Thomas Wilkins is principal conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, artistic advisor for education and community engagement at the Boston Symphony, principal guest conductor of the Virginia Symphony, and the Henry A. Upper Chair of orchestral conducting at Indiana University. He served as music director of the Omaha Symphony until 2021, and other past positions have included resident conductor of the Detroit Symphony and Florida Orchestra and associate conductor of the Richmond Symphony in Virginia. He also has served on the music faculties of North Park University in Chicago, the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga, and Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. He has guest conducted orchestras throughout the United States and made his San Francisco Symphony debut in December 2019.

Devoted to promoting a lifelong enthusiasm for music, Wilkins brings energy and commitment to audiences of all ages. He has received many awards, including the League of American Orchestras’ Gold Baton Award and the Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards Lifetime Achievement Award for Music. Boston’s Longy School of Music awarded him the Leonard Bernstein Lifetime Achievement Award for the Elevation of Music in Society, and he was the beneficiary of an honorary doctorate of the arts from the Boston Conservatory.

Michelle Cann has appeared with the Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony, and the São Paulo Municipal Symphony. Her honors include the Sphinx Medal of Excellence and the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award. In 2024 she was named the inaugural Christel DeHaan Artistic Partner of the American Pianists Association. She makes her San Francisco Symphony debut with this program.

A leading interpreter of Florence Price, Cann recorded Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement with the New York Youth Symphony, which won a Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance. Her solo debut album, Revival, featuring music by Price and Margaret Bonds, was released in May 2023 on the Curtis Studio label. With soprano Karen Slack, she recorded Beyond the Years, featuring 19 unpublished songs composed by Price.
 
Cann holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and an artist’s diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music. She joined the Curtis piano faculty in 2020 as the inaugural Eleanor Sokoloff Chair in Piano Studies and is also on the piano faculty of the Manhattan School of Music.