Michael Tilson Thomas is the Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, conductor laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra, and cofounder and artistic director laureate of the New World Symphony. He is a 12-time Grammy Award winner and has conducted the major orchestras of Europe and the United States.

Born in Los Angeles, he studied conducting and composition with Ingolf Dahl at the University of Southern California and as a young musician worked with artists including Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland. In his mid-20s, he became assistant conductor—and later principal guest conductor—of the Boston Symphony. He subsequently served as music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and principal conductor of the London Symphony.

In 1987 he cofounded the New World Symphony, a postgraduate orchestral academy in Miami Beach dedicated to preparing young musicians of diverse backgrounds for leadership roles in classical music. He has worked with more than 1,200 NWS fellows, many of whom have gone on to major musical careers.

MTT became Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony in 1995, ushering in a period of significant growht and heightened international recognition for the orchestra. He led the Symphony in championing contemporary and American composers alongside classical masters, and as Music Director Laureate, he has returned to conduct the orchestra each season. 

His discography includes more than 120 recordings, and his television work includes series for the BBC and PBS, the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts, and numerous televised performances. “Michael Tilson Thomas: Where Now Is” aired on PBS’s American Masters series in fall 2020.

Throughout his career, he has been an active composer, with major works including From the Diary of Anne Frank, premiered with narrator Audrey Hepburn, and Meditations on Rilke. Both appear on SFS Media’s Grammy Award-winning recording of his music. In 2023, Yuja Wang released a recording on Deutsche Grammophon which included his You Come Here Often?
He is an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France, a member of the American Academies of Arts and Sciences and Arts and Letters, a National Medal of Arts recipient, and a 2019 Kennedy Center honoree.

Three major recording projects were released in 2024 in celebration of his 80th birthday: Grace: The Music of Michael Tilson Thomas on Pentatone; The Complete Columbia, CBS, and RCA Recordings on Sony Classical; and Complete Deutsche Grammophon & Argo Recordings on DG Eloquence. 

Nicholas Phan has appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, London Symphony, Los Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Glimmerglass, Seattle Opera, Glyndebourne, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, and Frankfurt Opera. An avid recitalist, he cofounded and now directs the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago to promote art song and vocal chamber music. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in June 2009.

Mr. Phan began the 2023–24 season with CAIC’s Collaborative Works Festival and joined Palaver Strings for A Change is Gonna Come, featuring two song cycles composed for him: Nico Muhly’s Stranger and Errollyn Wallen’s Protest Songs. He gives the West Coast premiere of Joel Puckett’s There Was A Child Went Forth with the Berkeley Symphony and the world premiere of Vivian Fung’s Songs for the Next Generation at New York’s Kaufman Music Center, where he is artist in residence for the entire season.

Mr. Phan’s most recent album, Stranger: Works for Tenor by Nico Muhly, was nominated for the 2022 Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album, and two previous albums were also nominated for the same award. Raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Mr. Phan is a graduate of the University of Michigan, also studied at the Manhattan School of Music, and is an alumnus of the Houston Grand Opera Studio. He currently serves as a coach on the faculty of the San Francisco Opera Center, where he works with Adler Fellows.

Established by Founding Artistic Director Kevin Fox, the three-time Grammy award-winning Pacific Boychoir Academy (PBA) began as an after-school music program in Oakland, CA. Now comprising more than 160 boys and young men ages four to eighteen, in seven choirs, PBA is the only choir school on the West Coast, where a full academic curriculum is integrated with daily musical instruction for boys grades three through eight. The Day School music program is currently directed by Andrew Brown, Director of Choral Studies, and Marcia Roy, Artistic Program Director. PBA has performed with the Berkeley Symphony, American Bach Soloists, Youth Orchestra of the Americas, Lithuanian State Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Brazil, Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra, Johannesburg Festival Orchestra, Trinity Lyric Opera, University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club, Harvard Men’s Glee Club, Vienna Boys Choir; and has been heard on the NBC television shows America’s Got Talent and The Blacklist; and has performed with comedian Zach Galifianakis. The choir has toured throughout the US, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, South America, South Africa, China, Russia, and Vietnam. PBA made its SFS debut under Michael Tilson Thomas in September 2002, and is heard with the SFS on Grammy award-winning recordings of Mahler’s Symphonies Nos. 3 and 8. Andrew Brown is currently in his second season as Director of Choral Studies with Pacific Boychoir Academy. He previously spent ten years as an associate director with PBA and two years with the Golden Gate Boychoir. Additionally he is Concert Choir Director of the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir. He recently served as artistic director of the Contra Costa Children’s Choir and the Vallejo Choral Society.

(September 2018)

The San Francisco Symphony Chorus was established in 1973 at the request of Seiji Ozawa, then the Symphony’s Music Director; the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, numbering thirty-two professional and more than 120 volunteer members, performs more than twenty-six 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 assumed the position of Chorus Director in March 2007. The Chorus can be heard on many acclaimed recordings, including Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Mahler’s Symphonies Nos. 2, 3, and 8 (with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting), choral works of Brahms, Mahler’s Das klagende Lied, Stravinsky’s Perséphone, selections from Berlioz’s Lélio, and John Adams’s Harmonium. The ensemble 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 collection of Stravinsky’s music including Perséphone, The Firebird, and Le Sacre du printemps; and for Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 and Symphony No. 8).

Ragnar Bohlin began his tenure as SFS Chorus Director in 2007. Mr. Bohlin served as choirmaster of Stockholm’s Maria Magdalena Church and holds degrees from the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm. He studied conducting with Eric Ericson and Jorma Panula, piano with Peter Feuchtwanger in London, singing with Nicolai Gedda, and through a Sweden-America Foundation scholarship he visited choruses throughout the US. With Stockholm’s KFUM Chamber Choir, the Maria Magdalena Motet Choir, and the Maria Vocal Ensemble, Mr. Bohlin has won numerous prizes in international competitions. Currently teaching at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, he has also taught at the Royal Academy in Stockholm and been a visiting professor at Indiana University and Miami University. With the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus, he has conducted Handel’s Messiah, Fauré’s Requiem, Orff’s Carmina burana, and J.S. Bach’s Magnificat, Christmas Oratorio, and B minor Mass. Mr. Bohlin’s guest conducting engagements have included appearances with the São Paulo Symphony in Brazil, Malmö Symphony in Sweden, Stavanger Symphony in Norway, the Edmonton Symphony in Canada, and the Ericson Chamber Choir in Mozart’s C minor Mass. In 2018 he leads the BBC Singers and Swedish Radio Choir. Mr. Bohlin is the founding Artistic Director of the professional chamber choir Cappella SF; the group has released three recordings on the Delos label. He recently received Chorus America’s Michael Korn Founders Award.

(September 2018)

Actress and dancer Leslie Caron rose to fame in such acclaimed film musicals as An American in Paris (1951) and Gigi (1958). Born in Boulogne-sur-Seine, France, to a French father and American mother, she began dance studies at an early age. By the age of sixteen, she was performing in the Ballets des Champs-Élysées where she was discovered by Gene Kelly and subsequently cast in Mr. Kelly’s An American in Paris.

A contract with MGM and a string of successful films followed. Ms. Caron earned her first Academy Award nomination in the title role of Lili (1953), and she danced alongside Fred Astaire in Daddy Long Legs (1955). A signature role came in 1958, when she starred in the celebrated film musical Gigi. The film received nine Academy Awards including Best Picture, and Ms. Caron’s performance was recognized with a Golden Globe nomination. Further successes included Oscar-nominated turns in Gaby (1958) and The L-Shaped Room (1963), and celebrated films such as Fanny (1961) and Father Goose (1964). Her other notable films include Damage (1993), Chocolat (2000), and Le Divorce (2003).

Ms. Caron’s television appearances include a role in the miniseries Master of the Game and a guest role on Dynasty. A turn on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit earned her an Emmy Award in 2007. She appeared most recently on television in The Durrells in Corfu on PBS. On the stage, she has been seen in On Your Toes, One for the Tango, and, most recently, in A Little Night Music at the Théâtre du Châtelet. With Michael Tilson Thomas and the London Symphony Orchestra, she appeared on a recording of Debussy’s Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien for the Sony label. Her memoir Thank Heaven was published in 2009. She makes her San Francisco Symphony debut at these performances.

(September 2018)

Since 1978, SFGC has provided girls and young women the unique opportunity not only to perform at the highest artistic caliber, but also to develop self-confidence, leadership skills, and an awareness of the role of the arts in civic engagement. SFGC has been recognized through numerous honors including five Grammy Awards, four ASCAP/Chorus America Awards for Adventurous Programming, and in 2002, became the first youth chorus to receive Chorus America’s Margaret Hillis Achievement Award. Under the direction of Valérie Sainte-Agathe, SFGC has achieved an incomparable sound that underscores the unique clarity and force of impeccably trained treble voices fused with expressiveness and drama.