Jun Märkl serves as music director of the Taiwan National Symphony, music director of the Indianapolis Symphony, chief conductor of the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague, and principal guest conductor of the Oregon Symphony. He previously served as music director of Orchestre National de Lyon, the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony, Basque National Orchestra, and Malaysia Philharmonic.

Märkl regularly guest conducts major orchestras in North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, NHK Tokyo, and many others. His expertise in the world of opera has led to long relationships with the Vienna State Opera, Berlin State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Semperoper Dresden, Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, and New National Theatre in Tokyo. He makes his San Francisco Symphony debut with this program.

On recording, Märkl has an extensive discography of more than 55 albums. In recognition of his achievements in France, he was honored in 2012 with the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Märkl is highly dedicated to work with young musicians: for many years he worked as principal conductor at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo and at the Aspen Music Festival. He teaches as a guest professor at the Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo and founded the National Youth Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan. He studied in Munich with Sergiu Celibidache and at Tanglewood with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa.

Highlights of Leonidas Kavakos’s 2025–26 season include performances with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, NHK Symphony, NDR Symphony, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and conducting engagements with the Czech Philharmonic, London Philharmonia, Barcelona Symphony, and Minnesota Orchestra. In 2022, he founded the ApollΩn Ensemble, a chamber group of elite Greek musicians, and in 2025 he takes over as the artistic director of the “Classic Revolution” Festival at Lotte Concert Hall in Seoul.

Kavakos’s award-winning discography includes the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly on Decca, and play-directing the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Bavarian Radio Symphony on Sony Classical. He was named Echo Klassik Instrumentalist of the Year for his recording of the complete Beethoven sonatas with Enrico Pace. With Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma, Kavakos has released a series of trio recordings, and he has recorded Bach’s violin con­certos with the ApollΩn Ensemble.

Kavakos curates an annual violin and chamber music master­class in Athens, where he was born and brought up in a musical family. In 2022, He was elected by the Academy of Athens as a member of the Chair of Music in the Second Class of Letters and Fine Arts for his services to music. In 2024, he was appointed pro­fessor of violin at the Basel Academy of Music. Kavakos plays the “Willemotte” Stradivari violin of 1734. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut with a March 1994 recital and debuted with the Orchestra in April 2005.