The San Francisco Symphony (SFS), founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley neighborhood. The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus (1972) are part of the organization. Michael Tilson Thomas became the orchestra's music director in 1995, and concluded his tenure in 2020 when Esa-Pekka Salonen took over the position.
Michael Tilson Thomas is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is Artistic Director Laureate of the New World Symphony, an American orchestral academy based in Miami Beach, Florida, Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, and Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra.
Dame Janet Abbott Baker is an English mezzo-soprano best known as an opera, concert, and lieder singer.
The Gramophone Classical Music Awards, launched in 1977, are one of the most significant honours bestowed on recordings in the classical record industry. They are often viewed as equivalent to or surpassing the American Grammy award, and referred to as the Oscars for classical music. They are widely regarded as the most influential and prestigious classical music awards in the world. According to Matthew Owen, national sales manager for Harmonia Mundi USA, "ultimately it is the classical award, especially worldwide."
David Eric Robertson is an American conductor. He was chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and was formerly music director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra from 2005 until 2018. He is Director of Orchestral Studies at Juilliard.
Isabel Bayrakdarian is a Lebanese-born Canadian operatic soprano of Armenian descent who now resides and works in the United States.
Christian Thielemann is a German conductor. He is currently chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden. He was artistic director of the Salzburg Easter Festival from 2013 to 2022.
Laura Claycomb is an American lyric coloratura soprano singer.
Gianandrea Noseda is an Italian conductor. He is currently the music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.; general music director (Generalmusikdirektor) of Zurich Opera; principal guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra; and the music director of the Tsinandali Festival in Tsinandali, Georgia.
Sir Donald Cameron Runnicles OBE HonFRSE is a Scottish conductor.
Ransom Wilson is an American flutist, conductor, and educator.
Joyce DiDonato is an American lyric-coloratura mezzo-soprano. She is notable for her interpretations of operas and concert works in the 19th-century romantic era in addition to works by Handel and Mozart.
Yuja Wang is a Chinese pianist. Born in Beijing, she began learning the piano there at age six, and went on to study at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. By the age of 21, she was already an internationally recognized concert pianist and signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon. She has since established herself as one of the leading artists of her generation. Wang currently lives in New York.
Mason Wesley Bates is a Grammy award-winning American composer of symphonic music and DJ of electronic dance music. He is the first composer-in-residence of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and he has also been in residence with Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, and the California Symphony. In addition to his notable works Mothership, Anthology of Fantastic Zoology, and The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, he composed the score to Gus Van Sant's film The Sea of Trees. In a 2018 survey of American orchestras, he was rated the second-most performed living composer.
Nathan Berg is an operatic bass-baritone. He is a Grammy Award winner, and four-time Grammy nominated, a Juno award winner and 2014 Juno Awards nominee
Benjamin Shwartz is an American-Israeli orchestral and opera conductor, and music director of the Wrocław Philharmonic known for his interest in and commitment to new music. Born in Los Angeles and raised there and in Israel, he attended the Idyllwild Arts Academy in California before enrolling in the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied composition with James Primosch. He continued his composition studies in Germany with Karlheinz Stockhausen. As a conducting student at the Curtis Institute of Music, he studied with Otto-Werner Mueller and worked closely with Christoph Eschenbach and Ned Rorem. Shwartz won numerous awards including the Presser Award, and Third Prize in the 2007 International Mahler Conducting Competition in Bamberg, Germany. Since 2022 he ist music director of the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie, Koblenz (Germany).
Robert Treviño is a Mexican-American conductor. He is currently music director of the Basque National Orchestra in Spain, principal guest conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, and artistic advisor of the Malmö Symphony Orchestra in Sweden.
Arias and Barcarolles is a 78-minute contemporary classical studio album of music by Leonard Bernstein, performed by Thomas Hampson, Frederica von Stade, Simon Carrington, Neil Percy and the London Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. In addition to the song cycle which gives it its name, the album includes the Suite from Bernstein's opera A Quiet Place and the Symphonic Dances from his musical West Side Story. It was released in 1996.
S&M2 (stylized as S&M2) is a live album by American heavy metal band Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony. It is a follow-up to S&M, a live collaborative album released in 1999. The album was recorded during a live performance in San Francisco at the Chase Center in 2019. The performance was also filmed and released theatrically on October 9, 2019.
Francesco Lanzillotta is an Italian conductor and composer. As a conductor, he is focused on Italian opera, including contemporary works. He has conducted internationally, such as Verdi's La traviata in Varna, Bulgaria, Nabucco at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Puccini's La bohème at the Bavarian State Opera, and Dallapiccola's Ulisse at Oper Frankfurt. He has conducted music by contemporary Italian composers.
