David Afkham recently concluded his tenure as chief conductor and artistic director of the Spanish National Orchestra, having first been appointed as principal conductor in 2014. In recognition of his leadership, he was awarded the Order of Alfonso X the Wise, one of Spain’s highest civilian distinctions in culture, education, and science.
In Europe, Afkham has appeared with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Berlin Staatskapelle, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Vienna Symphony, Orchestre National de France, and Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. In the United States, he has led the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony at Tanglewood, St. Louis Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, and Pittsburgh Symphony. In the opera sphere, he has conducted productions at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Seattle Opera, Dresden Semperoper, the Glyndebourne Festival, and Teatro Real Madrid, among other companies. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in October 2025.
Highlights this season include Afkham’s debut at the BBC Proms with the Spanish National Orchestra. He also returns to the ensemble for two further projects, as well as to the St. Louis Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. He debuts with the Baltimore Symphony and leads two projects with the Hamburg Symphony.
Born in Freiburg, Germany, Afkham began piano and violin lessons at an early age. He was the first recipient of the Bernard Haitink Fund for Young Talent, won first prize at the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition in 2008, and was the inaugural recipient of the Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award in 2010.
 

Since his triumph as winner of the 1970 Chopin International Piano Competition, Garrick Ohlsson has established himself as a musician of magisterial interpretive and technical prowess. Long regarded as one of the world’s leading exponents of the music of Frédéric Chopin, Ohlsson commands an enormous repertoire which ranges over the entire piano literature. 

This season, Ohlsson will return as a guest soloist to the Denver Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Montreal Symphony, Houston Symphony, and Madison Symphony, culminating in a spring appearance with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at 92Y in New York, where he will play and direct both piano concertos of Chopin. 

Ohlsson’s recording with the Takács Quartet of the Edward Elgar and Amy Beach piano quintets won Gramophone’s 2021 Classical Music Award for chamber music. His 10-disc set of the complete Beethoven sonatas has garnered critical acclaim, including a Grammy Award for Vol. 3. In November, Universal Music Group will re-release his 16-disc set of the complete works of Chopin. 

Ohlsson studied at the Juilliard School and was awarded the Avery Fisher Prize in 1994 and the University Musical Society (University of Michigan) Distinguished Artist Award in 1998. He was the 2014 recipient of the Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance from Northwestern University, and in August 2018, the Polish government awarded him the Gloria Artis Gold Medal for Cultural Merit. He is a Steinway Artist and lives in San Francisco, where he serves on the piano faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in May 1972.