MTT and the San Francisco Symphony take American Mavericks on tour to Chicago (March 21), Ann Arbor (March 22, 23, 24, 25) and New York (March 27, 28, 29, 30). These concerts will examine the music of iconoclastic, revolutionary composers championed by MTT and the SFS, such as John Cage, Morton Feldman, Carl Ruggles, Edgard Varèse, and Charles Ives, and expand the maverick roster with commissions by Bay Area composers John Adams and Mason Bates. …
On March 15, 16 & 17, MTT and the San Francisco Symphony will present two world premieres at Davies Symphony Hall as part of the American MavericksFestival, their month-long exploration of the American sound. Their program will open with Mason Bates’sMass Transmission, a work that showcases his unique style of electronica and choral writing. This will be followed by John Adams’s Absolute Jest, a piece based on scherzo fragments from …
Next season, MTT leads the San Francisco Symphony in 17 weeks of programs at home in San Francisco and on tour in Asia and the United States. Highlights include explorations of music by Stravinsky and Beethoven, tracing both composers’ early musical influences and ideas from rarely performed pieces forward through their later, well-known works. The 2012-2013 season will also feature staged concert productions around Grieg’s Peer Gynt and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis with video elements, …
This weekend, the American Mavericks festival continues with programs featuring three of the most distinctive vocalists today. On March 10 and 14, Jessye Norman, Meredith Monk, and Joan La Barbara participate in an American Mavericks performance of John Cage’s Song Books led by MTT. The American pianist Jeremy Denk performs Cowell’s percussive yet melodic Piano Concerto in three movements, entitled “Polyharmony,” “Tone Cluster” and “Counter Rhythm.”
On March 8 and 9, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony give the opening concerts of the American Mavericks Festival with works by Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, and Lou Harrison.