The San Francisco Symphony has announced that Elim Chan will become its next Music Director beginning in September 2027, making her the first woman to hold the position in the orchestra’s 115-year history.
Chan joins the orchestra immediately as Music Director Designate and will conduct the Symphony on June 5 and 6 in a program featuring Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été with mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, and Debussy’s La Mer.
The appointment represents a major moment not only for the orchestra, but also for the broader American classical music landscape. Chan arrives after a turbulent transitional period following the departure of Esa-Pekka Salonen at the end of the 2024–25 season. Salonen’s exit drew international attention after disagreements with the Symphony’s Board over artistic priorities, institutional investment, touring, and education initiatives became public.
In that context, Chan’s appointment signals both continuity and renewal. The San Francisco Symphony’s announcement repeatedly emphasized her commitment to contemporary music, collaboration, and artistic experimentation — values closely associated with the orchestra’s identity in recent decades.
“In Elim Chan, we have found a musician of unusual gifts and a leader of equal substance,” said Symphony CEO Matthew Spivey in the official announcement. “Works orchestras have played a hundred times sound newly made under her hand.”
Chan described the orchestra as embodying the same “restless, forward-looking energy” that has long defined the Bay Area itself.
“The Bay Area has long been the place where the future gets invented,” she said. “This orchestra carries that same restless, forward-looking energy in everything it does.”
Born in Hong Kong, Chan studied at Smith College and the University of Michigan before becoming the first woman to win the prestigious Donatella Flick Conducting Competition in 2014. She later served as Assistant Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, where she worked closely with Valery Gergiev, and participated in the Dudamel Fellowship program with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She has also cited the late Bernard Haitink as an important mentor.
Chan first appeared with the San Francisco Symphony during the 2022–23 season, conducting the world premiere of Elizabeth Ogonek’s Moondog, a Symphony commission. Subsequent appearances featuring Britten, Holst, and Tchaikovsky drew strong critical acclaim. Following one performance in 2023, critic Joshua Kosman wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle that Chan was “the real deal.”
Her international profile has risen rapidly in recent seasons. Chan was recently appointed Artistic Partner of the Vienna Symphony and previously served as Principal Conductor of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Upcoming seasons include debuts with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic.
Her arrival also comes during a period of broader institutional reflection for the San Francisco Symphony, which has faced financial pressures and questions about its long-term artistic direction in the years following the pandemic. The orchestra nevertheless remains one of the most influential American musical institutions, shaped by music directors including Pierre Monteux, Seiji Ozawa, Herbert Blomstedt, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Salonen.
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