One day, some 30 years ago, Michael Tilson Thomas was banging on the table
with fork and knife in a Tanglewood restaurant, keeping rhythm with Leonard
Bernstein and Aaron Copland, in an impromptu performance of Igor
Stravinsky's "Les Noces."

The work being a great favorite of the three of them, "we really got
carried away," MTT remembers.  "We started to perform the piece, using
whatever happened to be on the table and singing riotously.  Aaron's nerve
broke first.  He got deeply embarrassed.  He pleaded with us, `Fellers,
fellers, I can't stand it.  The whole restaurant's looking at us' and of
course they were.  But the more he tried to shush us, the louder we got...
We ended with the big chorus...  and got quite a respectable hand at the
end of it all."

Bernstein and Copland are gone, but MTT (who just turned 54 -- will play
"those great unison chords, screaming away" this summer when his San
Francisco Symphony offers a festival of Stravinsky's music.

Announcement of the 10-concert festival, June 10-26, in Davies Hall, came
from Paris where the touring San Francisco orchestra is performing at the
Theatre Champs Elysees, site of the historic first performance of "The Rite
of Spring" in 1913.  (The conductor was Pierre Monteux, later to become one
of Tilson Thomas' predecessors in San Francisco, 1935-52.)

>From the same Russian roots as Stravinsky, MTT grew up in Los Angeles; he
was eight when he first saw the composer conduct, and even earlier he had
heard his grandmother "sing the tunes that came from `Petrushka' and even
from `The Firebird'." So he comes to the music "not with an analytical,
avant-garde approach, but an extremely coloristic, folkloric and swinging
one...  to this evocation of joy...  music with irresistible verve and
character."

Still being shaped, here's the festival program so far, all concerts in
Davies Hall, conducted by MTT, unless otherwise indicated:

Thursday, June 10 at 7:30 p.m.
STRAVINSKY: PORTRAIT IN MINATURE

PROGRAM includes a wide range of small-scale works from Stravinsky's Opus
1 "Pastorale" to his last, "The Owl and the Pussycat."

Friday, June 11 at 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, June 12 at 8:00 p.m.
STRAVINSKY'S RUSSIA

Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano
Richard Clement, tenor
Peter Grunberg, piano
Marc Shapiro, piano
Julie Steinberg, piano
Robin Sutherland, piano
Additional artists TBA
San Francisco Symphony
San Francisco Symphony Chorus

PROGRAM:
Reynard

Monday, June 14 at 7:00 p.m.
MAVERICKS

Meredith Monk
Kronos Quartet
Tan Dun
Aaron Jay Kernis
Additional artists TBA

PROGRAM:
TBA

Thursday, June 17 at 8:00 p.m.
Friday, June 18 at 8:00 p.m.
STRAVINSKY IN PARIS: THE NEOCLASSICAL YEARS

Peter Serkin, piano
Narrator TBA

PROGRAM:
Symphony in C
Capriccio
L'Histoire du soldat

Saturday, June 19 at 8:00 p.m.
Wednesday, June 23 at 8:00 p.m.
STRAVINSKY IN PARIS: THE NEOCLASSICAL YEARS

Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano
Richard Clement, tenor
Raymond Aceto, bass
Narrator TBA
San Francisco Symphony

PROGRAM:
L'Histoire du soldat
Pulcinella (complete ballet)

Thursday, June 24 8:00 p.m. at Grace Cathedral
Saturday, June 26 at 8:00 p.m. at Grace Cathedral
STRAVINSKY'S SACRED MUSIC

Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano
Richard Clement, tenor
Additional artists TBA
San Francisco Symphony Chorus

PROGRAM:
Mass
Symphonies of Wind Instruments
Requiem canticles
Canticum Sacrum
Symphony of Psalms

Friday, June 25 at 8:00 p.m.
STRAVINSKY IN AMERICA

Clarinet TBA

PROGRAM:
Star Spangled Banner
Circus Polka
Ebony Concerto
Preludium
Scherzo a la Russe
Scenes de ballet
Agon
Symphony in Three Movements

Janos Gereben/SF
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