San Francisco Symphony Family Tree

By UMS

The San Francisco Symphony American Mavericks festival and Michael Tilson Thomas land in Ann Arbor this week. The festival celebrates the creative pioneering spirit and the composers who created a new American musical voice for the 20th century and beyond. We wanted to find out how the composers featured on our Ann Arbor program really hang together. It turns out that they are connected.

Explore the map below to get a sense of the relationships we’ve found between these composers (friends, partners, co-workers, relationships of inspiration…). This map is not a complete picture, but begins to give a sense of the rich musical community which connects these artists and performers.

To explore, click ‘Play’ button. Scroll to zoom in and out and click and hold to move the map. For best experience, click on ‘More’ and ‘Full Screen’ to move to full screen mode. Press ‘ESC’ to exit full screen mode.

Feel free to add yet-undiscovered connections in the comments section below.

We’re thankful to Sam Richards, who compiled the research on which this map is based.

Sam L. Richards is a composer and researcher en route to a doctoral degree at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. He frequently collaborates with artists, choreographers, filmmakers, and scientists, and also operates as an interdisciplinary creative consultant for both academic and commercial enterprises.