Esa-Pekka Salonen is known as both a composer and conductor. He is the Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, where he works alongside eight Collaborative Partners from a variety of disciplines, ranging from composers to roboticists. He is the Conductor Laureate of the Philharmonia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. As a member of the faculty of the Colburn School, he directs the pre-professional Negaunee Conducting Program. Salonen co-founded, and until 2018 served as the Artistic Director of, the annual Baltic Sea Festival.
 
Highlights from Esa-Pekka Salonen’s 2023–24 San Francisco Symphony season include world premieres from Jesper Nordin, Anders Hillborg, and Jens Ibsen; projects by Collaborative Partners Pekka Kuusisto and Carol Reiley; the launch of the inaugural California Festival; a tour of California; and a program of Ravel and Schoenberg featuring choreography by Alonzo King and staging by Peter Sellars.
 
Salonen also conducts many of his own compositions around the world this season. Among them are Tiu, a new work commemorating the 20th anniversary of Walt Disney Concert Hall, premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Karawane, also with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Salonen’s Sinfonia Concertante for Organ and Orchestra with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Philadelphia Orchestra; and kínēma with the San Francisco Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestra.
 
Salonen has an extensive and varied recording career. Releases with the San Francisco Symphony include recordings of Bartók’s piano concertos, as well as spatial audio recordings of several Ligeti compositions. Other recent recordings include Strauss’s Four Last Songs, Bartók’s Miraculous Mandarin and Dance Suite, and a 2018 box set of his complete Sony recordings. His compositions appear on releases from Sony, Deutsche Grammophon, and Decca; his Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, and Cello Concerto all appear on recordings he conducted himself.

Yuja Wang is celebrated for her charismatic artistry, emotional honesty, and captivating stage presence. She has performed with the world’s most venerated conductors, musicians, and ensembles, and is renowned not only for her virtuosity, but her spontaneous and lively performances.

Her skill and charisma were recently demonstrated in a marathon Rachmaninoff performance at Carnegie Hall with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. This historic event celebrating 150 years since the birth of Rachmaninoff included performances of all four of his concertos plus the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. The 2022–23 season also saw Wang performing the world premiere of Magnus Lindberg’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the San Francisco Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Wang was born into a musical family in Beijing. After childhood piano studies in China, she received advanced training in Canada and at the Curtis Institute of Music under Gary Graffman. Her international breakthrough came in 2007, when she replaced Martha Argerich as soloist with the Boston Symphony. Two years later, she signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon, and has since established her place among the world’s leading artists, with a succession of critically acclaimed performances and recordings. She was named Musical America’s Artist of the Year in 2017, and in 2021 received an Opus Klassik Award for her world-premiere recording of John Adams’s Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel.

As a chamber musician, Wang has developed long-lasting partnerships with several leading artists. This season, she embarks on an international duo-recital tour with pianist Víkingur Ólafsson, including a return to the Great Performers Series at Davies Symphony Hall (March 2). Wang made her San Francisco Symphony debut in February 2006 and became a Shenson Young Artist later that year. She can be heard on the Masterpieces in Miniature album on SFS Media.