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)

Randall Craig Fleischer currently serves as Music Director of the Youngstown Symphony, Hudson Valley Philharmonic, and the Anchorage Symphony. He has appeared as a guest conductor with many major orchestras in the United States and internationally, including engagements with the Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Pops, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Utah Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, Festival Český Krumlov (Czech Republic), and many others. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 2002.

Mr. Fleischer first came to international attention when, while serving his first of five years as associate conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra, he conducted Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with Mstislav Rostropovich as soloist during the NSO’s 1990 tour of Japan and the U.S.S.R. Also active as a composer and arranger, Mr. Fleischer is a national leader in the area of symphonic rock and world music fusion and his works and arrangements have been played by numerous major orchestras around the world. His most recent rock fusion project, Rocktopia, was broadcast nationally on PBS, ran for nine weeks on Broadway, and is currently touring the US. Co-created with Rob Evan, Rocktopia fuses iconic classic rock with classical composers.  His work Symphony in Step, written for the dance company Step Afrika, was premiered by the Anchorage Symphony and performed at the Atlas Theater in Washington DC. A passionate educator, Mr. Fleischer has co-authored several instructional pieces for children in collaboration with his wife, comedian Heidi Joyce. Winner of Newsweek magazine’s Parent’s Choice Award for his groundbreaking CD-ROM of Peter and the Wolf, Mr. Fleischer is the recipient of two honorary doctorates.