The San Francisco Symphony, founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley neighborhood. The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus (1972) are part of the organization. Michael Tilson Thomas became the orchestra's music director in 1995, and concluded his tenure in 2020 when Esa-Pekka Salonen took over the position.
The English Chamber Orchestra (ECO) is a British chamber orchestra based in London. The full orchestra regularly plays concerts at Cadogan Hall, and their ensemble performs at Wigmore Hall. With a limited performance size, the orchestra specializes in 18th-century music and was created to perform Baroque Music. The orchestra regularly tours in the UK and internationally, and holds the distinction of having the most extensive discography of any chamber orchestra and being the most well-traveled orchestra in the world; no other orchestra has played concerts (as of 2013, according to its own publicity) in as many countries as the English Chamber Orchestra.
Edo de Waart is a Dutch retired conductor. He is Music Director Laureate of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. De Waart is the former music director of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (2016-2019), chief conductor of the Royal Flemish Philharmonic (2011-2016) and Artistic Partner with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (2010-2014).
Michael Tilson Thomas is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is Artistic Director Laureate of the New World Symphony, an American orchestral academy in Miami Beach, Florida, Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, and Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra. He gave his last performance with the San Francisco Symphony in January 2024 while fighting brain cancer.
Dame Janet Abbott Baker is an English mezzo-soprano best known as an opera, concert, and lieder singer.
Thomas Walter Hampson is an American lyric baritone, a classical singer who has appeared world-wide in major opera houses and concert halls and made over 170 musical recordings.
David Eric Robertson is an American conductor. He was chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and was formerly music director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra from 2005 until 2018. He is Director of Orchestral Studies at Juilliard.
Isabel Bayrakdarian is a Lebanese-born Canadian operatic soprano of Armenian descent who now resides and works in the United States.
Laura Claycomb is an American lyric coloratura soprano singer.
Gianandrea Noseda is an Italian conductor. He is currently the music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.; general music director (Generalmusikdirektor) of Zurich Opera; principal guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra; and the music director of the Tsinandali Festival in Tsinandali, Georgia.
Sir Donald Cameron Runnicles is a Scottish conductor, known for his Romantic symphonic and operatic repertoire, especially Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss and Anton Bruckner. With a career that has spanned the USA, Germany and his native Scotland, Runnicles has served as Music Director of the San Francisco Opera, Principal Guest Conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Principal Conductor of the Orchestra of St. Luke's, Music Director of the Grand Teton Music Festival, Generalmusikdirektor of Deutsche Oper Berlin and as Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He is scheduled to serve as chief conductor-designate for the 2024–2025 season of the Dresden Philharmonic.
Ransom Wilson is an American flutist, conductor, and educator.
Joyce DiDonato is an American opera singer and recitalist. A coloratura mezzo-soprano, she has performed operas and concert works spanning from the 19th-century Romantic era to those by Handel and Mozart.
Yuja Wang is a Chinese pianist. Born in Beijing, she began learning piano there at age six, and went on to study at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
Nathan Berg is an operatic bass-baritone. He is a Grammy Award winner, and four-time Grammy nominated, a Juno award winner and 2014 Juno Awards nominee
Benjamin Shwartz is an American-Israeli orchestral and opera conductor, and music director of the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie, Koblenz (Germany). Formerly he held the position of music director of the Wrocław Philharmonic known for his interest in and commitment to new music. Born in Los Angeles and raised there and in Israel, he attended the Idyllwild Arts Academy in California before enrolling in the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied composition with James Primosch. He continued his composition studies in Germany with Karlheinz Stockhausen. As a conducting student at the Curtis Institute of Music, he studied with Otto-Werner Mueller and worked closely with Christoph Eschenbach and Ned Rorem. Shwartz won numerous awards including the Presser Award, and Third Prize in the 2007 International Mahler Conducting Competition in Bamberg, Germany.
Robert Treviño is an American conductor. He is currently music director of the Basque National Orchestra in Spain, principal guest conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, and artistic advisor of the Malmö Symphony Orchestra in Sweden.
Arias and Barcarolles is a 78-minute contemporary classical studio album of music by Leonard Bernstein, performed by Thomas Hampson, Frederica von Stade, Simon Carrington, Neil Percy and the London Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. In addition to the song cycle which gives it its name, the album includes the Suite from Bernstein's opera A Quiet Place and the Symphonic Dances from his musical West Side Story. It was released in 1996.
S&M2 (stylized as S&M2; an abbreviation of Symphony and Metallica 2) is a live album by American thrash metal band Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony. It is a follow-up to S&M, a live collaborative album released in 1999. The album was recorded during a live performance in San Francisco at the Chase Center in 2019. The performance was also filmed and released theatrically on October 9, 2019.
Francesco Lanzillotta is an Italian conductor and composer. As a conductor, he is focused on Italian opera, including contemporary works. He has conducted internationally, such as Verdi's La traviata in Varna, Bulgaria, Nabucco at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Puccini's La bohème at the Bavarian State Opera, and Dallapiccola's Ulisse at Oper Frankfurt. He has conducted music by contemporary Italian composers.
