The San Francisco Symphony (SFS), 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.
Michael Tilson Thomas is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is Artistic Director Laureate of the New World Symphony, an American orchestral academy based in Miami Beach, Florida, Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, and Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra.
Jahja Ling is a conductor, music director and pianist. From 2004 to 2017, he was the music director and conductor at the San Diego Symphony. Following his retirement in 2017, he plans to do guest conducting, as well as teaching and volunteering. He is of Hokkien Chinese descent, formerly an Indonesian citizen and is now an American citizen. He was the first conductor of Chinese descent to serve as music director of a major U.S. orchestra.
Heiichiro Ohyama is a Japanese conductor and violist.
Joana Carneiro, is a Portuguese conductor.
Donato Cabrera is an American conductor with an active international career. He is the Music Director of the California Symphony and the Las Vegas Philharmonic, and was the Resident Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and Wattis Foundation Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra from 2009-2016.
Edwin Maurice Outwater is an American conductor from Santa Monica, California.
Theodore Robert Bloomfield was an American conductor.
Michael DeVard Morgan was an American conductor. He was music director of the Oakland East Bay Symphony for 30 years. He was also music director of the Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra and artistic director of Festival Opera in Walnut Creek, California.
Ransom Wilson is an American flutist, conductor, and educator.
Mark Grey is an American classical music composer, sound designer and sound engineer.
Jung-Ho Pak is an American symphony conductor. He was Artistic Director of the San Diego Symphony and of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, of which he is now Conductor Emeritus. He was Music Director of the Diablo Ballet and the NEXT Generation Chamber Orchestra. He was the artistic director of the now-defunct Orchestra Nova San Diego. Pak has guest conducted internationally. He is the Director of the Cape Cod Symphony Orchestra, and is a former musical director of the World Youth Symphony Orchestra and the director of orchestras at the Interlochen Center for the Arts.
The Cazadero Performing Arts Camp is a performing arts camp located in the Sonoma redwoods in Northern California, United States. Established in 1957 by then Berkeley High School band director Bob Lutt, the first campers were a mixture of Berkeley High teens and members of the San Francisco Symphony.
Jeffrey Alan Kahane is an American classical concert pianist and conductor. He was music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra for 20 years, the longest of any music director in the orchestra's history. He is the music director of the Sarasota Music Festival, a program of the Sarasota Orchestra, and a professor of keyboard studies (Piano) at the USC Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles, California
Felix Khuner was the second violinist of the Kolisch Quartet. He joined the quartet, then the Wien Quartet, in 1926 when the quartet needed a new second violinist. Khuner was reluctant, but when he visited Rudolf Kolisch, he was in conversation with Arnold Schoenberg. "Does the quartet rehearse with Schoenberg?" Khuner asked. When Kolisch answered yes, Khuner agreed to join the quartet. He was also once said to have echoed Kolisch's remarks about Stravinsky's compositions as "music about music". One of the notable places he performed with the Kolisch Quartet was Stephen Foster Memorial Hall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Orion Weiss is an American classical pianist.
Richard Fleischman is an American violist and viola d'amore player, conductor and pedagogue.
Emanuel Leplin was a composer, conductor, and painter active mainly in the second half of the 20th century. He was born in San Francisco, and joined the San Francisco Symphony as a violist in 1941, conducting it in two of his own works, in 1941 and 1947. In 1954, he contracted polio, and afterward, was unable to hold a brush or compose using anything below his neck but the first three fingers of his right hand. With these fingers he composed three symphonies, a violin concerto, and many other works for orchestra and chamber groups.
Edward "Teddy" Paul Maxwell Abrams is an American conductor, pianist, clarinetist, and composer. He is currently Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra and the Britt Festival Orchestra.
The Buchmann-Mehta School of Music (BMSM) is an institute of higher education in Tel Aviv, Israel. The school is a part of the Faculty of the Arts of Tel Aviv University and is operated in collaboration with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO). The school is named after German Jewish philanthropist Josef Buchmann and conductor Zubin Mehta, then music director of the IPO. Mehta is the honorary president of the school and has conducted the school's orchestra regularly in Israel and on tours abroad. The BMSM mission is to train elite young musicians in performance, composition and research in music and prepare them for professional careers in these fields. The BMSM's orchestral training program is an integral part of the school and aims to educate orchestral musicians to supply the artistic future of the IPO and other orchestras.
