“It’s become a new kind of tradition,” writes Georgia Rowe in Tuesday’s (6/20) Mercury News (California). “Toward the end of each year’s San Francisco Symphony season, music director Michael Tilson Thomas and the orchestra present something dazzling—an opera, a Broadway show or a large-scale classical masterwork performed in a semi-staged concert.… This year, the Symphony is preparing an intriguing program featuring works by some of the 20th century’s most influential composers. ‘Music for a Modern Age,’ which includes works by George Antheil, Charles Ives, Lou Harrison and Tilson Thomas, arrives June 23…. Central to the program is the West Coast premiere of Tilson Thomas’ Four Preludes on ‘Playthings of the Wind.’ … [set to] a poem by Carl Sandburg…. A blend of art song and bebop, it’s scored for chamber orchestra, bar band, and three singers.… Bringing this unique multimedia work to the stage is James Darrah, the Los Angeles-based director who, along with video projectionist Adam Larsen, staged ‘On the Town’ for the Symphony last year.” Also on the program: Antheil’s Jazz Symphony, Harrison’s Suite for Violin and American Gamelan, and Ives’s From the Steeples and the Mountains and The Unanswered Question.
Posted June 22, 2017
Photo of Michael Tilson Thomas leading the San Francisco Symphony by Kristen Loken
