NATHALIE STUTZMANN is considered one of the most outstanding musical personalities of our time. Charismatic musicianship, combined with unique rigor, energy, and fantasy, characterize her style. She was recently announced as the Atlanta Symphony’s Music Director beginning in the 2022–23 season, becoming only the second woman in history to lead a major American orchestra. She also serves as the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor and is Chief Conductor of the Kristiansand Symphony. Previously she was Principal Guest Conductor of the RTÉ National Symphony of Ireland.

As a guest conductor, Ms. Stutzmann began the season 2021–22 with the Atlanta Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Other guest conducting highlights this season and next include London Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Hamburg NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Helsinki Radio Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, and Pittsburgh Symphony. She makes her San Francisco Symphony debut with these performances.

Also one of today’s most esteemed contraltos, she has made more than eighty recordings. Contralto, her newest album released in January 2021, was awarded Scherzo’s “Exceptional” seal, Opera Magazine’s Diamant d’Or, and radio RTL’s Classique d’Or. She is an exclusive recording artist of Warner Classics/Erato.

Ms. Stutzmann started her studies at a very young age in piano, bassoon, and cello; studied conducting with the legendary Finnish teacher Jorma Panula; and was mentored by Seiji Ozawa and Simon Rattle. She was named Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest honor, and Commandeur dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.

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.