Chan joins the Orchestra as Music Director Designate effective immediately and officially begins her tenure as Music Director in September 2027.

 As Music Director Designate, she leads the San Francisco Symphony June 5 & 6 in a program featuring music by Wagner, Berlioz, and Debussy.

The San Francisco Symphony today announced that Elim Chan will become the Orchestra’s next Music Director, beginning in September 2027. Chan will be the 13th Music Director in the San Francisco Symphony’s 115-year history when she takes the post in the 2027–28 season for an initial six-year term. One of the most sought-after artists of her generation, Elim Chan embodies the spirit of contemporary orchestral leadership with her crystalline precision and expressive zeal. 

Elim Chan joins the San Francisco Symphony as Music Director Designate effective immediately, and conducts the Orchestra June 5 & 6 in a program including Richard Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, Hector Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été featuring mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke as soloist, and Claude Debussy’s La Mer. Tickets for these concerts are available now at sfsymphony.org/elimchan. Following the performance on Friday, June 5, all ticketholders are invited to a post-concert welcome celebration featuring complimentary live music, light food, and beverages.  

In September 2027, Elim Chan begins her tenure as Music Director, leading the Orchestra in a minimum of 10 weeks of programming, including the Opening Gala and All San Francisco concert. From the 2028–29 season onward, she will conduct a minimum of 10 subscription weeks, as well as Opening Week, with an additional three weeks devoted to special projects such as touring and SoundBox.  

“In Elim Chan, we have found a musician of unusual gifts and a leader of equal substance—a rare combination, and the one behind her remarkable international rise,” said San Francisco Symphony Chief Executive Officer Matthew Spivey. “What sets her apart on the podium is the conviction she brings to the music itself. Works orchestras have played a hundred times sound newly made under her hand, lit by a feeling for structure, color, and emotional architecture that audiences hear before they can name. Just as distinctive is the company she keeps with living composers. She does not simply program new music—she lives inside it, shaping what the canon can become by advocating for it. Her artistry sits naturally inside the San Francisco Symphony's lineage—an orchestra long known for its sound, its appetite for new work, and its conviction that the great repertoire is something to be tested and reanimated, not preserved under glass. She brings the strength, empathy, and intellectual rigor that orchestral leadership demands today, and the generosity to be an effective partner with our musicians, our board, and our community in the work ahead. Her arrival opens new territory for this great American orchestra.”

“The San Francisco Symphony is one of the truly great orchestras of the world, and I am honored to take the podium as its next Music Director, said San Francisco Symphony Music Director Designate Elim Chan. “From my very first encounter with this orchestra, I have been genuinely struck by the generosity of its musicians—exemplified in their sound, their music-making, and in their spirit. The Bay Area has long been the place where the future gets invented. This orchestra carries that same restless, forward-looking energy in everything it does. Stepping into the rich legacy of my distinguished predecessors, it is this exact spirit that I want to nurture and explore every single night, together with these incredible musicians. I also look forward immensely to interacting with the San Francisco Symphony’s audiences and my new community as we begin this exciting journey together.”

Elim Chan 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, conducting a program that included the world premiere of Elizabeth Ogonek’s Moondog, a Symphony commission, which Joshua Kosman (San Francisco Chronicle) called, “a dynamic and splendidly controlled debut.” Subsequent appearances, including performances of Britten’s Les Illuminations and Holst’s The Planets and an all-Tchaikovsky program, also garnered critical praise. Following her second conducting appearance in October 2023, Kosman proclaimed that Chan is “the real deal.” “For one thing,” he continued, “Chan … projects a degree of physical authority from the podium that is rare to witness. All she has to do is raise her arms and the orchestra responds with torrents of finely shaped sounds, as if she were some kind of Wagnerian superhero bending the sonic environment to her will. At the same time, she leaves plenty of space for eloquent turns of phrase and the slight fluctuations in rhythm that make music sound truly alive.” 

Of her March 2025 all-Tchaikovsky program, Michael Zwiebach (San Francisco Classical Voice, San Francisco Chronicle) noted, “It’s clear by now that conductor Elim Chan can bring out the best in a top-rank orchestra. … Chan clearly works from a detailed conception of the score, but what the audience sees is a conductor who is as communicative as a dancer. … Her hand and arm movements are connected to her body’s core, and she stretches and bends with the musical phrases.” 

Upcoming concerts with the San Francisco Symphony 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 London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Staatskapelle Berlin, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, Munich Philharmonic, Bamberg Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and Toronto Symphony 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. 

The San Francisco Symphony releases digital audio and video recordings of Kev Choice’s Movements on SFS Media, available September 24, 2021 wherever music is streamed and downloaded. Originally recorded in August 2020 as part of the Symphony’s CURRENTS series and featuring performances from Kev Choice, AÏMA the DRMR, and local artists alongside San Francisco Symphony musicians, Movements was first heard in CURRENTS: From Scratch on September 3, 2020. In Movements, Choice skillfully interweaves elements of Hip Hop, Classical, Jazz, Soul, and Funk, along with socially conscious lyrics to offer a reflection of our times, creating a unique sound described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “a virtuoso exercise in combining multiple musical and verbal strains into a tight artistic weave.” Movements will be available September 24, 2021 in 24-bit/96kHz studio master-quality as a digital download and streaming; the music video and the audio will be distributed on all applicable digital service providers worldwide. For more information, program notes, and performance video footage, visit sfsymphony.org/movements, and check out this promotional video clip to get some insights about Movements from Kev Choice.

Kev Choice comments, “I made it a point with Movements to reflect what was going on right now, in our current times, the things that I see in my community, the things that I see in our streets, the uprisings, the voices of the people standing up, how it's really affecting us and how we're responding to it….And where we're trying to go with this movement, which is a continuation of so many of other movements of social justice that I would say our ancestors have been fighting for years and decades….And just tie it all into how this music is a reflection of that.”

The San Francisco Symphony honors Michael Tilson Thomas’ remarkable 25-year tenure as Music Director with MTT25: An Online Tribute — featuring expanded digital content, virtual events, and more, June 4–28, 2020.

Exclusive content from MTT’s 25 years as Music Director—including archival audio recordings, videos, photos, and personal memories to be released daily for 25 consecutive days, beginning June 4th. 

MTT25 culminates in global virtual event on June 28 at 5pm PDT, hosted by Audra McDonald and Susan Graham and featuring musical performances by renowned guest artists, members of the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus, and plenty of surprises.

To join the activities and subscribe for updates, visit sfsymphony.org/MTT25

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — The San Francisco Symphony today launches MTT25: An Online Tribute—a special 25-day digital tribute in honor of Michael Tilson Thomas’ (MTT) extraordinary 25-year tenure as Music Director. The 2019–20 season marks Tilson Thomas’s 25th and final year leading the San Francisco Symphony in what is widely considered one of the most remarkable and productive artistic partnerships in the orchestra world. From June 4 through 28, the San Francisco Symphony will release original and archival content daily, highlighting achievements, milestones, artistic projects, and relationships illustrative of MTT and the Orchestra’s dynamic 25-year partnership. Each day will be anchored by a specific season in MTT’s tenure—beginning today with the inaugural 1995–96 season—which will be showcased with a unique, evolving, and exciting mix of visuals and storytelling.

Activities culminate with MTT25: An Online Tribute Event for Michael Tilson Thomas on June 28, 2020 at 5pm PDT/8pm EDT, hosted by famed vocalists Audra McDonald and Susan Graham, and featuring contributions and tributes by musicians of the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus, an array of distinguished guest artists, and many surprises. This global celebration of Michael Tilson Thomas will stream free of charge on the Symphony’s YouTube channel YouTube.com/SFSymphony.

“Sharing musical experiences in innovative and accessible ways has been a quintessential element of Michael’s 25-year partnership with the San Francisco Symphony,” says San Francisco Symphony CEO Mark C. Hanson. “As we re-envisioned how we would recognize the conclusion of his remarkable tenure as Music Director in the absence of live performances, we focused on two things that hold great personal importance to MTT—the lasting relationships that have grown between Michael, the Orchestra, and musical friends around the world; and the music itself. It is our intent that this 25- day online tribute will connect longtime patrons and new audiences alike through music, people, and stories that illustrate MTT’s legacy of generous and adventurous music making in San Francisco.”