A native of Hong Kong, Jenny Wong is the newly appointed Chorus Director of the San Francisco Symphony, as well as the Associate Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Recent conducting engagements include the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Series, the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, The Industry, Long Beach Opera, Pasadena Symphony and Pops, Phoenix Chorale, and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles. This season, Wong will make her debut with the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra. Under Wong’s baton, the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s performance of Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir was named by Alex Ross as one of ten “Notable Performances and Recordings of 2022” in the New Yorker. In 2021, Wong was one of nine national recipients of OPERA America’s inaugural Opera Grants for Women Stage Directors and Conductors. She has conducted Peter Sellars’ staging of Orlando di Lasso’s Lagrime di San Pietro (Melbourne International Arts Festival, the Festival Internacionale Cervantino, Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico, and in the U.S.), the opera Sweet Land by Du Yun and Raven Chacon (2021 Award for Best New Opera by the Music Critics’ Association), and Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and Kate Soper’s Voices from the Killing Jar with Long Beach Opera in collaboration with WildUp.
 
As chorus master, Wong has prepared choruses for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, including Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, winner of the 2022 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance; San Francisco Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Susanna Mälkki, Osmo Vänska, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Jaime Martin, Maria Guinand, Eric Whitacre, and Music Academy of the West, and the U.S. premiere of Tan Dun’s Buddha Passion. Wong was Assistant Producer of the Master Chorale’s latest album, Eric Whitacre’s The Sacred Veil with Signum Classics. 
 
Wong received her Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music from the University of Southern California. She earned her undergraduate degree in voice performance from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She has been a conducting fellow for the Oregon Bach Festival, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Distinguished Concerts International New York, and Hong Kong SingFest. She won two consecutive World Champion titles at the World Choir Games 2010 and the International Johannes Brahms Choral Competition 2011, conducting the Diocesan Girls' School Choir from Hong Kong.

Cara Gabrielson was a 2020 national semifinalist in the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition and made her San Francisco Symphony debut in 2018 in J.S. Bach’s Magnificat. In 2022 she joined the roster  of the Metropolitan Opera in Idomeneo and returned to the SF Symphony in Orff’s Carmina burana and Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy. This season she sings Lucy in Fellow Travelers  with Opera Parallèle and covers the title role in Florencia en el Amazonas with Opera San Jose.

As a solo recitalist, Ms. Gabrielson has sung at the Oregon Bach Festival and Portland Opera Guild. In 2019–20 she joined the Opera Idaho Emerging Artists Program to perform the title role in Acis and Galatea, Poussette in Manon, and Sister Catherine in Dead Man Walking. In 2018 she was a singer at the Georg Solti Accademia di Bel Canto and a fellow at the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Festival, where she soloed in Bach’s St. John Passion and Purcell’s The Fairy Queen. Ms. Gabrielson earned bachelor and master of music degrees from San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She is an alumna of Houston Grand Opera’s Young Artists Vocal Academy and the Opera Saratoga Young Artist Program.
 

Samuel Faustine, born and raised in San Francisco, performs a wide variety of styles ranging from Baroque opera to modern musical theater. Most recently, he was a member of the first national tour of Broadway’s A Christmas Carol. With this performance, he makes his third appearance as a soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, and he has sung with the SF Symphony Chorus since 2018. Mr. Faustine has appeared in Europe, China, and across the US in roles including Anthony in Sweeney Todd, Tony in West Side Story, Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors, Curly in Oklahoma!, and Candide in Candide. In addition to his stage career, he sings with many sacred music and choral ensembles across the country, including Byrd Ensemble, Gaude, Volti, and Cappella SF.

Baritone Timothy Murray has won recognition in such competitions as the Loren. L. Zachary competition, the Sullivan Foundation, Glyndebourne Opera Cup, and the Mario Lanza competition, and was a Grand Finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Currently a member of the Adler Fellowship Program at San Francisco Opera, he has sung Sciarrone in Tosca, covered Figaro in The Barber of Seville, and covered Guglielmo in a new production of Così fan tutte. As a participant in the 2019 Merola Opera Program, he performed the role of Paul in the world premiere of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s opera If I Were You, and finished out the summer on the War Memorial Opera House stage singing the title role in a scene from Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet as part of the Merola Grand Finale. This performance marks his debut under San Francisco Symphony auspices.

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.

MARC SHAPIRO is Principal Keyboard of the California Symphony and from 1984 to 2003 was San Francisco Symphony Chorus accompanist. Mr. Shapiro performs frequently with Composers, Inc., Chamber Music Sundaes, Sierra Chamber Music Society, Mainly Mozart Festival, and the Mohonk Festival.

Artie Storch has performed with the San Francisco Symphony, Symphony San Jose, Opera San Jose, the Who, Metallica, Weird Al Yankovic, and Andrea Bocelli. He is a frequent player in Bay Area musical theater, and as principal percussionist for the Skywalker Symphony, he has played drums and percussion for numerous movies and video games. He is the percussion director for the California Youth Symphony and is on the faculty of Chabot College.

Marty Thenell has been a guest percussionist with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony. He is a graduate of San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the Juilliard School.

Jimmy Chan has performed with the San Francisco Symphony, Sacramento Philharmonic, Berkeley Symphony, Modesto Symphony, Oakland Symphony, and Stockton Symphony, and has collaborated with Neal Schon, Journey’s cofounder and lead guitarist. As a Marimba One Artist, Mr. Chan has played at Royal Albert Hall and Walt Disney Concert Hall. He graduated from the Royal College of Music, Colburn School, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Mika Nakamura is a percussionist, educator, and arts administrator. She has collaborated with the Magik*Magik Orchestra, yMusic, Sō Percussion, eighth blackbird, New Century Chamber Orchestra, Mainly Mozart All-Star Festival Orchestra, and the San Francisco Symphony. Ms. Nakamura is a graduate of UCLA and San Francisco Conservatory of Music.