German conductor Christian Reif joined the San Francisco Symphony as Resident Conductor and Wattis Foundation Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra in the 2016-17 season. He was previously Conducting Fellow with the New World Symphony in Miami, where he was mentored by Michael Tilson Thomas. Mr. Reif completed his master of music in conducting at the Juilliard School under Alan Gilbert, where he received the Charles Schiff Conducting Award. He also studied with Dennis Russell Davies at the Mozarteum Salzburg. Mr. Reif is currently a member of Germany's Conductor's Forum where he was named one of their “Maestros of Tomorrow.” He was Conducting Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in 2015 and 2016 and has also worked as assistant and cover conductor for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and for the New York Phil Biennial. Mr. Reif won the German Operetta Prize 2015, awarded by the German Music Council. In the 2017-18 season, Mr. Reif makes his debut with the Orchestre National de Lyon and the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, works with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra, and makes return engagements with the Berkeley Symphony, Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, and the Lakes Area Music Festival. This summer, he makes his debut with the Indianapolis Symphony and at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York City. His enthusiasm in performing contemporary music has led to many world premiere performances, including Michael Gordon’s El Sol Caliente, a city symphony in honor of Miami Beach’s centennial; and concertos for DJ and orchestra, performed at the New World Symphony’s PULSE events. A dedicated and enthusiastic educator, Mr. Reif has also worked as a teaching fellow at the Juilliard School. He hosted and conducted education concerts with the New World Symphony, which were also webcast globally.

(April 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)

Ragazzi Boys Chorus is one of the Bay Area’s premier music and performance organizations for boys. Currently serving more than 200 boys from more than 100 schools in more than 30 communities, Ragazzi is the largest boys chorus in the region. Ragazzi means “boys” in Italian, and is the term used in opera to refer to children’s voices.

Ragazzi has performed with the San Francisco Opera, Opera San Jose, Symphony Silicon Valley, and the Stanford University Symphonic Chorus, among others. Ragazzi was honored for its contribution to the San Francisco Symphony’s Grammy Award-winning recording of Stravinsky’s Perséphone, and also produces its own recordings. Under the leadership of Artistic and Executive Director Kent Jue, the group tours internationally to widen chorus members’ cultural and musical horizons and deepen Ragazzi’s reputation for excellence.

Kent Jue, Artistic and Executive Director
Kent Jue is an experienced choral conductor, music educator, and facilitator for lifelong learning in music. An energetic teacher, adjudicator, guest clinician, workshop presenter, and mentor, he is known for building musicianship skills through his engaging style and rapport with students. He has a passion for uncovering the full artistic and expressive potential of individual choristers in an ensemble setting. Mr. Jue conducts Ragazzi’s most accomplished treble singers, Concert Group, and the select tenor and bass Choral Scholars. He has toured extensively with the Ragazzi program and has led Ragazzi choirs to numerous festivals. An avid collaborator, he has prepared ensembles for performances with the San Francisco Symphony, Symphony Silicon Valley, Opera San Jose, and West Bay Opera.

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.

Baritone Hadleigh Adams’s repertory spans from Rameau and Vivaldi through to Thomas Adès and Luca Francesconi, and he is equally in demand on both the opera and concert stage. Born in Palmerston North, New Zealand, he studied at London's Guildhall school of Music and Drama, and is a former Merola Opera artist, and San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 2016.

This season’s highlights include the US premiere of Francesconi’s Quartett, San Francisco Opera’s new production of Tosca, his European debut at Amsterdam's Royal Carrè Theater in Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, a return engagement with Cincinnati Opera for Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, and Handel’s Messiah with the Nashville and Milwaukee symphonies. Next season, Mr. Adams returns to San Francisco Opera to perform in Handel's Partenope, Gounod’s Roméo and Juliette, and Britten’s Billy Budd. He also performs with the Colorado, Houston, New Zealand symphonies, and the American Bach Soloists. 

Last season’s highlights included Lou Harrison’s Young Caesar, Annie Gosfield’s War of the Worlds, and Bernstein’s Mass with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Gregory Spears’s Fellow Travelersat Minnesota Opera; Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Facewith West Edge Opera; and Matthew Aucoin’s Crossing with the American Repertory Theatre. On the concert platform he performed with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, American Bach Soloists, and London's Philharmonia Orchestra. 

(January 2019)

David J. Xiques is professor of music in the School of Music at San Francisco State University where he teaches ear training and musicianship classes, conducts the Chamber Singers, and oversees the choral program. A Kodály specialist, he is a former instructor at the Kodály Summer Certification Program at New York University where he taught for fifteen years.  He is a professional tenor with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus where he also serves as Assistant Chorus Director. 

A frequent choral clinician and presenter at professional music conferences, Mr. Xiques is author of Solfege and Sonority: Teaching Music Reading to Choral Singers, published by Oxford University Press. He also has several choral arrangements published by Alliance Music Publications. He earned his master’s degree in Music Education with Kodály Emphasis from Holy Names University in Oakland, CA, where he was also a member of the faculty; and a bachelor’s degree in Music Education from Millersville University in Millersville, PA.  He has studied ear training and musicianship extensively with Erzsébet Hegyi of the Liszt Academy in Budapest and conducting with SFS Chorus Director Emeritus Vance George.

(June 2019)