Conductor Elim Chan embodies the spirit of contemporary orchestral leadership with her crystalline precision and expressive zeal. In May 2026 she assumed the role of Music Director Designate of the San Francisco Symphony, a position she will begin in September 2027. She was recently appointed Artistic Partner with the Vienna Symphony for the 2026–27 and 2027–28 seasons, following her designation as Portrait Artist at the Musikverein in the 2022–23 season. Chan served as Principal Conductor of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra from 2019–2024 and Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra between 2018–2023.

Chan made her San Francisco Symphony debut during the 2022–23 season in a program that included the world premiere of Elizabeth Ogonek’s Moondog, a Symphony commission. Subsequent appearances here have included Britten’s Les Illuminations and Holst’s The Planets and an all-Tchaikovsky program. Upcoming concerts with the San Francisco Symphony will feature Debussy’s La Mer and Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été with mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke in June 2026, and a program pairing choral works of Brahms and Arvo Pärt with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto alongside Renaud Capuçon, and the first SF Symphony performances of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic Symphony, in October 2026.

A sought-after guest conductor, Chan will make her Berlin Philharmonic debut in the 2026–27 season, alongside first appearances with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra, and Dallas Symphony Orchestra. She conducts her first staged opera with John Adams’s Doctor Atomic at Zurich Opera House in a new production. In 2028, she will make her Vienna Philharmonic debut.

Recent debuts and upcoming re-invitations include leading orchestras such as the Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Pittsburgh Symphony in the United States, and the Toronto Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Staatskapelle Berlin, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, Munich Philharmonic, Bamberg Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, and Hong Kong Philharmonic internationally.

Chan appeared at both the Lucerne and Salzburg festivals and conducted the First Night of the Proms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 2024 and returned in 2025 to conduct the Last Night of the Proms. With the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, she recorded All These Lighted Things for Alpha Classics, pairing the titular Elizabeth Ogonek work with works by Prokofiev and Ravel.

Born in Hong Kong, Elim Chan studied at Smith College in Massachusetts and at the University of Michigan. In 2014, she became the first female winner of the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition and went on to spend her 2015–16 season as Assistant Conductor at the London Symphony Orchestra, where she worked closely with Valery Gergiev. In the following season, Chan joined the Dudamel Fellowship program of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She also owes much to the support and encouragement of Bernard Haitink, whose masterclasses she attended in Lucerne in 2015.

Two-time Grammy Award–winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke has sung at the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, English National Opera, Seattle Opera, Opéra National de Bordeaux, and Gran Teatre del Liceu, among others, and with more than 100 symphony orchestras worldwide. This season, she sings Elgar’s Sea Pictures with the Minnesota Orchestra, Ravel’s Shéhérazade with the Houston Symphony, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with Orchestre National de France, a world premiere by Bernard Foccroulle and Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer with the London Symphony Orchestra, Verdi’s Requiem with the Baltimore Symphony, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Chicago Symphony, among other appearances.

Cooke made her San Francisco Symphony debut in June 2009 and became a Shenson Young Artist in January 2010. She toured Europe with Michael Tilson Thomas and the Symphony, premiered MTT’s Meditations on Rilke (captured on a Grammy-winning SFS Media release), and recorded two of MTT’s songs on Grace: The Music of Michael Tilson Thomas. Last season, she sang Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été with the Symphony and Music Director Designate Elim Chan.

Cooke is a graduate of Rice University and the Juilliard School. She also attended the Music Academy of the West, Aspen Music Festival, Ravinia Festival’s Stearns Music Institute, Wolf Trap Foundation, Marlboro Music Festival, and the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program.