Michael Tilson Thomas said the following in an interview with Christopher Morley in the Birmingham Post, as the San Francisco Symphony opened its European tour there on Friday:
Long-term musical relationships are very important to me. Next year is my 20th season as music director of the San Francisco Symphony. I founded and have led the Miami-based New World Symphony for over 25 years, and have worked with the London Symphony Orchestra for the past 40 years ...With the San Francisco Symphony, I‘m very proud of the fact that, after almost 20 years of working with the orchestra, our relationship is the best it has been.
I’d say it’s unusual in the artistic world, in the performing arts world, that after such a long time, the people really have a greater affection and respect for one another than they did in the beginning. Part of what keeps it vibrant is our ability and desire to take risks.
From the very first concert I heard the [SFS] musicians play, I was aware of the daring spirit of the orchestra. That’s been at the center of our relationship. I continue to be excited and moved by the sheer brilliance, consistency, and elegance with which the orchestra is playing, week after week.
The San Francisco Symphony is a collection of musicians who reflect the city in which they reside. San Francisco is well known for its broad thinking and widely varied population. Our musicians’ sense of adventure in performance reflects that same expansive spirit.
Photo by Oliver Theil
The program: Ives/Brant, "The Alcotts," from A Concord Symphony; John Adams, Absolute Jest (with the St. Lawrence String Quartet); and Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique. A review in the Telegraph, by Ivan Hewett, says:
Some music and some performers seem made for each other. So it is with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, their Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, and American music. Tilson Thomas has a taste for Americana at its boldest — he recently curated an entire John Cage Festival. But at this concert, the first of a three-date UK tour, he settled for that great radical Charles Ives at his most rural, and John Adams at his most European.
On Saturday, MTT/SFS performed the same program in London's Royal Festival Hall (and you can hear the whole concert for four more days on BBC-3). On Sunday, still in London, the program was Mahler's Third Symphony, with mezzo Sasha Cooke, the St. Paul Boys Choir, and the London Symphony Orchestra Chorus (on BBC-3, starting at 10:45).
Hopping over the Channel, the orchestra gave those two programs yesterday and today in Paris' Salle Pleye; if it's Thursday, it must be Geneva.