Bios

Key Personnel Biographies

Michael Tilson Thomas
Music Director

Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) assumed his post as the San Francisco Symphony’s (SFS) 11th Music Director in September 1995, consolidating a strong relationship with the Orchestra that began some two decades earlier. It was January of 1974 when he made his San Francisco Symphony conducting debut at the age of 29, leading the Orchestra in Mahler’s Symphony No. 9.

A Los Angeles native, he studied with John Crown and Ingolf Dahl at the University of Southern California, becoming Music Director of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra at nineteen and working with Stravinsky, Boulez, Stockhausen, and Copland at the famed Monday Evening Concerts. In 1969, MTT won the Koussevitzky Prize and was appointed Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony. Ten days later he came to international recognition, replacing Music Director William Steinberg in mid-concert at Lincoln Center. He went on to become the BSO's Associate Conductor, then Principal Guest Conductor. He has also served as Director of the Ojai Fesitval, Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, a Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Principal Conductor of the Great Woods Festival. He became Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra in 1988 and now serves as Principal Guest Conductor. For a decade he served as co-Artistic Director of Japan's Pacific Music Festival, which he and Leonard Bernstein inaugurated in 1990, and he continues as Artistic Director of the New World Symphony, which he founded in 1988. MTT's recorded repertory reflects interests arising from his work as conductor, composer, and pianist. His television credits include the New York Philharmonic Young People's Concerts, and in 2004 he and the SFS launched Keeping Score on PBS-TV. Among his honors are Columbia University's Ditson Award for services to American music and Musical America's 1995 Conductor of the Year award. He is a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres of France, was selected as Gramophone 2005 Artist of the Year, was named one of America's Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2010 was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Obama.

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Producer & Director Bios

DAVID KENNARD
Television Producer/Director (Documentaries)

David Kennard has more than 30 years of experience as a producer, writer, director and communications consultant. He is a producer of the San Francisco Symphony’s Keeping Score Season 2 for PBS. Throughout his career, Kennard has played a leading role in creating non-fiction television specials, books, multimedia products and media campaigns, in addition to producing fifteen major international documentary series. His documentary work includes: We The People; The Heart of Healing, The Final Hours, Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight; Africa’s Children and Surviving September 11 and Keeping Score: MTT on Music. An Emmy award-winning artist, Kennard is the co-founder and president of InCA Productions, a worldwide non-fiction production company. He holds an MBA from Indiana University, an M.A. and B.A. in Modern Languages from Oxford and a degree from the Sorbonne, University of Paris.

JOAN SAFFA
Television Producer/Director (Documentaries)

For more than 30 years, Joan Saffa has produced and directed award-winning non-fiction television, including the San Francisco Symphony’s Keeping Score programs for PBS. She created over thirty documentaries and contributed to a dozen multi-part series airing on PBS, Turner Broadcasting, CNBC, the Disney Channel, the History Channel, HBO and international venues. Her shows have won national and Bay Area Emmy Awards, Cine Golden Eagles, a George Foster Peabody Award, an ASCAP Broadcast Award, in addition to honors from the San Francisco, Hawaii and New York Film Festivals. Saffa’s documentaries cover topics from biography and history, to culture and politics. She produced The Final Hours: Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight, San Francisco in the Twenties, Keeping Score: MTT on Music and the national series with Peter Jennings, We the People. Previously, she was senior producer for programs on CNBC, TBS and PBS. Saffa holds a B.A. in Psychology from Cornell University and an Ed.M. from the University of Rochester.

GARY HALVORSON
Television Director (Live Performance Capture)

Gary Halvorson is the director for the San Francisco Symphony’s Keeping Score Season 2 performances episodes. His directorial roots are in made-for-television event and variety shows. He debuted with Leonard Bernstein's Great Performances and continued on to direct, among others, Solid Gold, Adventures in Wonderland, and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, for which he has won four Emmys. Halvorson also directs television sitcoms and is currently the primary show director on Two And-A-Half Men. He was the primary show director on both Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond. Halvorson continues to direct musical and variety television, including the Thanksgiving Parade, which he does every year, Paul Simon: Live in Paris, the first annual Latino Laugh Festival, and several operas for the Metropolitan Opera in San Francisco. Halvorson is a graduate of Julliard's Music Academy.

About The San Francisco Symphony

Founded in 1911, the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) celebrates its Centennial Season in 2011-12 and is widely considered to be among the country’s most artistically adventurous and innovative arts institutions. With a long and distinguished history marked by artistic excellence, educational initiatives, acclaimed recordings and multimedia projects, and innovative programming. Beginning their sixteenth season together this Fall, Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas and the SFS have formed a musical partnership hailed for its revitalization of the classical music experience, performing and presenting more than 220 concerts annually for an audience of 600,000 in its home of Davies Symphony Hall, in other Bay Area venues, and through an active national and international touring program. The Orchestra reaches millions more around the world with its music through its Keeping Score multimedia projects, television and radio broadcasts, websites, and recordings. The first Orchestra to feature national symphonic radio broadcasts in 1926, the SFS remains a leader in the field of electronic media with endeavors such as the Grammy Award-winning Mahler recording cycle for the Orchestra’s own SFS Media label on SACD, Minnesota Public Radio’s Peabody Award-winning American Mavericks and The MTT Files radio series, and the Emmy Award-winning PBS/KQED Public Television production of the SFS' Sweeney Todd in Concert. The Orchestra’s commitment to education and its community, begun in 1919 with the development of Concerts for Kids, is today recognized nationally and internationally for programs including Adventures in Music, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, Music for Families, and www.sfskids.com. For additional information, please visit www.sfsymphony.org.