San Francisco Ballet of Outstanding Achievement in Dance, for its 2004 fall season at Sadler's Wells Theatre. Of the engagement, London's "The Sunday Times" proclaimed, "Helgi Tomasson's outstanding artistic direction ... has transformed a regional American troupe into one of the world's top ballet companies." In 2006, in a readers' poll conducted by "Dance Europe" magazine, San Francisco Ballet was the first non-European company to be voted "Company of the Year". In 2008, San Francisco Ballet received the Jerome Robbins Award for excellence in dance. In 2012, Helgi Tomasson was named recipient of the Dance/USA Honor, acknowledging individuals' contributions to dance in America
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