Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony team up with iconoclastic organist Cameron Carpenter to release a one-of-a-kind recording of Henry Brant’s Pulitzer Prize-winning spatial composition, Ice Field. Put on your headphones for a unique Dolby Atmos immersive experience that allows us to hear Brant’s work as it was intended: as a vast acoustical soundscape for 100 players scattered throughout Davies Symphony Hall. Listen and learn more at sfsymphony.org/brant.

Michael Tilson Thomas on Henry Brant's Ice Field

Shostakovich's 7th Symphony became a symbol of the wartime alliance between the US and the USSR. But the road to victory is never easy, and it wasn't long before both the musical and the political symbols of that alliance disappeared.

Shostakovich - Symphony No. 7

It’s a holiday tradition at Davies Symphony Hall. Hear Grammy® Award-winner Peabo Bryson, Marilyn McCoo, Billy Davis Jr.,  James Ingram, and Stephanie Mills, perform an unforgettable evening of pop hits and Christmas favorites with the San Francisco Symphony December 10, 11 and 12 at Davies Symphony Hall.  Take a listen to this medley of music and we think you'll recognize some familiar music by these stars!

Tonight I Celebrate My Love and Beauty and the Beast (Peabo Bryson) 
I Never Knew Love Like This Before (Stephanie Mills)
Wedding Bell Blues (5th Dimension/Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr).
Baby, Come to Me (James Ingram)


Colors of Christmas with the SF Symphony

Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen for 23 Solo Strings was his musical response to a life, and a world, gone to pieces.

Strauss - Metamorphosen

Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 "The Romantic" was a departure from his usual symphonic testaments of faith. It's a journey into the Age of Chivalry, of knights, quests, and - above all - the hunt.

San Francisco Symphony Podcasts

Bruckner - Symphony No. 4

In 1906, Maurice Ravel made some sketches for a tribute to Johann Strauss, the Waltz King. By the time he got back to it, World War I had ravaged Europe, and Ravel's tribute had turned into something much darker.

Ravel - La Valse

In his Three Pieces for Orchestra, Alban Berg finally "graduated" from his studies with Arnold Schoenberg, and took his first giant step towards fulfilling his musical destiny.

Berg - Three Pieces for Orchestra

The premiere of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 was perhaps his greatest rock-star moment.  Buoyed by the excited troops in whose honor the concert was being performed, Beethoven “tore his arms with a great vehemence asunder ... at the entrance of a forte he jumped in the air” (according to orchestra violinist and composer Louis Spohr).  The work’s explosive energy and Beethoven’s expansion of symphonic structures to emphasize certain key areas make Symphony No. 7 an important stepping stone on his path towards Romanticism.

San Francisco Symphony Podcast

Beethoven's Symphony No. 7

A child prodigy, Saint-Saëns was not only a gifted composer but an accomplished pianist who could perform all of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas from memory by the age of ten.  Composed for the Philharmonic Society of London, his Symphony No. 3, Organ, is dedicated to his friend Franz Liszt.

Saint-Saens - Organ Symphony No. 3

In a piece he first wrote for children to play on the piano, Maurice Ravel found magical new sounds for the orchestra.

Ravel - Ma Mere l'Oye

Drawing on themes of contrast and opposition and likely influenced by the aftermath of World War I, Nielsen’s Symphony No. 5 uses a nontraditional two movement structure. The first movement is a battle between the orchestra and a renegade snare drummer, silenced by the full forces of the orchestra in the final bars. Movement two takes dramatic and unexpected turns before resolving in triumphant affirmation.

Nielsen - Symphony No. 5

The stories, sounds, and traditions of San Francisco’s Chinese community speak not only to the Chinese or Asian immigrant experience, but the American experience. Michael Morgan, and San Francisco Symphony Assistant Principal Cello Amos Yang, Associate Principal Viola Yun Jie Liu, and Assistant Principal Second Violin Jessie Fellows share their unique connections to Chinese culture and reflect on  what music can offer in times like these.

Currents Enter the Pipa

Every culture has a sound. Each week, the San Francisco Symphony’s CURRENTS podcast explores the Bay Area’s rich mosaic of musical communities through the lens and voices of its creators and citizens. Hosted and curated by conductor Michael Morgan, and in conversation with San Francisco Symphony musicians, local artists, and personalities, CURRENTS takes a look at the changing perspectives for symphony orchestras today. Taking cues from the community, what does moving forward sound like for us? 

 

This is also the home of the Symphony’s free Program Note Podcast Series, hosted by KDFC’s Rik Malone, which highlights great works performed by the Orchestra in recent seasons. 

For more information visit www.sfsymphony.org and sfsymphony.org/CURRENTS

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