Violinist Julia Fischer is a versatile musician also known as a pianist, chamber player, and teacher. Born in Munich to German-Slovakian parents, she received first prize at the international Yehudi Menuhin Competition in 1995 and has since performed with top orchestras worldwide. She made her San Francisco Symphony debut in 2001.

This season Ms. Fischer tours Europe with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and Royal Philharmonic. She holds a residency in Prague, performing chamber music with members of the Czech Philharmonic in addition to a recital and string quartet program. In December she joined Esa-Pekka Salonen for the televised Nobel Prize Concert in Stockholm, and in March gives the world premiere of Daniel Kidane’s violin concerto with the London Philharmonic.

Over the course of her career, Ms. Fischer has released numerous acclaimed recordings on Pentatone and Decca, and in 2017 launched her own music platform, the JF CLUB, which offers exclusive audio and video footage as well as personal insight into her music and her work.

In 2010 Ms. Fischer founded the Julia Fischer Quartet and marked her professional debut as a pianist at the Alte Oper Frankfurt. Teaching is another integral part of her musical life, and in 2019 she founded a children’s orchestra in Munich. She holds numerous awards including the Federal Cross of Merit, Gramophone Award, German Culture Prize, and Cultural Honorary Prize of the City of Munich. She plays a 1742 violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini as well as an 2018 instrument made by Philipp Augustin.

Nicholas Phan has appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, London Symphony, Los Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Glimmerglass, Seattle Opera, Glyndebourne, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, and Frankfurt Opera. An avid recitalist, he cofounded and now directs the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago to promote art song and vocal chamber music. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in June 2009.

Mr. Phan began the 2023–24 season with CAIC’s Collaborative Works Festival and joined Palaver Strings for A Change is Gonna Come, featuring two song cycles composed for him: Nico Muhly’s Stranger and Errollyn Wallen’s Protest Songs. He gives the West Coast premiere of Joel Puckett’s There Was A Child Went Forth with the Berkeley Symphony and the world premiere of Vivian Fung’s Songs for the Next Generation at New York’s Kaufman Music Center, where he is artist in residence for the entire season.

Mr. Phan’s most recent album, Stranger: Works for Tenor by Nico Muhly, was nominated for the 2022 Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album, and two previous albums were also nominated for the same award. Raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Mr. Phan is a graduate of the University of Michigan, also studied at the Manhattan School of Music, and is an alumnus of the Houston Grand Opera Studio. He currently serves as a coach on the faculty of the San Francisco Opera Center, where he works with Adler Fellows.

This season bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni makes his house and role debut with Los Angeles Opera as Don Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia, returns to Opéra National de Paris to sing Achilla in Guilio Cesare, and sings the title role in Don Giovanni with Houston Grand Opera. In concert, he sings Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.

Mr. Pisaroni’s opera repertoire includes Golaud in Pelléas and Mélisande at the Paris Opera; Méphistophélès in Faust at Houston Grand Opera; Conte Rodolfo in La Sonnambula and Mustafà in L’italiana in Algeri at Vienna State Opera; Giorgio in I Puritani and Caliban in The Enchanted Island at the Metropolitan Opera; Pizarro in Fidelio at La Scala; Le nozze di Figaro at Paris Opera, San Francisco Opera, and Bavarian State Opera; Leporello in Don Giovanni at La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, Salzburg Festival, and Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony; Guglielmo in Così fan tutte at Glyndebourne and the Salzburg Festival; and Tiridate in Handel’s Radamisto at Santa Fe Opera.

Recent releases include Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette with the San Francisco Symphony on SFS Media, Beethoven’s Mass in C Major with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, and Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg. In 2019 Mr. Pisaroni was honored as one of five recipients of the Opera News Award. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in Pulcinella in 2015.