San Francisco Symphony

Striking San Francisco Symphony musicians have reached a tentative agreement with the orchestra's management that would end their 18-day walkout. The orchestra said in a news release Sunday that the agreement is for a new 26-month contract. If ratified, it would pave the way for the orchestra to resume performances as early as Tuesday. The strike began earlier this month when musicians and management failed to reach an agreement on a new contract. Musicians reportedly were upset over terms of the proposed deal in light of the orchestra's strong finances.

Gov. Jerry Brown received more than $11,000 in gifts last year, according to a new financial disclosure statement he filed with the state this week. Most of the money came in the form of an $8,400 gift from the San Francisco-based Bay Area Council, which sponsored the governor's trade mission to China and paid the governor's way on the weeklong trip. Other gifts included private flights to attend a State Sheriffs Assn. meeting in Lake Tahoe and a flight from Palm Springs to Bakersfield paid for by the California Assn.

Country music great George Jones earned the dubious nickname “No Show Jones” because he was often otherwise engaged when it was time to go on stage. His way of apologizing,  sort of, was to write a song that humorously admitted he wasn't the most reliable of music professionals: “My whereabouts are unknown, they call me 'No Show Jones.'” This is not how they handle things in the world of classical music. Witness the open letter Friday from striking musicians of the San Francisco Symphony to three jilted east coast venues and their audiences, where the orchestra had been booked on a now-cancelled tour starting this week.

Los Angeles Philharmonic fans were priming themselves for a rare bout with Schoenberg's formidable Violin Concerto to launch the new year on Friday night - with violinist Christian Tetzlaff and conductor Christoph Eschenbach presiding. But Tetzlaff and Eschenbach both canceled a few days prior, due to illness. So another violinist, the young, superbly equipped Augustin Hadelich, and a familiar figure from the San Francisco Symphony's past, conductor Edo de Waart, were rushed into the breach for what became Hadelich's Walt Disney Concert Hall debut.  Hadelich surely is used to this by now, for these were the same last-minute conditions in which he made his impressive 2008 Hollywood Bowl debut when both the conductor and violinist canceled.

The San Francisco Symphony's musicians are on strike, leading to the cancellation of Thursday's scheduled performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony and the first in a series of rehearsals for a three-city East Coast tour scheduled to begin March 20 at New York City's Carnegie Hall. The tour, which features soloist Yuja Wang on piano and also includes performances in Newark, N.J., and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., is in jeopardy, as are three additional Mahler performances this weekend at the orchestra's own Davies Symphony Hall.

The San Francisco Symphony said on Sunday that it has canceled its upcoming East Coast tour as its musicians continue to strike over compensation. The orchestra's tour was scheduled to kick off Wednesday at Carnegie Hall in New York, with two concerts. Carnegie Hall said that the concerts will not be rescheduled. Other scheduled stops included Newark, N.J. and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. Orchestra management said in a statement that musicians rejected a "cooling off" period that would have allowed concerts to resume.

SAN FRANCISCO - Everyone is doing it. Symphony orchestras putting on opera, that is. The Los Angeles Philharmonic received the lion's share of national attention for its high-profile Walt Disney Concert Hall production of Mozart's "Don Giovanni" last month, but the Cleveland Orchestra also presented a highly regarded concert performance of Strauss' "Salome" in May at home and in New York. On Thursday night, the San Francisco Symphony got into the act with an innovative semi-staged version, replete with immersive video, of Bartók's "Bluebeard's Castle" at Davies Symphony Hall.

San Francisco Symphony musicians ratified a new contract Monday, ending a nine-week strike that forced cancellation of 48 concerts and could cost the organization millions of dollars. Rehearsals were scheduled to resume immediately. Members of the American Federation of Musicians, Local 6, voted 54-41 for the contract, which made concessions on pensions and wages but did not address concerns about scheduling of additional Sunday concerts.

The San Francisco Symphony is a distinctive band with a clear sonic identity, at least in the bright acoustic of Segerstrom Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. That's good news in this age of sound-alike orchestras. As heard on disc and at home in Davies Hall, the features of the San Francisco sound are tight, lean strings and wonderfully fluent, characterful woodwinds.

Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, that most romantic of 19th century Russian Romantic composers, has long had a place at the pop music table. The horn tune in his Fifth Symphony was turned into "Moon Love," a crooner favorite in the '30s. Duke Ellington made "The Nutcracker" Suite swing. Thirty years ago, a British mod rocker changed his name and formed the short-lived band Bram Tchaikovsky. Monday night, Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony concluded the first of two programs at Walt Disney Concert Hall featuring Michael Tilson Thomas and his touring San Francisco Symphony.

Diane Disney Miller, who died on Tuesday at 79, was famous for being the elder daughter of Walt Disney. In Los Angeles, she was also known as a formidable cultural presence who played a crucial role in the creation of Walt Disney Concert Hall. Miller died in Napa Calif., following a fall in September. Earlier that month, she spoke to the Los Angeles Times on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Disney Hall. The concert venue, designed by architect Frank Gehry, was funded with an initial $50-million gift from her mother, Lillian Disney.

Walt Disney's name is on Los Angeles' world-famous concert hall, but it was a far less-known Disney who came from behind the scenes to ensure that architect Frank Gehry's vision for the building stayed intact. Diane Disney Miller, Walt Disney's eldest daughter, had previously shunned the limelight along with other women in the family. "We were just three women, my mother, my sister and me," she said in a 2003 Los Angeles Times interview. "Housewives, if you will. " That's pretty much how the public knew her until 1997, when some of the city's most powerful figures came close to forcing out Gehry during a crucial planning phase of the hall.

Dodging the labor strife that has descended on other recent negotiations over orchestral musicians' pay, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the union representing its musicians announced Monday that they've reached a new four-year contract that lifts wages by just less than 1% a year. At the end of four years, the minimum yearly wage for the Phil's more than 100 musicians will be $154,336, up 3.8% from the $148,700 minimum in the contract that expired Sunday. The minimum wage scale had risen 17% over the previous four-year contract.

The first night of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's summer season is no longer treated as Opening Night at the Hollywood Bowl, now that the Hall of Fame awards concert a couple of weeks earlier draws the fanciest picnics. That June concert was also the unveiling of the Bowl's updated audio and visual setup. But the L.A. Phil still tries to start off summer with something special. Tuesday night was more special than usual. San Francisco Symphony music director and native Angeleno Michael Tilson Thomas, once a Bowl regular but last seen in the amphitheater in 2007, made a rare appearance (only his second since 1985)

SAN FRANCISCO - Thursday was the last day of the spring of "The Rite of Spring. " By now everyone and his or her brother has seemingly found a way to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the riotous Parisian premiere of Stravinsky's famed ballet. With so many such rites - including Mark Morris' intriguing new choreography that premiered in Berkeley last week - you might expect the "Rite" to have finally run its course. Not yet. Spring, in fact, ended with a revelatory performance of Stravinsky's score Thursday afternoon here at Davies Hall, with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the San Francisco Symphony.

R&B star Janelle Monáe will step in for an ailing Aretha Franklin at an upcoming concert with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Franklin was under doctor's orders to withdraw from the May 20 “Corporate Night” fundraiser, according to the orchestra's website. CSO representatives said the 71-year-old singer will be undergoing medical treatment at that time; they did not elaborate on her health. CHEAT SHEET: Spring Arts Preview Franklin, who missed shows in 2010 for unspecified medial reasons, also canceled a May 26 show at Foxwoods Resort & Casino in Connecticut.

SAN FRANCISCO--Michael Tilson Thomas is ending his seventh season as music director of the San Francisco Symphony with a three-week, well-mixed festival of Russian music.

The intersection of art and education is a notoriously accident-prone crossroads. The almost inevitable crash between the extremes of popularizing platitudes and intuitive mysteries is seldom pretty to witness. Given the inherent perils, the Beethoven Discovery Weekend that closed the 12th annual Beethoven Festival in San Francisco this year proved a surprisingly enlivening and enlightening event.

Striking San Francisco Symphony musicians have reached a tentative agreement with the orchestra's management that would end their 18-day walkout. The orchestra said in a news release Sunday that the agreement is for a new 26-month contract. If ratified, it would pave the way for the orchestra to resume performances as early as Tuesday. The strike began earlier this month when musicians and management failed to reach an agreement on a new contract. Musicians reportedly were upset over terms of the proposed deal in light of the orchestra's strong finances.

Country music great George Jones earned the dubious nickname “No Show Jones” because he was often otherwise engaged when it was time to go on stage. His way of apologizing,  sort of, was to write a song that humorously admitted he wasn't the most reliable of music professionals: “My whereabouts are unknown, they call me 'No Show Jones.'” This is not how they handle things in the world of classical music. Witness the open letter Friday from striking musicians of the San Francisco Symphony to three jilted east coast venues and their audiences, where the orchestra had been booked on a now-cancelled tour starting this week.