Next month, Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas celebrates the San Francisco Symphony’s 101st season with an all-French program that includes selections from Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette, Chausson’s Poème, Saint-Saëns’s Introduction and Rondo capriccioso and Ravel’s Boléro. On September 19, special guest violinist Joshua Bell joins MTT and the Orchestra for an Opening Gala Concert. On September 20, MTT and the SFS honor more than 100 social service and non-profit organizations that serve San Francisco and the Bay Area with the annual All-San Francisco Concert. You can also hear this all-French program at Davies Symphony Hall onSeptember 23.

On Friday, September 21, MTT and the SFS will give afree concert at San Francisco’s Justin Herman Plaza – just across from the Ferry Building. The open-air concert will feature popular works and will begin at 5pm.

To follow his opening concerts with the Orchestra, MTT leads the San Francisco Symphony in Mahler’s Fifth Symphony and the West Coast premiere of Samuel Carl Adams’s Drift and Providence. MTT and the SFS present their program September 27 at the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for Performing Arts at UC Davis. They will also give performances on September 28, 29, and 30 at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.

Watch an excerpt from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony (Adagietto)