Esa-Pekka Salonen Named San Francisco Symphony’s New Music Director

San Francisco Symphony President Sakurako Fisher and Chief Executive Officer Mark C. Hanson today announced that Esa-Pekka Salonen will become the Orchestra’s next Music Director, beginning in September 2020. Salonen will succeed Michael Tilson Thomas, who announced his retirement from the Music Director post not long ago, after 25 years at the helm of the 107-year-old orchestra.

Salonen, who recently announced his departure as the Principal Conductor of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra at the end of the 2020-21 season, said he is eager to start working, including on some new artistic initiatives and performance of new music. “The ‘what-ifs’ of the orchestra world were suddenly on the table in a real way”, wrote the director in a press release. “Here is a top symphony orchestra in the place in America where things start; where the ways things have always been done are interrogated, and where problems are first identified and then solved”.

Salonen is known for his visionary programs and collaborations, including, besides composing, combining new forms and technology to attract a new, younger generation to the classical music halls and distributing musical content in new ways, suitable to the 21st century. His past tenures include, besides the Philharmonia tenure he held for the past decade, a Music Director position of the LA Philharmonic he held from 1992 to 2009, so he is not new to the American classical music scene.

“I wasn’t looking for another Music Directorship”, said Salonen, “but there was a ‘no brainer’ aspect to this that I’ve been fortunate to have experienced a few times before in my career, so I know it when I see it. The San Francisco Symphony is an ensemble and an organization at the top of their game, renowned for their interpretations of masterpieces and unafraid to treat new works the same way”.

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