Conductor Elim Chan at Davies Symphony Hall on Friday, June 5, 2026, her first performance since being named the San Francisco Symphony’s new incoming music director.
Christopher M. Howard/San Francisco Symphony
Elim Chan, the San Francisco Symphony’s music director designate, signs an autograph for a concertgoer during a post-concert welcome celebration on Grove Street outside Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco on Friday, June 5, 2026.
Jana Ašenbrennerová/For the S.F. Chronicle
Elim Chan, the San Francisco Symphony’s music director designate, poses for photos with concertgoers during a post-concert welcome celebration on Grove Street outside Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco on Friday, June 5, 2026.
Jana Ašenbrennerová/For the S.F. Chronicle
Concertgoers gather around Elim Chan, the San Francisco Symphony’s music director designate, during a post-concert welcome celebration on Grove Street outside Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco on Friday, June 5, 2026.
Jana Ašenbrennerová/For the S.F. Chronicle
Elim Chan, the San Francisco Symphony’s music director designate, poses for photos with concertgoers during a post-concert welcome celebration on Grove Street outside Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco on Friday, June 5, 2026.
Jana Ašenbrennerová/For the S.F. Chronicle
San Francisco Symphony with Music Director Designate Elim Chan and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke in a performance of Hector Berlioz’s “Les Nuits d’été” at Davies Symphony Hall on Friday, June 5, 2026.
Christopher M. Howard/San Francisco Symphony
San Francisco Symphony with Music Director Designate Elim Chan and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke at Davies Symphony Hall on Friday, June 5, 2026.
Stefan Cohen/San Francisco Symphony
Elim Chan’s first concert with the San Francisco Symphony since her appointment as its next music director felt like a coronation.
Before a note was played at Davies Symphony Hall on Friday, June 5, a standing ovation and torrent of applause greeted her as she took the stage. In response, Chan flashed a hand heart.
Elim Chan Conducts Debussy’s “La Mer”: San Francisco Symphony. 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 6. Tickets start at $36. Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave., S.F. 415-864-6000. www.sfsymphony.org
“I’m definitely feeling a lot of love,” she told the crowd.
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After intermission, she flung her arms wide and told the packed house she wanted to “give you a big hug in my arms.”
Though she couldn’t literally embrace everyone in the hall, Chan found another way to do it through the music. During the roughly two-hour program, centered on water as a connection between “the City by the Bay and where I’m from, Hong Kong,” as she put it, and culminating in the tidal force of Debussy’s “La Mer,” the audience was swept into her embrace in ways both boisterous and deeply personal.
The San Francisco Symphony welcomed Elim Chan, its newly hired music director, with a block party during her concert on Friday, June 5, 2026 at Davies Symphony Hall. Chan will officially start the role in September 2027.
Mariecar Mendoza
Among them was pianist Anne Rainwater, a concert pianist based in Oakland who remarked on Chan’s “expressiveness” on the podium.
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“Her moves are so fluid and beautiful,” she said of the 39-year-old conductor, who will become the first woman to lead the Symphony in its 115-year history when her six-year term begins in the 2027-28 season.
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Joanna Garaventa, a violinist with the Diablo Symphony Orchestra, hadn’t attended a concert in Davies for years but returned to get a glimpse of what the future might hold for the Symphony under Chan. Garaventa said that being led by a woman conductor, as she is with Matilda Hofman at Diablo, creates “a different connection with the orchestra. It’s more intimate.”
Chan’s conducting presence reads big without being excessively demonstrative or showy. Most everything she does looks and feels purposeful and efficient, from her clear beats, to hand-pinched cutoffs and supple cues. When the moment demands it — a big surge, brass payoff or concussive climax — she delivers with full-body force.
Conductor Elim Chan at Davies Symphony Hall on Friday, June 5, 2026, her first performance since being named the San Francisco Symphony’s new incoming music director.
Christopher M. Howard/San Francisco Symphony
Dressed in a fitted embroidered jacket over a black dress, Chan conveyed both elegance and dynamism in her bouncy knee bends and the way she leaned over the musicians as if to summon and shape every note and measure.
That affectionate atmosphere set the stage for Wagner’s Prelude and “Liebestod” from “Tristan und Isolde.”
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Chan’s early tempos were dramatically poised, with hushed phrase endings and a subliminal, almost repressed lushness. It was gorgeously delicate, recalling her sensitive reading of Elizabeth Ogonek’s “Moondog” here in 2023. The Wagner grew a bit unruly later on, with some balance issues and momentum swerves that righted themselves for a movingly rendered finish.
With the sublime mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke as soloist, Hector Berlioz’s “Les Nuits d’eté” (The Nights of Summer) came next. Through its six emotional songs, Chan and the orchestra partnered exquisitely with the singer. The ensemble was by turns glossy and pulsing, lamenting and vigorous, as the moods of Théophile Gautier’s poems unfolded.
Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke returned to the stage for an encore dedicated to Michael Tilson Thomas during the San Francisco Symphony concert with incoming music director Elim Chan on Friday, June 5, 2026, at Davies Symphony Hall.
Mariecar Mendoza
When it was over, Cooke took the microphone to recall a moment when the late Michael Tilson Thomas kissed the hem of her skirt after a performance of these Berlioz songs. She then leaned down and kissed Chan’s skirt, a touching gesture that felt like a metaphorical passing of the baton.
Equally moving was Cooke’s quietly plangent encore of Thomas’ setting of the Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “Widening Circle.”
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Chris Eden, who came in from San Bruno to attend his first-ever Symphony concert, told the Chronicle during intermission that he was “overwhelmed with emotions.”
Concertgoers gather during a post-concert welcome celebration for Elim Chan, the San Francisco Symphony’s music director designate, on Grove Street outside Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco on Friday, June 5, 2026.
Jana Ašenbrennerová/For the S.F. Chronicle
Debussy’s “La Mer” provided a fitting culmination to both the program’s water motif and the evening’s celebratory mood. In three movements, it portrays the complex interplay of the ocean’s currents, power, depth, and shimmering play of waves and light.
Chan led a powerfully charged performance that favored high impact over painterly subtleties. It may not have been the most finely-hued account of the piece, but on a high voltage night like this one, a power surge was a fitting climax. It also echoed the brilliant, galactic shine she brought to Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” here in 2023.
Chan’s spirit kept going after the music was through. Presented with a large bouquet, she plucked out flowers and handed them around to section leaders.
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San Francisco Symphony Music Director Designate Elim Chan receives a bouquet after her concert at Davies Symphony Hall on Friday, June 5, 2026.
Stefan Cohen/San Francisco Symphony
Fifteen minutes later, when she made her way out to the Grove Street block party in her honor, the first group she encountered was a family with two awe-struck children, who shyly asked for her autograph. Chan obliged and spent time chatting and listening to the girls before posing for pictures.
After her May 22 press conference at City Hall, an orchestra member said “she’s so normal” in admiration of Chan.
But perhaps it was David Landis, the Symphony’s public relations director from 1980-1987, who best captured what Chan’s ascension represents.
“They’re taking a risk on a young new talent instead of going for something familiar,” Landis said.
“San Francisco is changing. It’s a new world, and this meets the moment.”
Steven Winn is a freelance writer. This story has been provided in partnership with San Francisco Classical Voice.