San Francisco Symphony at 100

'San Francisco Symphony at 100' celebrates the orchestra's centenary in style.

With Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas at the helm and featuring violinist Itzhak Perlman, the DVD also includes vignettes documenting the orchestra's origins and its first 100 years.

San Francisco Symphony at 100 documents the glorious festivities of the orchestra's centenary year, celebrated at the orchestra's extravagant 2011-12 season opening night gala concert. With Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas at the helm, the evening symbolised the orchestra's heritage, its importance in the life of the city as well as the American and international musical landscape, and highlighted supreme American musicians as well as the virtuosic members of the orchestra. The programme opens and closes with two American compositional giants - Aaron Copland and John Adams. The great violinist Itzhak Perlman unleashes his virtuosity on Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto and the orchestra members shine in Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.

Interspersed are documentary vignettes - hosted by Amy Tan (author of the famed Joy Luck Club) - tracing the history of the Symphony which like a phoenix rose out of the ashes of the city's devastating earthquake in 1906, revitalised San Francisco's cultural life and quickly set the orchestra on the world's musical stage.