{"id":332108,"date":"2026-05-25T22:07:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T22:07:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/332108\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T22:07:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T22:07:41","slug":"i-am-hungry-elim-chan-on-taking-the-lead-at-the-san-francisco-symphony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/332108\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I am hungry\u2019: Elim Chan on taking the lead at the San Francisco Symphony"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hong Kong-born conductor Elim Chan has just made headlines<\/a> as the first woman to be named music director designate of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). Many in the classical music world had expected her to succeed Gustavo Dudamel<\/a> at the Los Angeles Philharmonic.<\/p>\n

As Chan herself acknowledged in an interview with the South China Morning Post on May 22, that was also what she expected, but \u2013 using a dating and marriage analogy \u2013 the courtship with the LA Phil went on for too long without the orchestra proposing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought yes, [the LA Phil] is for me. Maybe it\u2019s a smokescreen for them. They have never told me clearly. I know they were excited about me. But it was taking a long time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

This is why she decided enough was enough when San Francisco came calling in February.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dialogues were different, and they were more direct. SFS was passionate, and after many discussions, especially with the musicians, I thought I had a really great canvas in San Francisco.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I always thought it\u2019s possible\u2019: Elim Chan on being an Asian female orchestra conductor<\/p>\n

The announcement marks a milestone for the conductor and puts one of Hong Kong\u2019s most famous classical music exports at the helm of a premier cultural institution in the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hong Kong-born conductor Elim Chan has just made headlines as the first woman to be named music director…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[137623,113523,137622,7974,6923,136095,137624,21718,21711,11718,136097,137625,7984,38596,31299,101,4459,137621,103,102,31162,104,106,105,137620,435],"class_list":["post-332108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-asian-diaspora","tag-cantonese-food","tag-chinese-overseas","tag-classical-music","tag-dim-sum","tag-elim-chan","tag-elizabeth-ogonek","tag-esa-pekka-salonen","tag-gustavo-dudamel","tag-hong-kong","tag-hong-kong-academy-for-performing-arts","tag-inaki-sandoval","tag-jenny-wong","tag-la-phil","tag-los-angeles-philharmonic","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-bay-area","tag-san-francisco-cantonese-speaking-community","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-san-francisco-symphony","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sfs","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332108","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=332108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}