Michael TilsonThomas, the longtime music director of the San Francisco Symphony, adopted the word for a pair of festivals that he mounted in 1996 and 2000.
The San Francisco Symphony returns to Southbank Centre for the first time in 19 years conducted by Michael TilsonThomas, while Antonio Pappano will return for the first time since 1998 conducting Rome-based Orchestra and Chorus of the Academy of Santa Cecilia.
Rooms are dedicated to SUNY Buffalo's English department (its stellar faculty at the time included critic Leslie Fiedler, novelist John Barth and poet Robert Creeley) and to the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, then under the dynamic leadership of conductors Lukas Foss and Michael TilsonThomas.