Elim Chan, a Hong Kong-born conductor, has been appointed music director of the San Francisco Symphony, taking over one of nation\u2019s top orchestra jobs in a field that has historically been dominated by men.<\/p>\n
Chan, 39, will become the music director-designate in June, with a series of concerts at Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, the orchestra said Thursday. She officially takes over the position in September 2027, the beginning of a six-year term.<\/p>\n
Chan\u2019s appointment comes during one of the more difficult chapters in the orchestra\u2019s 115-year history, following the departure of its last music director<\/a>, Esa-Pekka Salonen. Salonen announced in 2024 that he was stepping down at the end of his contract the next year, saying he did not \u201cshare the same goals for the future of the institution as the Board of Governors.\u201d His decision came as the symphony cut spending \u2014 postponing commissions and canceling a European tour \u2014 to deal with a drop in audience revenue and contributions during the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n Matthew Spivey, the chief executive officer of the symphony, said he hoped that it was moving past these difficult few years. \u201cWe are very optimistic about where the organization is headed\u201d under Chan, he said. \u201cHer vision aligns so beautifully with who we are. She programs with genuine curiosity. And she is committed to expanding the orchestral canon.\u201d<\/p>\n In an interview, Chan, a former chief conductor of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, described her appointment as a milestone for female conductors.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it happened, I was like, \u2018Oh my God \u2014 it\u2019s time,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cIt is groundbreaking. It\u2019s another ceiling broken. I still have people in the audience say to me, \u2018It is the first time I\u2019ve seen a woman conducting.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Women have led American orchestras before. Marin Alsop served as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra from 2007 to 2021; JoAnn Falletta is the director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. But the San Francisco Symphony is widely considered one of the country\u2019s top seven orchestras, reflecting stature, budgets and the size of the cities where they are based. The others are New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n The San Francisco Symphony has, like many performing arts organizations, faced budgetary struggles and declining audiences in recent years. The situation, officials said, was particularly challenging in San Francisco because of a sharp rise in employees\u2019 working from home outside the city rather in downtown offices (nearer Davies Hall), prompting the symphony to begin paring back its ambitions.<\/p>\n San Francisco has<\/a> seen an economic turnaround recently, driven by the artificial intelligence boom and its influx of workers. Chan\u2019s appointment is set to be celebrated later Thursday at a ceremony at City Hall with Daniel Lurie, the heir to the Levi Strauss & Co. fortune, who defeated the incumbent and fellow Democrat London Breed to become mayor in 2025.<\/a><\/p>\n Chan said she had taken the orchestra\u2019s troubles into account when she was considering whether to take the job. She said she had had \u201cvery open, frank, deep conversations\u201d with orchestra leaders and musicians about the organization\u2019s recent difficult years.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first thing I said is, \u2018Don\u2019t sugarcoat anything, don\u2019t try to impress me, just be real and talk,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cI think that is very important because I don\u2019t want any sort of surprises, as what happened, and promises, empty promises.\u201d<\/p>\n She said she was convinced that five years after the pandemic shutdown, this is now \u201ca different time.\u201d The orchestra has announced a tour of Southern California and has an ambitious calendar of programming, including a semi-staged version of Stravinsky\u2019s \u201cFirebird.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe all want this to be a success,\u201d Chan said. \u201cThose conversations made me feel I can do this with them.\u201d She said she had not had a chance to discuss the job with Salonen. In a statement provided by the symphony, Salonen praised her appointment. \u201cI look forward to great things in the years ahead,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Jessie Fellows, an assistant principal second violin player, was a member of the search committee that picked Chan. \u201cShe stood out to me and everyone from the committee,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Fellows said that orchestra members had \u201cfelt a little blindsided\u201d by the changes the orchestra implemented two years ago, including the cancellation of the European tour. \u201cBut there is a lot of trust that is being rebuilt,\u201d she said. \u201cI think things are going in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n Chan said she was considering a number of ways to bring back the audience, and particularly to develop a following among younger people, including shorter concerts that start earlier in the evening, allowing people to come straight from work.<\/p>\n Chan said she planned to get an apartment in San Francisco and would conduct there at least 10 weeks a year. The first time she visited the city was in 2016, when she was touring as a fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She made her debut with the San Francisco Symphony as a guest conductor in the 2022-23 season<\/p>\n She also serves as the artistic partner with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and served as principal guest conductor with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra from 2018 to 2023.<\/p>\n Chan, described San Francisco as a \u201cvery European city,\u201d and one that welcomed change.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m doing one of the most old school jobs there is, I mean \u2014 conductor \u2014 and then to work with an orchestra to preserve the big masterpieces: Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart,\u201d she said. \u201cBut at the same time, who I am is a very sort of modern idea.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elim Chan, a Hong Kong-born conductor, has been appointed music director of the San Francisco Symphony, taking over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[116171,136061,7974,136062,136063,113227,101,8263,103,102,31162,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-327496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-appointments-and-executive-changes","tag-chan","tag-classical-music","tag-elim","tag-esa-pekka","tag-salonen","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-calif","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-san-francisco-symphony","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}