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 [log in to unmask]