San Francisco Ballet Building like the American Ballet Theatre, were also housed in rented spaces and buildings shared with other performing arts groups. In 1983, the San Francisco Ballet Association became “the first American ballet company and school to break this pattern by constructing new quarters for itself." Beverly Willis performed exhaustive research into the function of a ballet building, conducting numerous interviews with dancers on their needs and visiting the studios of major European ballet companies.The building includes facilities to support all of the activities of the company and school with the exception of set storage. The eight rehearsal and classroom studios have
San Francisco Ballet the space of a single week in the UNited We Dance Festival. The 49-member orchestra accompanies SF Ballet throughout its winter and spring repertory seasons. It also performs apart from the Company; it debuted solely as an orchestra in 1979 at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco's War Memorial Veterans Building, playing a program that included works by Haydn, Ives, and Vivaldi. The SFBO is composed of 49 members and headed by Martin West, music director and conductor. As of October 2013, the musicians and staff included: The orchestra was led by Denis de Coteau from 1975 until 1998, when