San Francisco Symphony Launches 101st Season with Semyon Bychkov [PHOTOS]

San Francisco Symphony (SFS) gave the first concert of its 101st season on Wednesday in Davies Symphony Hall.

Under the baton of Semyon Bychkov, the program featured the music of Richard Wagner and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, whose works were performed at the very first concert of the SFS, then San Francisco Orchestra, in 1911.

Wagner's overture for his opera "Tannhäuser" opened the concert, followed by Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 Op. 26 in G minor with soloist Pinchas Zukerman. The concert concluded with Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 Op. 64 in E minor.

Russian-American conductor Semyon Bychkov, 59, studied at the Glinka Choir School and Leningrad Conservatory in Russia and Mannes College The New School for Music in New York. Known for his keen sense of subtle details, Bychkov served Mannes College Orchestra, Grand Rapids Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and Orchestre de Paris as a music director and Dresden's Semperoper and WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne as a chief conductor.

Bychkov next performance with SFS, scheduled Sept. 12-15 in Davies Symphony Hall, will feature Franz Schubert's 8th symphony "Unfinished" and Dmitri Shostakovich's rarely performed 11th Symphony.

Click "START" to see the 100-year history of the symphony.