The San Francisco Symphony has appointed Elim Chan as its next music director for an initial six-year term, beginning in September 2027.
The 13th music director in the San Francisco Symphony’s 115-year history, Chan follows in the footsteps of such luminaries as Pierre Monteux, Josef Krips, Seiji Ozawa, Edo De Waart, Herbert Blomstedt, Michael Tilson Thomas, and most recently Esa-Pekka Salonen, who stepped down in 2025.
Chan joins the orchestra as music director designate effective immediately, and begins her tenure on 5 and 6 June in a programme of Wagner, Berlioz and Debussy. From September 2027 she will lead the orchestra in a minimum of 10 weeks of programming, and 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.
Elim Chan comments:
'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. 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.'
Who is Elim Chan?
The first woman to win the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition in 2014, 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. She 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.
A sought-after guest conductor, Chan conducted the First Night of the Proms in 2024. She 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 made her San Francisco Symphony debut during the 2022–23 season.
