Anne Vyalitsyna
Photo Credit: Elijah Nouvelage for Moanalani Jeffrey

Juliet de Baubigny
Photo Credit: Elijah Nouvelage for Moanalani Jeffrey

Vanessa Getty
Photo Credit: Elijah Nouvelage for Moanalani Jeffrey

Yurie Pascarella
Photo Credit: Moanalani Jeffrey

OJ Shansby
Photo Credit: Moanalani Jeffrey

Karen Richardson
Photo Credit: Moanalani Jeffrey

Jennifer Newsom
Photo Credit: Moanalani Jeffrey

Carolyn Chang
Photo Credit: Moanalani Jeffrey

Komal Shah
Photo Credit: Moanalani Jeffrey

Maria Manetti Farrow
Photo Credit: Elijah Nouvelage for Moanalani Jeffrey

Sako Fisher
Photo Credit: Moanalani Jeffrey

Dede Wilsey
Photo Credit: Elijah Nouvelage for Moanalani Jeffrey

Coming off the heels of a nine-city European tour, music director Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony prepared their instruments once more to welcome the 104th season of orchestrated sound on Thursday, September 24. Music aficionados like Dede Wilsey, Maria Manetti Shrem, Dagmar Dolby, Vanessa Getty, Trevor Traina and Alexis Traina, and Juliet de Baubigny lent their ears to musical compositions from My Fair Lady, Carousel, and South Pacific.

The following evening, Friday, September 25th, Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony (Ode to Joy)” echoed its classical sounds throughout the University of California at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre, performed by three chorus groups, four soloists, and Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. Among the 6,000 attendees were patrons Maria Manetti Shrem, Jan Shrem, Ann and Gordon Getty, Sako and Bill Fisher, Nicholas Dirks, John Adams, and Rolando Beramendi. The 100-piece orchestra concert marked the launch of Cal Performances’ Radical new initiative to promote artistic literacy.