San Francisco is a city that loves music.
The dust of the 1906 earthquake had hardly cleared before
a group of civic leaders had laid the groundwork for
a new orchestra. Five years later, the San Francisco
Symphony was born. Since those first concerts in 1911,
the SFS has played a defining role in American cultural
life. Today, it's defining what the orchestra of the
21st century will be.
The SFS gave its first performance in December 1911
in the Cort Theater at 64 Ellis Street. The concerts
moved to the Curran Theater at 445 Geary Street in 1918,
then to the Tivoli Theater at 75 Eddy Street in 1921-22.
The musicians returned to the Curran Theater from 1922
to 1931, then back to the Tivoli Theater from 1931 to
1932. Finally, on November 11, 1932, the San Francisco
Symphony moved to the brand new War Memorial Opera House
at 301 Van Ness Avenue, where most of the concerts were
given until June 1980. The pops concerts were usually
given in the huge Civic Auditorium. The final concert
in the historic opera house, a Beethoven program conducted
by Leonard Slatkin, was in June 1980. The orchestra
now plays in Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall at Grove
Street and Van Ness Avenue, which opened in September
1980 with a gala concert conducted by Edo de Waart,
televised live on PBS and hosted by violinist/conductor
Yehudi Menuhin.
Music
Directors
1995– Michael Tilson Thomas
1985–1995 Herbert Blomstedt
1977–1985 Edo de Waart
1970–1977 Seiji Ozawa
1963–1970 Josef Krips
1954–1963 Enrique Jordá
1952–1954 no incumbent
1935–1952 Pierre Monteux
1930–1934 Basil Cameron and Issay Dobrowen
1915–1930 Alfred Hertz
1911–1915 Henry Hadley
