In Thursday’s (9/17) San Francisco Chronicle, Joshua Kosman writes, “The San Francisco Symphony has appointed Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck as its newly created festival director, a post that calls for him to create and conduct a multiweek themed music festival with the orchestra each year. Honeck, 68, will take up the five-year position beginning with the 2028-29 season, the orchestra announced Thursday, Sept. 17…. Honeck will conduct the Symphony for at least four weeks every season: two to three weeks devoted to the festival offerings and additional weeks in which he will conduct the orchestra’s regular subscription concerts. The specifics of the programming will be announced … Every edition of the festival will be built on a broad theme reflecting some part of the human experience, such as love, birth or death…. One relevant model is the reimagined version of Mozart’s Requiem that Honeck performed with the Symphony in February, which incorporated poetic texts and other short Mozart works into the composer’s unfinished final masterpiece…. Honeck has been music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony since 2008. His contract was recently extended through the 2032-33 season.” Elim Chan was named music director of the San Francisco Symphony this May, starting officially with the 2027-28 season.
