Jean-Yves Thibaudet has earned a reputation as one of the world’s finest pianists. He is especially known for his diverse interests beyond the classical world—in addition to his many forays into jazz and opera, he has collaborated with film, fashion, and visual art. He is a devoted educator and the first-ever artist in residence at the Colburn School, which awards several scholarships in his name.

This season, Thibaudet performs with the Boston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Seatle Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Royal Philharmonic Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestra Zurich, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie, Munich Philharmonic, Shanghai Symphony, National Symphony of Taiwan, and Macao Orchestra.

Thibaudet has appeared on more than 70 albums and six film scores; his extensive catalogue has received two Grammy nominations, two Echo Awards, the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, the Diapason d’Or, the Choc du Monde de la Musique, the Edison Prize, and Gramophone awards. Recent recordings include Gershwin Rhapsody with Michael Feinstein; Night After Night, a celebration of James Newton Howard’s scores for the films of M. Night Shyamalan; and Carte Blanche, a collection of deeply personal solo piano pieces.

He was soloist on Aaron Zigman’s score for Wakefield, Dario Marianelli’s scores for the films Atonement (which won an Oscar for Best Original Score) and Pride and Prejudice, as well as Alexandre Desplat’s soundtracks for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch. He had a cameo in Bruce Beresford’s film on Alma Mahler, Bride of the Wind, and his playing is showcased throughout.

Thibaudet was born in Lyon, where he began his piano studies at age five, and entered the Paris Conservatory at 12. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 1994, and last year soloed in a multisensory performance of Scriabin’s Prometheus in collaboration with Esa-Pekka Salonen and Cartier. Among his awards are the Victoire d’Honneur, induction into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame, and being named an Officier by the French Ministry of Culture.

Through her Corsican background, Mathilde Laurent, Cartier in-house perfumer, inherited both a love of nature and the courage to fight for beautiful causes, such as the reconciliation of art with the sense of smell and perfumery.

The art of fragrance has been assimilated to the idea of scent and an animalistic facet of human beings. As a result, this craft has barely developed, leaving the industry to be the primary guiding force.
Ms. Laurent strives to balance this preeminence by adding a touch of poetry, art, and the sacred to each of her creations to encourage a love of olfaction and perfume, with all they awaken and elevate in us, just as we would explore art through music, painting, or sculpture.

She has devoted herself to this research within various leading Maisons: first Guerlain, followed by Cartier—a Maison that values art and is driven by a desire for timelessness and style—where she has been the first female in-house perfumer and creative director since 2005.

Ms. Laurent seeks to translate Cartier’s imaginative and daring style into fragrance and elevate perfumery to its highest level. Her creations are not bound by any consensus and soulfully relate the history of perfumery art to the history of the Maison. What sets her apart is also the way she considers molecular perfumery as a noble discipline. For her, beauty is not limited to nature. Synthetic compounds are responsible for some of the greatest masterpieces of modern and contemporary perfumery.

Convinced of the intrinsic link between perfume and art, she led the opening of new fields of experimentation for Cartier: USO or “Unidentified Scented Objects,” experimental installations, born out of a desire to “take perfume out of its bottle and allow the public to experience the unexpected power of olfaction.” The first iteration was created in 2017 outside the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, before being exhibited at the Louvre Abu Dhabi in 2019 as part of the “10,000 Years of Luxury” exhibition. In 2022, USO 2, entitled “The Scented Myth,” was presented in Paris.

Ms. Laurent’s creations include La XIIIe Heure (2009) from the collections Les Heures de Parfum, honored with the Creative Perfumers Award and the Specialist Award by the Fragrance Foundation France; Baiser Volé (2011); La Panthère (2014), for which she was awarded the Olfactorama Prize in 2015; Les Épures de Parfum (2020); and Rivières de Cartier (2021), a collection awarded two prizes for responsible innovation by the Fragrance Foundation France and the Accademia del Profumo, Italy (2022), among others.

Michelle DeYoung has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, Vienna Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Bavarian State Orchestra, Berlin Staatskapelle, and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. She made her San Francisco Symphony debut in September 1995 as a Shenson Young Artist.

On the opera stage, she has appeared at the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Glimmerglass Opera, La Scala, Bayreuth Festival, Berlin State Opera, Hamburg State Opera, Paris Opera, Thèâtre du Châtelet, Opéra de Nice, English National Opera, Theater Basel, and Tokyo Opera. Her many roles include the title roles in Samson et Dalila and The Rape of Lucretia; Fricka, Sieglinde, and Waltraute in Wagner’s Ring Cycle; Kundry in Parsifal; Venus in Tannhäuser; Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde; Herodias in Salome; Ježibaba in Rusalka; Eboli in Don Carlos; Amneris in Aïda; Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana; Marguerite in Le Damnation de Faust; Didon in Les Troyens; Gertrude in Hamlet; and Jocaste in Oedipus rex. She also created the role of the Shaman in Tan Dun’s The First Emperor at the Met.

A multiple Grammy Award–winning artist, Ms. DeYoung’s discography includes Kindertotenlieder, Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, and Das Klagende Lied with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony on SFS Media; Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and Götterdämmerung with Jaap van Zweden and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra on Naxos; Les Troyens with Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra on LSO Live!; and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra on Deutsche Grammophon. Ms. DeYoung is the founder and conductor of Ensemble Charité, an organization which supports charities while fostering young, emerging musicians.

Grammy Award–winner Gerald Finley performs with the world’s major opera companies and orchestras in a wide variety of repertoire. His career initially focused on the music of Mozart, and then encompassed major Wagner and Verdi repertoire, as well as the title roles in Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and Rossini’s William Tell. He created the role of J. Robert Oppenheimer in John Adams’s Doctor Atomic at San Francisco Opera and performed it at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Metropolitan Opera, and English National Opera.

Highlights this season include Hans Sachs in Die Meister-singer von Nürnberg in Madrid; the European premiere of Adams’s Antony and Cleopatra in Barcelona; and returns to Bavarian State Opera as Amfortas in Parsifal and the Royal Opera House as Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte. In concert, he performs Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia; Mendelssohn’s Elijah with London Symphony; and Bluebeard’s Castle at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Oslo Philharmonic, and in his San Francisco Symphony debut this week.

Recent engagements saw Mr. Finley as Antony in the world premiere of Adams’s Antony and Cleopatra at San Francisco Opera, Scarpia in Tosca and Count in Le nozze di Figaro at the Paris Opera, his debut as the title role in Der fliegende Holländer at Berlin State Opera, Wolfram in Tannhäuser at the Royal Opera House, Iago in Otello at Bavarian State Opera and the Canadian Opera Company, Bluebeard’s Castle and Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera, and the title role in Falstaff at the Vienna State Opera and Salzburg Festival. Mr. Finley’s concert appearances include the London Symphony, Vienna Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony, and Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Mr. Finley was born in Montreal, began singing as a chorister in Ottawa, and completed his musical studies in England at the Royal College of Music; King’s College, Cambridge; and the National Opera Studio. In 2017 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire and was previously appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Breezy Leigh has appeared in the regional premiere of the Pulitzer Prize–finalist drama Stew at Gloucester Stage Company, the world premiere of Joy and Pandemic at the Huntington Theatre Company, Superstitions with Oklahoma City Repertory Theater, Animals Out of Paper with Chautauqua Theater Company, Le Blanc with Peoples Improv Theater, and A Sketch of New York at Producers’ Club Theater. She made her San Francisco Symphony debut in June 2022 as Antigone in Stravinsky’s Oedipus rex, directed by Peter Sellars. Film and television appearances include Step Into My Office for BRIC TV and Baby Mama Drama for Chela Films. She earned an MFA from American Conservatory Theater and a BA with honors from the University of Virginia.