From its first conductor, Henry Hadley, to Pierre Monteux, Seiji Ozawa, and Michael Tilson Thomas, the San Francisco Symphony has been led by many exceptional music directors.
Now, as the orchestra announces its 2025–2026 season, which will run from Sept. 4, 2025, through June 28, 2026, the SF Symphony faces uncertainty. Current Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen is leaving at the end of June 2025 without an appointed successor, while the organization continues to confront fiscal and labor problems.
“We’re approaching a unique transitional moment,” said SF Symphony CEO Matthew Spivey. “As the organization advances the search for our next music director, we’re looking forward to a season filled with dynamic and engaging musical experiences.”
Salonen is not scheduled to return to Davies Symphony Hall next season, though most of the orchestra’s former music directors have come back as guest conductors at some point after leaving the position. In a brief joint statement, Spivey and Salonen said that they “look forward to Esa-Pekka’s return to conduct the orchestra in future seasons. We are both eager to reunite and collaborate again.”
In order to cover the music-director gap, Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden, 64, is stepping into an important role on the podium next season. He served as music director of the New York Philharmonic from 2018 to 2024 and is currently music director of the Seoul Philharmonic and music director designate of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.
Van Zweden is set to lead the opening gala of the SF Symphony’s 114th season on Sept. 12 — most likely without the threat of a musicians’ strike, like the one that canceled the orchestra’s first classical concerts last year. The evening features Yuja Wang soloing in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, with John Adams’s Short Ride in a Fast Machine and Ottorino Respighi’s Pines of Rome also on the program.
Repertory standards and fan favorites fill out much of the calendar. Van Zweden is scheduled to lead Beethoven’s nine symphonies in a three-season cycle that starts next winter (Feb. 19–21, 2026). The conductor is also booked for concerts that include Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 (Jan. 29–31, 2026).
There is, however, no indication from the SF Symphony that van Zweden might temporarily fulfill the typical music-director functions of planning, programming, and hiring. The orchestra’s artistic leadership has therefore narrowed to Spivey and his administrative staff.
A handful of the 26 concert sets in this season’s orchestral series are slated to feature SF Symphony musicians prominently, including principal trombone Timothy Higgins, who sees the world premiere of his own composition, Market Street, 1920s (Oct. 3–5). Later in the season, Higgins takes the solo role in the U.S. premiere of Jimmy López’s trombone concerto Shift (May 29–30, 2026).
Principal trumpet Mark Inouye shares the spotlight with pianist Seong-Jin Cho in Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 (Jan. 22–24, 2026), and principal flute Yubeen Kim plays the Concerto by Jacques Ibert (May 8–10, 2026).
A few more highlights of the season:
— James Gaffigan returns to conduct Duke Ellington’s orchestral tone poem Harlem and George Gershwin’s An American in Paris and Piano Concerto in F with soloist Hélène Grimaud (Sept. 18–20)
— Former San Francisco Opera Music Director Donald Runnicles conducts Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 and Alban Berg’s Seven Early Songs with mezzo-soprano Irene Roberts (Sept. 26–28)
— Marc-André Hamelin gives a piano recital in the Great Performers Series, playing works by Beethoven, Robert Schumann, and Maurice Ravel (Oct. 19)
— Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons is led by violinist Alexi Kenney on a program that also boasts J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, with Yubeen Kim on flute and Jonathan Dimmock at the harpsichord and additional music by Olli Mustonen and Barbara Strozzi (Nov. 20–22)
— Edward Gardner conducts Gustav Holst’s The Planets on a program also including Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Overture from The Wasps and Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with soloist Randall Goosby (Jan. 15–17, 2026)
— Harry Bicket conducts all-Mozart concerts featuring the Symphonies Nos. 34 and 38 and soprano Golda Schultz singing arias from the composer’s operas with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte (Feb. 5–7, 2026)
— Alexi Kenney curates and leads SoundBox concerts (Feb. 6–7, 2026)
— Manfred Honeck conducts his “dramatic production” of Mozart’s Requiem with narrator and soloists on a program that also has Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture and Haydn’s Symphony No. 93 (Feb. 26 – March 1, 2026)
— Bernard Labadie conducts Bach’s Easter Oratorio and Magnificat with soprano Joélle Harvey, countertenor Hugh Cutting, tenor Andrew Haji, and baritone Joshua Hopkins (April 9–11, 2026)
— Simone Young, who has led many staged performances of Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung, conducts selections from the operas, along with Ella Macens’s The Space Between Stars and Camille Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto No. 1 with soloist Gautier Capuçon (April 17–19, 2026)
Series tickets are available beginning today, March 20; single tickets go on sale July 19.
As it did last year, the SF Symphony opens its season with a big packaged movie-music production, Marvel Studios’ Infinity Saga Experience, led by Anthony Parnther (Sept. 4–6). It’s the first installment of the orchestra’s popular and remunerative film series, which this year has seven presentations, including Barbie (Nov. 28–29) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (April 30 – May 2, 2026).
As the SF Symphony has stated and SF Classical Voice has reported, the orchestra has been wrestling with budget problems. The most current financial information publicly available is for fiscal year 2023 and shows an operating budget of $80.9 million against total revenue and contributions of $71.1 million. Before the current stock market uncertainties, the SF Symphony’s net assets, including its endowment, were $375.6 million.
An SFS spokesperson responded to questions about the budget, saying that the orchestra “has been open about the need to establish financial stability as a foundation from which we can grow and thrive.”
A pivotal issue within the organization — for the musicians, at least — is the proposed renovation of Davies Symphony Hall, a project estimated to cost $100 million or more, which the administration has pursued at the same time as it made programming cuts that Salonen cited as part of his reason for leaving. Though not evidently necessary, the renovation is still in consideration, with the design phase being handled by architectural firms Mark Cavagnero Associates and Gehry Partners.
