Lieberson has also withdrawn from scheduled performances of R‹ckert Lieder with Michael Tilson Thomas and the SFS in Davies Symphony Hall next week.
Lieberson has cancelled numerous performances recently due to poor health. The flare up of a lower back injury sustained in early 2005 forced her to withdraw from the San Francisco Opera premiere of John Adams' Doctor Atomic last October. In December she withdrew from Boston Symphony performances of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis; other cancellations include December 2005 and January 2006 appearances as part of Richard Goode's Perspectives Series at Carnegie Hall, and a recital tour last year.
She has appeared, however, in a series of performances of Neruda Songs, an orchestral song cycle written for her by her husband, Peter Lieberson.
This is the second change to the SFS's East Coast tour; last week, the orchestra announced that soprano Celena Shafer had withdrawn from performances in New York, Newark, and Washington because she is pregnant with twins. Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet replaced her.