San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas Perform Five-Concert European Tour September 2010

September 11-16 tour includes concerts in Milan and Turin and coincides with release of Orchestra’s final Mahler cycle recording, Songs with Orchestra

Soloists are mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, violinist Christian Tetzlaff, and organist Paul Jacobs

Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) and the

San Francisco Symphony (SFS) perform five concerts on a tour of Europe September 11-16, including three appearances at the Lucerne Festival and concerts in Milan and Turin , Italy . As acclaimed interpreters of the music of Gustav Mahler, and as part of the 2010-11 global commemoration of Mahler’s life, the Orchestra has been invited to perform the composer’s Symphony No. 5 at both the Lucerne Festival and in Turin .

On this tour, their ninth of Europe together, MTT and the Orchestra will also perform Aaron Copland’s Organ Symphony, featuring organist Paul Jacobs, and Berg’s Violin Concerto with frequent collaborator Christian Tetzlaff, both in Lucerne . Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, lauded internationally for her mastery of French music, joins Tilson Thomas and the Orchestra for Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été in Lucerne and Milan. The Orchestra will also perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No. 2 and Valses nobles et sentimentales, Berlioz’s Roman Carnival Overture, and Wagner’s Overture to Der fliegende Holländer. These are the Orchestra’s first concerts in Europe since 2007 and their first appearance in Milan since 1987. Their last visit to Turin was in 2004.

The Lucerne Festival concerts cap the Orchestra’s multi-year residency at one of the most important classical music festivals in Europe. The residency began in 2006 with three concerts, including performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 (Symphony of a Thousand), and continued with three more in September 2007, with performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 7. MTT and the Orchestra’s recordings of both Mahler symphonies won multiple Grammy Awards in 2007 and 2009, including Best Classical Album.

During the 2010-11 season, Tilson Thomas and the Orchestra are also marking the anniversaries of Mahler’s birth and death with performances of his music at home in Davies Symphony Hall, and with the September 2010 international release of Songs with Orchestra, the final recording of its Grammy Award-winning Mahler cycle, featuring Susan Graham and baritone Thomas Hampson. The Symphony’s new third season of its Keeping Score PBS Television series, hosted by MTT and scheduled to air in spring 2011, is devoted to Gustav Mahler. In May 2011, the Orchestra returns to perform Mahler Symphonies Nos. 2, 6, and 9 on tour throughout Europe , including a rare four-concert engagement at the famed Vienna Konzerthaus as part of the city’s commemoration of the Mahler anniversaries.

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