Soprano Lauren Snouffer’s 2022–23 season includes Mahler’s Second Symphony with the Cleveland Orchestra, John Adams’s El Niño with the composer conducting Cleveland Orchestra, Mozart’s Mass in C minor with Pittsburgh Symphony, Handel’s Jeptha with Music of the Baroque, Bach’s Mass in G major with Handel and Haydn Society, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the New York Philharmonic, and Hans Abrahamsen’s Let Me Tell You with NDR Elbphilharmonie. Operatic performances include Die Zauberflöte in a return engagement with the Opernhaus Zürich, Le nozze di Figaro with Houston Grand Opera, Il barbiere di Siviglia at Austin Opera, and debuts at Santa Fe Opera in Monteverdi’s Orfeo and at Detroit Opera in Xerxes.

Last season Ms. Snouffer made her debut at the Opéra national du Rhin in the lead role of Abrahamsen’s The Snow Queen and appeared in two new productions with the Opernhaus Zürich: she performed the title role in the world premiere of Stefan Wirth’s Girl with a Pearl Earring and sang Argene in a new production of Pergolesi’s L’Olimpiade. At Houston Grand Opera she gave performances of Dialogues des Carmélites. She made her San Francisco Symphony debut in December 2016.

A Grammy Award-nominated artist, Ms. Snouffer’s discography includes Hasse’s Siroe and Handel’s Ottone on Decca, Gottschalk’s Requiem for the Living on Novona Records, Grantham’s La cancíon desesperada on Harmonia Mundi, and Feldman’s The Rothko Chapel on ECM. An alumna of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, Ms. Snouffer holds degrees from Rice University and the Juilliard School.

(11/2022)

Countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen received the grand prize of the 2017 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, a 2017 Sara Tucker Study Grant, and a 2022 Career Grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation. In 2019 his first commercial recording project—Kenneth Fuchs’s Poems of Life with the London Symphony Orchestra—was honored with a Grammy Award.

The 2022–23 season marks three European debuts for Mr. Nussbaum Cohen: at the Bavarian State Opera as Endimione in Cavalli’s La Calisto, at Komische Oper Berlin as David in Handel’s Saul, and at Glyndebourne as Athamas in Handel’s Semele. Among the highlights of his concert calendar are Handel’s Jeptha with Music of the Baroque and Theodora with Philharmonia Baroque. Other notable performances include a Metropolitan Opera debut as Rosencrantz in the US premiere of Brett Dean’s Hamlet and a debut at the Zurich Opera House in a world-premiere ballet using the music of Monteverdi.

Mr. Nussbaum Cohen earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Princeton University and received academic certificates in vocal performance and Judaic studies. In his senior year he became the first singer in a decade to win the Princeton University concerto competition and was also awarded the Isidore and Helen Sacks Memorial Prize for extraordinary achievement in the arts. During the 2017–18 season he became the first countertenor in the history of the Houston Grand Opera Studio. He was a member of San Francisco Opera’s Adler Fellowship program in 2018–19 and made his San Francisco Symphony debut in December 2019.

(11/2022)

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.

Ben Bliss was a 2021 recipient of the Beverly Sills Award and was also awarded the 2016 Martin E. Segal Award at Lincoln Center, the Mozart and Plácido Domingo awards at the 2015 Francisco Viñas International Competition, first prize at the 2014 Gerda Lissner and Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation competitions, and the 2013 Operalia Don Plácido Domingo Sr. Zarzuela Prize.

Mr. Bliss’s 2023–24 season includes a house debut as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni with Opéra National de Paris, performances as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte with Bavarian State Opera, and a return to Canadian Opera Company in Don Giovanni. Recent highlights include Tamino and Don Ottavio at the Metropolitan Opera, Chevalier de la Force in Dialogues des Carmélites at San Francisco Opera, and Tom Rakewell in The Rake’s Progress at Teatro Colón. He has also appeared with Los Angeles Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Seattle Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and Frankfurt Opera. Concert highlights include debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic New York Philharmonic, and a recital tour including Carnegie Hall. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut with Handel’s Messiah in 2019.