Scored for success

Michael Tilson Thomas, music director of the San Francisco Symphony, is relishing the idea of returning to Asia for many reasons, and not all of them are necessarily musical.

"When I began making my first trips to Asia, it was always thrilling to find an opportunity in the midst of scheduling and giving concerts to run off and see something at a museum, to enjoy a cultural moment. I've had a sustained interest in the arts and crafts of Asian countries - Chinese ceramics, Japanese lacquerware, dry brush painting," he says.

"It's always a great pleasure for me to be back there."

And his next visit will be a pleasure for fans of classical music, too: the San Francisco Symphony, which last year celebrated its centennial and has had the eminent music director at its helm for 18 seasons, is soon to embark on a much-anticipated Asian tour.

The 100-plus member orchestra will be performing in Macau and Beijing for the first time, returning to Hong Kong and Shanghai after six years, and playing in Taipei and Tokyo after an even longer hiatus. This tour has been four years in the planning, and is the tent-pole event for what is arguably one of the world's finest symphony orchestras.

Speaking at a morning event at San Francisco's Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, the ensemble's home, a few weeks before starting the tour, Tilson Thomas describes the popularity of Western classical music in Asia as "a phenomenon".