Best Bets: Springtime Streaming Of Bay Area Performances Bay City News Service FacebookTwitterEmail Bay City News Foundation The Bay Area is a hub of artistic expression, attracting artists, writers and musicians from around the globe to live, work and create. We highlight some of the offerings here. A cultural mash-up: San Francisco Symphony's "Currents," a series of streaming videos that explore the evolving options for modern-day orchestras, launches a particularly intriguing episode at 10 a.m. Thursday with "Thunder Song," an examination of the intersection of classical and Native American music curated by composer and pianist Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate, a member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma. He will conduct and perform along with 17 SFS instrumentalists, Elder Thomas Leon Brown (a.k.a. Machuchuk) on vocals and clapper stick and Elder Ron Montez on traditional Pomo drum, introducing his own music as well as works by Rochelle Chester, Louis W. Ballard and a traditional Pomo song called "Hoy-Ya-A" (Shake Head Coming Out Song). Tate, a composer whose multiple commissions have been performed by entities as diverse as the National Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the South Dakota Symphony, the Colorado Ballet, Canterbury Voices and the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, also has an Emmy won for his work on the educational documentary, "The Science of Composing." Another fun fact: His music was recently featured on an episode of HBO's "Westworld." Individual tickets to the program are available for $15 at www.sfsymphonyplus.org, and it will remain accessible for repeat streaming indefinitely. To get an inkling of his style, check out a brief teaser here: