American conductor James Gaffigan is general music director of Komische Oper Berlin and music director of the Queen Sofía Palace of the Arts in Valencia, Spain. As an orchestral conductor, he regularly works with the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, and Metropolitan Opera. In Europe, he has appeared with the London Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, Berlin Staatskapelle, Czech Philharmonic, Bavarian State Opera, and Vienna State Opera.

Gaffigan’s previous titles include principal guest conductor of both the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra and Opera, chief conductor of the Lucerne Symphony, and assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in December 2006, served as Associate Conductor from 2006–09, and returns for three programs next season. He was first prize winner of the 2004 Sir Georg Solti International Conducting Competition.

Rachel Willis-Sørensen began this season with a return to the role of Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus in concert with Les Musiciens du Louvre. She then returned to the Metropolitan Opera to perform Leonora in Il trovatore, which she also sang in March at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. She made her house debut at the Teatro di San Carlo as Elisabetta in Don Carlo, and made her debut at the Philharmonie de Paris in a concert version of La Traviata. In the spring, she made her role and house debut in the title role of Norma at the Berlin State Opera. She makes her San Francisco Symphony debut with these performances.

Previous engagements include San Francisco Opera (most recently as the title role in Rusalka), LA Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Glyndebourne, Paris Opera, and Vienna State Opera, among others. She signed a multi-record deal with Sony Classical, which released her debut album in 2022 and Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs in 2023. Willis-Sørensen won first prizes at the 2014 Operalia Competition and at the 2011 Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition, and she was a winner of the 2010 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. 

Jamie Barton is increasingly recognized for how she uses her powerful instrument offstage—lifting up women, queer people, and other marginalized communities. Her lively social media presence serves as a hub for conversations about body positivity, social justice issues, and LGBTQ+ rights. In recognition of her performance at the Last Night of the Proms, Barton was named 2020 Personality of the Year at the BBC Music Magazine Awards. She is also the winner of the Beverly Sills Artist Award, Richard Tucker Award, both Main and Song Prizes at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, and the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Her solo albums include All Who Wander, which received the 2018 BBC Music Magazine Vocal Award, and Unexpected Shadows, nominated for a 2022 Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. She made her San Francisco Symphony debut in 2021’s Holiday Gaiety program.

This season, Barton made a dual role and company debut as Baba the Turk in The Rake’s Progress at Paris Opera and sang Azucena in the Metropolitan Opera’s Il trovatore. She also debuted as Nettie Fowler in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel with Boston Lyric Opera before appearing as Amneris in Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s Aïda. She opened the Danish Radio Symphony season in Das Lied von der Erde and returned to the BBC Proms for Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder with BBC Symphony.

Mario Chang has appeared at the Metropolitan Opera as Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore, the Italian Tenor in Der Rosenkavalier, Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor, and the Fourth Squire in Parsifal. He has also performed at Los Angeles Opera as Rodolfo in La bohème and as Ismaele in Nabucco; at Santa Fe Opera as Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor; and with Washington National Opera, Atlanta Opera, and Opera Frankfurt as Alfredo in La Traviata. He made his Hollywood Bowl debut as Cassio in Otello with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and has appeared at Carnegie Hall.

Chang was a member of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Proogram at the Met and holds an advanced diploma from the Juilliard School. His awards include first prize, zarzuela prize, and audience favorite at the 2014 Operalia Competition, as well as first prize, Plácido Domingo Prize, and Amigos de Sabadell Prize in the Francisco Viñas Competition. A native of Guatemala, he is the founder and director of Querido Arte Ópera de Guatemala, the first opera company in the country, and was appointed an ambassador of peace and culture by the Guatemalan government. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in July 2016.

This season, Morris Robinson returned to the Metropolitan Opera for a new production of Aïda, Houston Grand Opera for Il trovatore, and Atlanta Opera in Macbeth, and appears in concert with the National Symphony and Boston Symphony. He has performed with many of the world’s leading opera companies including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dallas Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Cincinnati Opera, La Scala, and the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Also a prolific concert singer, Robinson has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony, São Paulo Symphony, and NDR Elbphilharmonie. In recital he has been presented by Spivey Hall in Atlanta, the Savannah Music Festival, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Carnegie Hall as part of Jessye Norman’s HONOR! Festival. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 2017’s Handel’s Messiah.

Robinson’s first album, Going Home, was released by Decca. He is also a featured artist on the LA Phil’s recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, which won the 2022 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance. An Atlanta native, he is a graduate of the Citadel and an alumnus of the Metropolitan Lindemann Young Artists Program. 

A native of Hong Kong, Jenny Wong is Chorus Director of the San Francisco Symphony and associate artistic director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Her conducting engagements have included the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Series, Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, Pasadena Symphony and Pops, the Industry, Long Beach Opera, Phoenix Chorale, and Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles. In 2021, Wong was one of nine national recipients of Opera America’s inaugural Opera Grants for Women Stage Directors and Conductors.

As Chorus Director, Wong has worked with SF Symphony Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen and Music Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas, as well as numerous guest conductors. She has also prepared choruses for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony, working with conductors Gustavo Dudamel, Susanna Mälkki, Jonathan Cohen, and Osmo Vänskä, among many others. Wong led the SF Symphony Chorus for the Deutsche Grammophon recording of Kaija Sariaaho’s Adriana Mater, which won the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording, and helped prepare the Los Angeles Master Chorale for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, which won the 2022 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance. Together with Grant Gershon and the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Wong was also awarded the 2022 American Prize in Choral Performance in the Professional Division.