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.

Internationally recognized as one of today’s most acclaimed and admired pianists, Yefim Bronfman stands among a handful of artists regularly sought by festivals, orchestras, conductors, and recital series.

Following summer festival appearances in Vail, Tanglewood, and Aspen, Bronfman’s 2025–26 season began with an extensive tour of China, Japan, and South Korea. In Europe, Bronfman can be heard this season with orchestras in London, Kristiansand, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Dresden, and on tour with the Israel Philharmonic. A special trio project with Anne-Sophie Mutter and Pablo Ferrández continued with performances in Switzerland, Spain, Germany, and France last fall. With orchestras in North America, he returns to New York Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra (in Miami), Pittsburgh Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, and Montreal Symphony. In recital, Bronfman can be heard in Prague, Milan, Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County, Charlottesville, and Toronto.

Bronfman has been nominated for six Grammy Awards, winning in 1997 with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic for their recording of the three Bartók piano concertos. His prolific catalog includes works for two pianos by Rachmaninoff and Brahms with Emanuel Ax, the complete Prokofiev concertos with the Israel Philharmonic, and the soundtrack to Disney’s Fantasia 2000.

Born in Tashkent in the Soviet Union, Yefim Bronfman immigrated to Israel with his family in 1973, where he studied with pianist Arie Vardi, head of the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University. In the United States, he studied at the Juilliard School, Marlboro School of Music, and Curtis Institute of Music, with Rudolf Firkusny, Leon Fleisher, and Rudolf Serkin. A recipient of the Avery Fisher Prize, in 2010 Bronfman was further honored as the recipient of the Jean Gimbel Lane prize in piano performance from Northwestern University and in 2015 with an honorary doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in January 1981.

JENNY WONG
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.

SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY CHORUS
The San Francisco Symphony Chorus was established in 1973 at the request of Seiji Ozawa, then the Symphony’s Music Director. The Chorus, numbering 32 professionals and more than 120 volunteer members, now performs more than 26 concerts each season. Louis Magor served as the Chorus’s director during its first decade. In 1982 Margaret Hillis assumed the ensemble’s leadership, and the following year Vance George was named Chorus Director, serving through 2005–06. Ragnar Bohlin concluded his tenure as Chorus Director in 2021, a post he had held since 2007. Jenny Wong was named Chorus Director in September 2023.

The Chorus can be heard on many acclaimed San Francisco Symphony recordings and has received Grammy Awards for Best Performance of a Choral Work (for Orff’ s Carmina burana, Brahms’s German Requiem, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 8) and Best Classical Album (for a Stravinsky collection and for Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 and Symphony No. 8).