The San Francisco Symphony has 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.

Chan will join the San Francisco Symphony as Music Director Designate effective immediately, and will conduct the Orchestra June 5 & 6 in a program including music by Wagner, Berlioz and Debussy.

In September 2027, Elim Chan will begin 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 a statement, San Francisco Symphony Chief Executive Officer Matthew Spivey said, “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. 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.”

Chan added, “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. 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.”

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 also 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.

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