Michael Tilson Thomas leads the San Francisco Symphony in 18 weeks of concerts during the orchestra’s 2011/12 centennial season, including a new a two-week American Mavericks Festival highlighting works by composers who defined 20th century American music and featuring world premieres by modern masters John Adams, Meredith Monk, and Mason Bates.
As part of the orchestra’s centennial celebrations, MTT will lead the SFS in works performed during the orchestra’s first season in 1911-12, including a multimedia presentation of Debussy’s music to the mystery play Le martyre de Saint Sebastien. Tilson Thomas and the orchestra also perform a semi-staged production of Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and Stravinsky’s Petrushka, both written in 1911, and a week of semi-staged concerts of music written in early San Francisco. Other highlights include Project San Francisco artist and composer residencies with violinist Joshua Bell and composer Mason Bates; a multimedia presentation of Thomas Adès and Tal Rosner’s new SFS co-commission Polaris: Voyage for Orchestra; and the U.S. premiere of a new co-commissioned work from Sofia Gubaidulina.
In addition to the American Mavericks Festival and a U.S. tour featuring many of the works presented during the two-week festival, MTT leads the orchestra in its first performances of Ligeti’s Violin Concerto, with Christian Tetzlaff as soloist, as well as SFS premieres of works by Shostakovitch, C.P.E. Bach, and others. Major works from the classical canon MTT conducts during the season include Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem; Mahler’s Symphony No. 3; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, Pastoral, and Symphony No. 9; Brahms’ Symphony No. 1; and Schoenberg’s orchestration of Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor.