel’s Ma Mère l’Oye (Mother Goose) Suite, which replaces William Grant Still’s Patterns, and the world premiere of San Francisco Symphony Principal Trombone Timothy Higgins’ Trombone Concerto, commissioned by the SF Symphony and performed by Higgins. Music Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas will lead the orchestra in Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring as planned.

Michael Tilson Thomas says: “I’m happy to be in San Francisco, making music with my Symphony colleagues once again. I am feeling well, having returned to the stage in New York last week for the first time since my surgery. I now see that I have to conserve my energy as I continue to recover and have made the decision to focus next week on conducting Copland’s Appalachian Spring. I am so happy that Ludovic Morlot can be here to premiere the Higgins Trombone Concerto, which I was hoping to perform with the remarkable Tim Higgins. I look forward to conducting William Grant Still’s Patterns with the San Francisco Symphony at a later date, and to seeing you at Davies Symphony Hall this coming week.”

Music Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas also conducts the San Francisco Symphony this week in three performances November 12–14 featuring music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Robert Schumann, and his own composition, Notturnofeaturing flutist Demarre McGill.