{"id":327904,"date":"2026-05-22T14:42:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T14:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/327904\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T14:42:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T14:42:25","slug":"san-francisco-symphony-appoints-elim-chan-as-the-first-female-music-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/327904\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco Symphony appoints Elim Chan as the first female music director"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Brief<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The San Francisco Symphony announced on Thursday Elim Chan will serve as the first female music director in the orchestra\u2019s history.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">She starts in September 2027 and will lead the orchestra in a minimum of 10 weeks of programming.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Chan will be conducting the Orchestra on June 5 and 6 in a program alongside several artists.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">SAN FRANCISCO &#8211; The San Francisco Symphony announced on Thursday that they chose Elim Chan as the first female music director in the orchestra\u2019s 115-year history.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">She starts in September 2027 and will lead the orchestra in a minimum of 10 weeks of programming.<\/p>\n<p>Before Chan<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Former directors<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Her predecessor, Esa-Pekka Salonen, ended his tenure in 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Before Salonen, the Symphony was directed by the late Michael Tilson Thomas, who was in that position from 1995-2020. He was a visionary in music who also broke barriers, being one of the first prominent and openly gay conductors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">San Francisco Symphony&#8217;s publicist, Georgiana Du, clarified that there is no music director during their 2026-27 season, and they will have a lineup of guest conductors to fill in.<\/p>\n<p>Who is Elim Chan?<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Dig deeper<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;She does not simply program new music\u2014she lives inside it,&#8221; Symphony Chief Executive Officer Matthew Spivey said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfsymphony.org\/getmedia\/47694a8f-dfb8-460b-a4bd-feb255385af4\/Elim-Chan-Named-Next-Music-Director-of-the-SF-Symphony.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:statement;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;statement&quot;}\" class=\"link \">statement<\/a>. &#8220;[&#8230;] She brings the strength, empathy, and intellectual rigor that orchestral leadership demands today.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ktvu.com\/tag\/us\/ca\/san-francisco\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:San Francisco;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;San Francisco&quot;}\" class=\"link \">San Francisco<\/a> Symphony is looking forward to collaborating with her and believes that her appointment ushers in a new beginning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Chan was born in Hong Kong, but studied at Smith College in Massachusetts and the University of Michigan, according to her biography.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Since then, she\u2019s had an extensive musical career and established precedents. In 2014, she became the first woman to win the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition in England, and later served as an assistant conductor at the London Symphony Orchestra.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;San Francisco has always thrived on bold vision and reinvention,&#8221; said San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors Chair Priscilla B. Geslin in a statement. &#8220;And in Elim Chan we have exactly the Music Director this moment calls for.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">What&#8217;s next<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Chan will be conducting the Orchestra on June 5 and 6 in a program alongside several artists, and following the performance will be a post-concert welcome celebration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Source<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">San Francisco Symphony and Elim Chan \u2018About\u2019 Page<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brief The San Francisco Symphony announced on Thursday Elim Chan will serve as the first female music&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[136095,49534,101,103,102,31162,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-327904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-elim-chan","tag-music-director","tag-san-francisco","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\/327904","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=327904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}