Mondays at 10:00 pm
Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony onstage at Davies Symphony Hall (Photo: Stefan Cohen)
Weekly concerts recorded live at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco
Since its beginning in 1911, the San Francisco Symphony has been known for innovative programs that offer a spectrum of traditional repertory and new music. Today, the orchestra’s artistic vitality, recordings, and groundbreaking multimedia educational projects carry its impact throughout American musical life. Under Michael Tilson Thomas, music director from 1995 to 2020, and Esa-Pekka Salonen, music director since 2020, the orchestra has been praised for its musicianship, for innovative programming, for bringing the works of American composers to the fore, and for bringing new audiences into Davies Symphony Hall.
The San Francisco Symphony program is part of the WFMT Orchestra Series.
There are no upcoming broadcasts at the moment.
Beethoven 9
April 28, 2025
Music Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas is joined by soprano Angel Blue, mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford, tenor Ben Bliss, and bass Dashon Burton with the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus to perform Beethoven’s dramatic Symphony No. 9, which celebrates the bonds of humanity and the glory of the creator in its triumphant “Ode to Joy.”
Esa-Pekka Salonen & Emanuel Ax
April 21, 2025
In Variations on a Theme of Joseph Haydn, Brahms travels in time, using ancient musical forms to explore possible futures. In Beethoven’s Second Symphony, anarchic glee subverts Classical elegance. Between the two big Bs, precisely in the present, Esa-Pekka Salonen debuts his longtime friend Anders Hillborg’s witty and colorful new Piano Concerto, performed with genial sophistication by soloist Emanuel Ax.
Interplay: Pekka Kuusisto
April 14, 2025
Season Premiere: Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, soloist Pekka Kuusisto, and composer/developer Jesper Nordin’s cutting-edge electronics come together in Nordin’s radical reinvention of the violin concerto, Convergence. In Naïve and Sentimental Music, dedicated to Salonen, John Adams celebrates a similar creative impulse: spontaneity, the spirit of free play.
Beethoven’s Emperor and Eroica
July 1, 2024
Season Finale: Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen leads the San Francisco Symphony in Beethoven’s expansive Symphony No. 3, Eroica, while pianist Igor Levit plays the composer’s Emperor Concerto.
Philippe Jordan Conducts Britten’s War Requiem
June 24, 2024
Conductor Philippe Jordan and the San Francisco Symphony join forces in Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, a tremendous work embodying the composer’s deep pacifist beliefs.
Măcelaru Conducts Marsalis, Tarkiainen, and Shostakovich
June 17, 2024
Conductor Cristian Măcelaru leads the San Francisco Symphony in Dmitri Shostakovich’s madcap First Symphony and Wynton Marsalis’ celebration of Black history and folklore, Blues Symphony. San Francisco Symphony English horn player Russ de Luna stars in Outi Tarkiainen’s Milky Ways.
Michael Tilson Thomas Conducts Mahler 6
June 10, 2024
Music Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas leads the San Francisco Symphony in Gustav Mahler’s monumental Sixth Symphony.
Yuja Wang Performs Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto
June 3, 2024
Spellbinding pianist Yuja Wang returns to the San Francisco Symphony to take on Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto. Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts this program, which also includes Gabriella Smith’s Tumblebird Contrails and Salonen’s mysterious tone poem Nyx.
Hanick Performs a World Premiere by Samuel Adams
May 27, 2024
Opening this program led by Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, pianist Conor Hanick premieres a San Francisco Symphony commission by Samuel Adams. Then, Anton Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony, full of imaginative twists and turns.
Pierre-Laurent Aimard Performs Bartók
May 20, 2024
Pierre-Laurent Aimard joins Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony for Bela Bartók’s zany Second Piano Concerto, in a program also featuring Sergei Prokofiev’s vibrant Romeo and Juliet and Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin.
Elim Chan Conducts Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, and a World Premiere by Ogonek
May 13, 2024
Elim Chan's San Francisco Symphony debut.
Bartók, Herrmann, and Gruber
May 6, 2024
An ominous, atmospheric lineup of music conducted by music director Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Chamayou Performs Liszt’s Totentanz
April 29, 2024
Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony journey through Hector Berlioz’s phantasmic Symphonie fantastique, Franz Liszt’s devilish Totentanz with pianist Bertrand Chamayou, and Modest Mussorgsky’s supernatural Night on Bald Mountain.
Yuja Wang Performs the World Premiere of Lindberg’s Third Piano Concerto
April 22, 2024
Plus Nielsen’s sun-drenched Helios Overture and Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra.
Stravinsky, Sibelius, and Kidane
April 15, 2024
Igor Stravinsky’s explosive ballet score, The Firebird, along with Jean Sibelius’s cosmic Luonnotar with soprano Golda Schultz, and the United States premiere of Daniel Kidane’s SF Symphony commission, Sun Poem.
Mahler 2 and a World Premiere by Trevor Weston
April 8, 2024
Season Premiere: Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the SF Symphony in Gustav Mahler’s glorious Symphony No. 2 with vocalists Golda Schultz and Michelle DeYoung and the world premiere of Push by Trevor Weston.
Aimard Plays Bartók
June 29, 2023
Season Finale: Music by Boccherini, Bartók, Montgomery, and Respighi conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Ólafsson plays Adams
June 22, 2023
Vikingur Ólafsson plays John Adams' Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? under the baton of music director Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Nathalie Stutzmann
June 15, 2023
The Atlanta Symphony’s new music director Nathalie Stutzmann conducts music by Brahms and Tchaikovsky.
Dudamel Conducts Mozart & Mahler
June 8, 2023
Los Angeles Philharmonic’s charismatic music director Gustavo Dudamel visits Northern California to lead the SF Symphony in music by Mozart and Mahler.