Photo by Cody Pickens/provided San Francisco Symphony

Conductor Elim Chan will succeed Esa-Pekka Salonen as music director of the San Francisco Symphony, the 115-year-old orchestra announced today, May 21. She will begin her tenure in the 2027-28 season, for an initial six-year term.  Chan will join the San Francisco Symphony as Music Director Designate effective immediately, and will lead the SFS on June 5-6 in a program including Richard Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été featuring mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke as soloist, and Claude Debussy’s La Mer. Tickets are available now at sfsymphony.org/elimchan.

She initially made her San Francisco debut in the 2022-23 season — the same year that she made her debut with the Cincinnati Symphony. She made an impression here, too. Here is my review from her concert in Cincinnati.

Born in Hong Kong, Elim Chan studied at Smith College in Massachusetts and at the University of Michigan. In 2014, she became the first female winner of the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition and spent her 2015–16 season as Assistant Conductor at the London Symphony Orchestra, where she worked closely with Valery Gergiev. In the following season, Chan joined the Dudamel Fellowship program of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. One of her mentors was Bernard Haitink, the announcement said.

The much admired Salonen left in 2025 after a much-publicized exit after the board and administration made deep cuts of planned projects. The beloved former music director Michael Tilson Thomas died in April following a diagnosis of an aggressive brain cancer.

She is the orchestra’s 13th music director. For those who are interested:

San Francisco Symphony Music Directors 
Henry Hadley (1911–1915)
Alfred Hertz (1915–1930)
Basil Cameron (1930–1932)
Issay Dobrowen (1930–1935)
Pierre Monteux (1935–1952)
Enrique Jordá (1954–1963)
Josef Krips (1963–1970)
Seiji Ozawa (1970–1977)
Edo de Waart (1977–1985)
Herbert Blomstedt (1985–1995)
Michael Tilson Thomas (1995–2020)
Esa-Pekka Salonen (2020–2025)
Elim Chan (2027– )