The San Francisco Symphony Chorus was established in 1973 at the request of Seiji Ozawa, then the Symphony’s Music Director. The Chorus, numbering 32 professional and more than 120 volunteer members, now performs more than 26 concerts each season. Louis Magor served as the Chorus’s director during its first decade. In 1982 Margaret Hillis assumed the ensemble’s leadership, and the following year Vance George was named Chorus Director, serving through 2005–06. Ragnar Bohlin concluded his tenure as Chorus Director in 2021, a post he had held since 2007. Jenny Wong was named Chorus Director in September 2023.

The Chorus can be heard on many acclaimed San Francisco Symphony recordings and has received Grammy Awards for Best Performance of a Choral Work (for Orff’s Carmina burana, Brahms’s German Requiem, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 8) and Best Classical Album (for a Stravinsky collection and for Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 and Symphony No. 8).

To view a San Francisco Symphony Chorus roster, click here.

This season Tamara Mumford makes her first appearances as Erda in Das Rheingold with both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Dallas Symphony, and sings with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Festival Internacional Cervantino in Mexico. A graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, she has appeared in more than 200 performances with the company including Rigoletto, Nixon in China, and Die Zauberflöte. Other recent opera engagements have included the premiere of The Thirteenth Child at Santa Fe Opera; Tancredi with Teatro Nuovo; Aureliano in Palmira and Lucrezia Borgia at the Caramoor Festival; Phaedra, The Rape of Lucretia, and Yardbird at Opera Philadelphia; and L’incoronazione di Poppea at Glyndebourne and the BBC Proms.

In concert, Ms. Mumford has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, Netherland Radio Philharmonic, and at the Hollywood Bowl, Ravinia, and Tanglewood. Her recordings include Handel’s Messiah with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 and John Adams’s The Gospel According to the Other Mary with the Los Angeles Philharmonic on Deutsche Grammophon, and Beethoven’s Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, which marked her SF Symphony debut in May 2013.

Tenor Leif Aruhn-Solén has been a sought-after singer on the world’s concert and opera stages for more than two decades. Often heard in the Evangelist parts of Bach’s Passions and in Handel’s tenor compositions, he has also had success in lead roles in Baroque operas and works by Haydn, Mozart, Rossini, and contemporary composers.

Mr. Aruhn-Solén began his studies at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, followed by studies at Oberlin College, where he graduated from the artist diploma program in 2001. While still a student, he performed as a soloist with orchestras such as the City of Birmingham Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony, and Malmö Symphony. Upon graduation, he was engaged to sing with Les Arts Florissants, New Israeli Opera, and Singapore Symphony, followed by opera performances at Grand Théâtre de Genève, Opéra National de Montpellier, and Royal Opera in Stockholm, as well as orchestral engagements with the Cleveland Orchestra, Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, and Concert Spirituel. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in December 2017.

His extensive discography includes Bach: Tenor arias (Nilento), Handel Arias (Edition Lilac), Ifigenia in Aulide by Martín y Soler and Il ré pastore by Mazzoni (Harmonia Mundi), Charpentier’s Judicium Salomonis (Virgin Classics), and Songs of the Heart (Sterling).

(11/2022)

Canadian-American lyric coloratura soprano Nikki Einfeld has received acclaim as an interpreter of a wide range of repertory spanning from the Baroque to contemporary music. Recent highlights from the operatic stage include the title role in the world premiere of Death with Interruptions by Kurt Rhode and Curley’s Wife in Carlisle Floyd’s Of Mice and Men for Manitoba Opera. Other recent and upcoming engagements include concert appearances with Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, a New Year’s Day Gala with the Victoria Symphony, La Traviata with the Diablo Symphony, Martin y Soler’s L’Arbore di Diana at West Edge Opera, the Controller in Jonathan Dove’s Flight with Opera Parallèle, and Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate and Requiem with the Sacramento Choral Society. Ms. Einfeld has made guest appearances on the concert stage with the Berkeley Symphony, the Marin Symphony, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra New Music Festival, Calgary Philharmonic, and the Empyrean Ensemble. A champion of contemporary music, she regularly performs premieres by modern composers and was recently appointed a member of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. Ms. Einfeld is a former Adler Fellow and Merola Alumna with the San Francisco Opera, and was a Grand Finalist in the 2006 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. She made her San Francisco Symphony debut in 2013.

(November 2017)