旧金山交响乐团

The San Francisco Symphony is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1911, the orchestra has been resident at Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley neighborhood since 1980. The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra (founded in 1981) and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus (1972) are part of the organization.

Recent past music directors have included Herbert Blomstedt, Michael Tilson Thomas and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Elim Chan is the orchestra's music director-designate, scheduled to assume the post full-time in the autumn of 2027.

History

The early years

In 1909 the Musical Association (MA) was founded by a group of San Francisco citizens with the goal of establishing a professional symphony orchestra in San Francisco. Among the founding board members of the MA was composer, lawyer, and opera librettist Joseph Redding. Redding played an instrumental role in steering the MA's board during the establishment of the San Francisco Symphony and it is largely through his recommendation that conductor-composer Henry Kimball Hadley was appointed San Francisco Symphony's first principal conductor. Redding also selected the orchestra's first concertmaster, the Dutch violinist Eduard Tak. The governing board of the MA continued to manage the San Francisco Symphony until 1935.

The orchestra's first concerts were led by Hadley in 1911. There were sixty musicians in the orchestra at the beginning of their first season. The first concert included music by Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Haydn, and Liszt. There were thirteen concerts in the 1911–1912 season, five of which were popular music.

In 1915, Alfred Hertz succeeded Hadley. Hertz helped to refine the orchestra and arranged for the Victor Talking Machine Company to record it at their new studio in Oakland in early 1925. Hertz also led the orchestra during a number of radio broadcasts, including on The Standard Hour, a weekly concert series sponsored by Standard Oil of California. The series began in 1926 when the orchestra faced bankruptcy; Standard Oil of California paid the orchestra's debts and in return was given broadcast rights to that year's concert series. The first broadcast aired on the NBC Pacific Network, on October 24, 1926. and the broadcasts continued for more than 30 years.

Pierre Monteux

After Hertz's retirement in 1930, two conductors, Basil Cameron and Issay Dobrowen, jointly headed the orchestra. During the Great Depression, the symphony's existence was threatened by bankruptcy and the 1934–35 season was cancelled; the people of San Francisco passed a bond measure to provide public financing and ensure the organization's continued existence. Pierre Monteux (1875–1964) was subsequently hired to restore the orchestra. Monteux succeeded to the point where NBC began broadcasting some of its concerts and RCA Victor offered the orchestra a new recording contract in 1941. In 1949, Monteux invited Arthur Fiedler to lead summer "pops" concerts in the Civic Auditorium. Fiedler also conducted the orchestra at free concerts in Sigmund Stern Grove in San Francisco and the Frost Amphitheater at Stanford University. Fiedler's relationship with the orchestra continued until the mid-1970s.

When Monteux left the orchestra in 1952, various conductors led the orchestra, including Leopold Stokowski, Georg Solti, Erich Leinsdorf, Karl Münchinger, George Szell, Bruno Walter, Ferenc Fricsay, and William Steinberg. Stokowski made a series of RCA Victor recordings with the orchestra in 1952 and 1953.