Next week, MTT conducts Beethoven's Symphony No. 6, "Pastoral," with the San Francisco Symphony. MTT's concerts with the SFS open with Mahler's Blumine - the original Andante to the composer's first symphony - and also include Schnittke's Violin Concerto No. 4 with SFS Concertmaster Alexander Barantschik, who celebrates his tenth anniversary with the orchestra this season. Concerts take place May 16, 17, 18 and 19 at Davies Symphony Hall. 

Learn more & purchase tickets here. 

Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony's live recording of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 and Leonore Overture No. 3 is now available as a pre-release exclusively from the iTunes store. MTT and the SFS's latest album will be released as a hybrid SACD recording on the Orchestra's SFS Media label June 12. You can pre-order the album from the San Francisco Symphony's e-store; and on May 16, the SACD will become available at the Symphony Store in Davies Symphony Hall. The album will be in stores and online internationally on June 12.

Buy the album now from iTunes.

Pre-order the disc from the SFS e-store. 

In a week of semi-staged concerts, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony celebrate the city's musical roots and heritage in Barbary Coast and Beyond: Music from the Gold Rush to the Panama-Pacific Exposition, with music written from the mid-1800s through the Orchestra's founding in 1911 and its formative years. With MTT as conductor and host, soprano Laura Claycomb, violinist Vadim Gluzman, pianist Anton Nel, organist Cameron Carpenter and the SFS will perform works brought to San Francisco during its early years by traveling virtuosi such as the pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk, violinists Ole Bull, Fritz Kreisler and Henryk Wieniawski, and opera stars Adelina Patti and Luisa Tetrazzini. MTT and the SFS present these pieces alongside more familiar works of the time by composers such as Jacques Offenbach, Richard Wagner, Camille Saint-Saëns and John Philip Sousa, capturing the popular tastes and musical pageantry of that age.

Learn more & purchase tickets for the May 10, 11, 12 concerts here.

On May 5 and 6, Michael Tilson Thomas will bring the New World Symphony's 2011-2012 season to a close with two sold-out performances of Mahler's Ninth Symphony. Those in the Miami area can watch MTT and the NWS's May 5 performance in a live WALLCAST™ at Miami Beach SoundScape. The WALLCAST™ of Mahler's Ninth Symphony begins at 8:00 pm and is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required.

Have a look at the New World Symphony's WALLCAST™ 

On April 27 and 28, the New World Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas perform Béla Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle in an innovative production that brings its mysterious world to life. The one-act opera, with libretto by Béla Balázs, will feature bass Eric Halfvarson (Bluebeard) and mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung (Judith). The narrative of Bartók's opera is based on the French fairy tale Bluebeard by Charles Perrault. The production features specially created projections that will be displayed on one of the New World Center's large, curved acoustical "sails" on all sides of the hall, surrounding the audience with sound and video. Bluebeard's Castle will be presented alongside Bartók's final European work, his String Quartet No. 6. Originally commissioned by the Philharmonia Orchestra, Konzerthaus Dortmund, and Gulbenkian Foundation, this production will next be performed by the San Francisco Symphony in June 2012.

Purchase tickets for the NWS's Bluebeard's Castle on April 27 & 28.