A passionate communicator, Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser brings clarity and meaning to the concert hall, fostering deep connections between audiences and performers. He has been the San Francisco Symphony’s Resident Conductor of Engagement and Education since 2021, and recently extended his contract through the 2026–27 season. Bartholomew-Poyser is concurrently the Barrett Principal Education Conductor and Community Ambassador of the Toronto Symphony, Artist in Residence and Community Ambassador of Symphony Nova Scotia, and Principal Youth Conductor and Artistic Partner of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra. He previously served as assistant conductor of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and associate conductor of the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra. Bartholomew-Poyser has performed with the Detroit Symphony, Carnegie Hall Link-Up Orchestra, Canadian Opera Company, Vancouver Symphony, Edmonton Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Chicago Philharmonic, was cover conductor with the Washington National Opera in 2020, and was music director of the Kennedy Center Summer Music Institute in 2022.

Recently, Bartholomew-Poyser debuted with the New York Philharmonic and New Jersey Symphony in addition to making his debut at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in all-Tchaikovsky program. Host of the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s weekly radio show Centre Stage, he also serves on the board of the Conductor’s Retreat at Medomak in Michigan. He is the subject of a multi award-winning CBC documentary Disruptor Conductor, focusing on his efforts to extend the boundaries of the orchestral music world through concerts for neurodiverse, incarcerated, African diaspora, and LGBTQ2S+ populations.

Bartholomew-Poyser earned his bachelor’s degree in music performance and education from the University of Calgary and his master of philosophy in performance from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England.

American and South African soprano Vuyiswa Sigadi was born in Des Moines, Iowa, spent much of her early musical training in Dallas with her father, and began vocal studies with her mother. During her high school years, she discovered a deep passion for opera and classical singing. Sigadi has won multiple awards from the Texas Music Educators Association and State Solo and Ensemble Contest, and was a gold medalist in the NAACP’s ACT-SO competition, a National YoungArts winner, and a first place winner of the 2025 American Protégé Competition, which led to a debut at Carnegie Hall.

Sigadi earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with César Ulloa and was selected for Craig Terry’s Beyond the Aria concert. She was a finalist in the Schmidt Vocal Competition and has appeared in operatic productions, including Acis and Galatea as Galatea. This spring, she will make her role debut as Lisette in La rondine with the SFCM Opera Theater. She makes her San Francisco Symphony debut with this concert.

Shiddharth (Sid) Chand is a tenor of New Zealand Fijian-Indian heritage. Most recently, he performed the title role in Leonard Bernstein’s Candide with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Opera and was named a Manetti Shrem Opera Program Fellow at Festival Napa Valley.

Chand won first place in the inaugural Auckland Opera Studio Aria Scholarship Competition, and was a finalist in the Nicholas Tarling Aria Competition and Lockwood New Zealand Aria Competition, where he was honored with the John Bond Award for Most Promising Voice.

Shiddharth is supported by the Dame Kiri te Kanawa Foundation, Circle100 Foundation, New Zealand Opera Foundation Trust, and Mardell Cosgrove Trust. He makes his San Francisco Symphony debut with this concert.

Elijah Cineas is a baritone from Southern California. He has performed in both opera and musical theater, with companies including Opera Santa Barbara, Lyric Opera Orange County, and Opera Italia, among others. His most recent credits include The King of Spades in Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges and Paris in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette. Cineas is an alumnus of the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University, Long Beach, and is currently studying at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut at the Deck the Hall concert last December.