Music of the Barbary Coast and Beyond: San Francisco’s Musical Origins

In celebration of the San Francisco Symphony's Centennial, the Library and Symphony have been presenting special exhibits and a series of related programs. On Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 6:00 PM we will co-present the program Music of the Barbary Coast and Beyond: San Francisco’s Musical Origins in the Main Library's Koret Auditorium.

San Francisco has always been a music-loving town, from the music halls of the Gold Rush to the emergence of a full-time professional orchestra in the early 20th century. James Keller, organizer of the forthcoming exhibition at the Society of California Pioneers', Singing the Golden State, and Leta Miller, musicologist from UC Santa Cruz and author of the forthcoming Music and Politics in San Francisco 1906-1945 (UC Press), paint a vivid portraits of the diverse musical forces that laid the groundwork for the founding of the San Francisco Symphony in 1911. San Francisco musicologist Susan Key moderates.


A selective bibliography of books by our presenters:

American Mavericks, edited by Susan Key and Larry Rothe (San Francisco Symphony; in cooperation with the University of California Press, 2001).

Chamber Music: A Listener's Guide by James M. Keller (Oxford University Press, 2011).

Lou Harrison by Leta E. Miller and Fredric Lieberman (University of Illinois Press, 2006).

Music and Politics in San Francisco: From the 1906 Quake to the Second World War by Leta E. Miller (University of California Press, 2012).


Other blog entries relating the Symphony Centennial:

Music For a City, Music For the World: 100 Years with the San Francisco Symphony (September 12, 2011).

Alfred Hertz and the San Francisco Symphony (September 21, 2011).

San Francisco Symphony at 100 (October 3, 2011).

An Audio History of the San Francisco Symphony (October 17, 2011).

Recollections of Alfred Hertz (November 3, 2011).