In Tuesday’s (9/6) Wall Street Journal, Barbara Jepson writes, “In 1911, the San Francisco Symphony gave its inaugural concert under a debonair Boston Brahmin named Henry Hadley. His appointment as music director was surprising given the knee-jerk preference for foreign maestros at the time, one which would continue throughout the century. Eighty-four years would elapse between Hadley’s arrival and the ascension of a second American to the post—California native Michael Tilson Thomas. Beginning Wednesday, Mr. Tilson Thomas will lead the orchestra in the opening weeks of its meaty and multifaceted 100th-anniversary season at Davies Symphony Hall. Slender and stylish, the 66-year-old conductor is best known as a consummate communicator about classical music, most notably in his ‘Keeping Score’ national television series for PBS. … During the past decade, Mr. Tilson Thomas has hired 13 young musicians in principal and secondary leadership positions among the brass, woodwinds and strings. Four of them are alumni of the New World Symphony, the highly regarded professional training orchestra he founded in 1987. … Mr. Tilson Thomas and the San Franciscans have won eight Grammy Awards together, more than any other musical partnership in the orchestra’s history.”
Posted September 6, 2011
