STERN GROVE FESTIVAL PRESENTS SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY LED BY CONDUCTOR JAMES GAFFIGAN

SAN FRANCISCO, May 29, 2008 — Stern Grove Festival welcomes an annual favorite performance, the renowned San Francisco Symphony with conductor James Gaffigan on Sunday, June 29th at 2:00 p.m. This admission-frees concert will take place in Sigmund Stern Grove, located at 19th Avenue and Sloat Boulevard in San Francisco. The afternoon’s program features Verdi’s Overture to La forza del destino, Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Opus 43 with pianist Orli Shaham, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Opus 36. A pre-concert Troc Talk with San Francisco Symphony will take place before the concert in Stern Grove’s Trocadero Clubhouse.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

James Gaffigan

James Gaffigan joined the San Francisco Symphony in 2006 as Associate Conductor. His most recent appointment was as the Cleveland Orchestra's Assistant Conductor, a post he held for three seasons. Born in 1979 in New York City, he received his undergraduate degree from Boston's New England Conservatory and holds a master's degree (in conducting) from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston. In 2000, he was one of eight conductors chosen to participate in the inaugural year of the American Academy of Conducting in Aspen, and two years later he received the Academy's first Robert Harth Award. One of two first-prize winners at the Sir Georg Solti International Conducting Competition, held in Frankfurt in 2004, he has led performances at the Zurich Opera and has conducted that city's Tonhalle Orchestra and Berlin's Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester. In the U.S., he has led such ensembles as the New World Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, and Rochester Philharmonic. He is also Music Director of CityMusic, a chamber orchestra in Cleveland that presents free concerts throughout the city.

Orli Shaham

Orli Shaham was born in Israel, where at age five she received a music scholarship from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and studied with Luisa Yoffe at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. When she was seven, she settled in New York with her family and was accepted at the Juilliard School a year later as a scholarship student of Herbert Stessin. A graduate of the Horace Mann School in Riverdale, New York, and of Columbia University, she has received the Gilmore Young Artist Award and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Orli Shaham made her San Francisco Symphony debut in 2003 and has returned frequently. She has appeared with orchestras around the world and at such festivals as those of Aspen, Ravinia, Caramoor, Spoleto (Italy), and Davos. Orli Shaham is featured with her brother, Gil Shaham, on the Deutsche Grammophon recording Dvořák for Two; all-Prokofiev and all-Mozart discs with Mr. Shaham are also available on Canary Classics.

ABOUT STERN GROVE FESTIVAL

Stern Grove Festival’s 71st Season of 10 admission-free concerts runs every Sunday at 2:00 p.m. from June 15 through August 17, 2008 at Sigmund Stern Grove in San Francisco. Stern Grove Festival also provides outreach programs at each concert this season and on some weekdays at Stern Grove.

Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis and the concert meadow may be closed when capacity is reached. There is no public parking at Stern Grove and Festival patrons are encouraged to use public transportation to Stern Grove. MUNI metro lines K and M and MUNI bus lines 23 and 28 provide service to Stern Grove. Free shuttle service from the entrance at 19th Avenue and Sloat Boulevard into the Grove is provided to seniors and disabled patrons.

Stern Grove Festival’s 71st Season is made possible with support from Season Sponsor Parkmerced. Additional support provided by Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and media sponsor KPIX - CBS 5, KBCW - The CW 44 Cable 12, and SF Weekly. Concert sponsor is the Koret Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest, celebrating Israel’s’ 60th anniversary. Media sponsor is SFStation.com. Radio sponsor is KDFC, Classical 102.1

PHOTO EDITORS, PLEASE NOTE: Photos are available to the media. Please call Monica Ware at (415) 252-6253 or send an e-mail to mware@sterngrove.org.