The San Francisco Symphony, 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.
The Four Seasons is a group of four violin concerti by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, each of which gives musical expression to a season of the year. These were composed around 1718–1720, when Vivaldi was the court chapel master in Mantua. They were published in 1725 in Amsterdam, together with eight additional concerti, as Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione.
Seiji Ozawa was a Japanese conductor known internationally for his work as music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, and especially the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), where he served from 1973 for 29 years. After conducting the Vienna New Year's Concert in 2002, he was director of the Vienna State Opera until 2010. In Japan, he founded the Saito Kinen Orchestra in 1984, their festival in 1992, and the Tokyo Opera Nomori in 2005.
Concerto in F is a composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and orchestra which is closer in form to a traditional concerto than his earlier jazz-influenced Rhapsody in Blue. It was written in 1925 on a commission from the conductor and director Walter Damrosch. It is just over half an hour long.
Jason Marsalis is an American jazz drummer, vibraphone player, composer, producer, band leader, and member of the Marsalis family of musicians. He is the youngest son of Dolores Ferdinand Marsalis and the late Ellis Marsalis, Jr.
Marthaniel "Marcus" Roberts is an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, bandleader, and teacher.
The Labèque sisters, Katia and Marielle, are an internationally known French piano duo.
William Joseph Russo was an American composer, arranger, and musician from Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi is a world renowned Japanese cellist. In an international career which began in 1954, he has performed as soloist with prominent orchestras and conductors in many countries and given recitals and chamber music performances with distinguished collaborators. His solo performances have extended for a period of seventy years and still continue.
The Piano Concerto No. 1, Sz. 83, BB 91 of Béla Bartók was composed in 1926. Average playing time is between 23 and 24 minutes.
Le temps l'horloge is a song cycle for soprano and orchestra, by the French composer Henri Dutilleux.
Marina Piccinini is an Italian American virtuoso flautist. She is noted for her performances of compositions by Mozart and Bach, and has performed with many of the world's top orchestras and conductors.
Michael Dalmau Colina is a Grammy-winning American musician, composer, producer and engineer. He has written music for television, film, theatre, dance and live performances on concert stages throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. Colina is best known as producer and writer on recordings for musicians Bob James, David Sanborn, Michael Brecker, Marcus Miller, Bill Evans and Michael Franks. He has won three gold albums, has received four Grammy Award nominations, and won three Grammy Awards for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.
The Missouri Chamber Music Festival and Adult Chamber Music Intensive (ACMI) was founded in 2010. The goal of the MOCM Festival concerts is to present the fine art of small ensemble music to a wide audience through an accessible, community-based festival. The ACMI workshop is the educational portion of the festival, placing adult instrumentalists in chamber ensembles with Festival artists for coaching and performance.
Three Pieces for Blues Band and Symphony Orchestra is an avant-garde musical composition written by William Russo in 1968. It combines classical music played by an orchestra with blues played by a four-piece band.
A String Around Autumn, sometimes also called the Viola Concerto, is a concerto for viola and orchestra by Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. It was finished in 1989.
The 58th Annual Grammy Awards was held on February 15, 2016, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The ceremony recognizes the best recordings, compositions and artists of the eligibility year, which was from October 1, 2014, to September 30, 2015. The "pre-telecast" ceremony, officially known as the Premiere Ceremony, in which the majority of awards were presented, was held at the nearby Microsoft Theater. It was the 16th Grammy ceremony to be held at the Staples Center, tying the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles for hosting the most Grammy ceremonies. It also marks the latest date for a Grammy ceremony since 2003, which were held on February 23.
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a 51-minute studio album containing the overture and most of the incidental music that Felix Mendelssohn wrote to accompany William Shakespeare's play of the same name. It is performed by Judith Blegen, Frederica von Stade, the Women's Voices of the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Eugene Ormandy. It was released in 1977.
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a 55-minute studio album containing the overture and almost all of the incidental music that Felix Mendelssohn wrote to accompany William Shakespeare's play of the same name. It is performed by Kathleen Battle, Frederica von Stade, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Seiji Ozawa, with interlinking passages of verse spoken by Judi Dench. It was released in 1994.
Dvořák in Prague: A Celebration was an 89-minute televised concert presented in Prague's Smetana Hall on 16 December 1993, in which thirteen pieces of music by Antonin Dvořák were performed by the pianist Rudolf Firkušný, the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the violinist Itzhak Perlman, the mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, the Prague Philharmonic Chorus and the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Seiji Ozawa. It was produced by Sony Classical Film and Video, Czech Television and Germany's Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen in association with Pragokoncert, the Netherlands' Algemene Vereniging Radio Omroep and the United States' Public Service Broadcasting and MJI Broadcasting, and was released on Laserdisc, VHS video cassette, CD and audio cassette by Sony Classical Records and on DVD by Kultur Video.
