San Francisco Symphony Reveals October 2026 Programming

Music Director Designate Elim Chan will make her much anticipated return to Davies Symphony Hall in October to conduct the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus in a program of works by John Adams, Johannes Brahms, Felix Mendelssohn, and Arvo Pärt. The October lineup also includes Orchestral Series programs led by guest conductors Karina Canellakis, Santtu Matias-Rouvali, and Xian Zhang; a special program celebrating former San Francisco Symphony Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas’s life and legacy; solo piano recitals with Lang Lang and Ludovico Einaudi; and a special program conducted by composer Joe Hisaishi. The month also includes a trio recital with violinist Lisa Batiashvili, cellist Gautier Capuçon, and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet; an orchestral presentation with Rafael Payare, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, and violinist Leonidas Kavakos; a live-to-picture film series performance of The Ring; and a Music for Families concert.

October 29–31: Elim Chan Conducts Adams and Mendelssohn

Music Director Designate Elim Chan returns to Davies Symphony Hall on October 29–31 to conduct the San Francisco Symphony for the first time since her sold-out appearances in June. Chan will be the 13th Music Director in the San Francisco Symphony’s 115-year history when she takes the post in the 2027–28 season for an initial six-year term. One of the most sought-after artists of her generation, Elim Chan embodies the spirit of contemporary orchestral leadership with her crystalline precision and expressive zeal.   

The October 29–31 program begins with Johannes Brahms’s poignant Nänie with the SF Symphony Chorus. The piece memorializes a beloved friend of the composer. Renaud Capuçon joins Chan and the Orchestra to perform Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, a standard of the violin repertoire known for its lyricism and novel structure. The SF Symphony Chorus sings the first SF Symphony performances of Arvo Pärt’s a cappella Magnificat, written in the composer’s tintinnabuli style, named after the bell-like resonance produced by a triad.

“The standout element of this program is the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, which I'm really looking forward to working with,” said Chan. “The voice has always been central to my musical life, going back to my earliest experiences growing up, and it's a medium I’m eager to explore further in my upcoming projects here. A piece like Pärt's Magnificat is perfect in that sense because it's completely a cappella, which is challenging, but also allows the chorus to truly showcase what it can do. Brahms's Nänie is a beautiful funeral song that echoes many of the sentiments found in the Doctor Atomic Symphony. While Adams’s work reflects on Oppenheimer and humanity’s capacity to destroy the world, Brahms grapples with questions of mortality and grief. The famous line, ‘Auch das Schöne muß sterben!’ speaks to an idea that resonates deeply across both works. Nothing can escape death, and that theme runs through the outer pieces on this program. They are profound meditations on mortality.”

Pärt’s Magnificat will lead attacca into John Adams’s Doctor Atomic Symphony, based on the composer’s opera, premiered by the San Francisco Opera in 2005, about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project. Chan will make her staged opera debut in February 2027 at the Opernhaus Zürich conducting the complete opera Doctor Atomic. “I remember attending a performance of Doctor Atomic at the Met, conducted by Alan Gilbert, and I was completely gripped by the piece,” said Chan. “The subject matter itself and the way John addresses these moral questions are incredibly powerful. The topic remains very relevant today. You see the human struggle behind the development of something that could ultimately kill thousands of people. What I find so powerful is that when you take away the words and hear Doctor Atomic Symphony, he translates the opera into purely symphonic terms, but you still feel so much of the psychology of what he was trying to describe and underline in the original work.”

During the 2026–27 season, the Orchestra performs three of Adams’s works for the first time in celebration of his 80th birthday in 2027. On January 22–24, Marin Alsop conducts the West Coast premiere of The Rock You Stand On, and on June 17–18, Ryan Bancroft conducts the first SF Symphony performances of The Dharma at Big Sur with violinist Tracy Silverman. Conductor Giancarlo Guerrero and Orchestra also perform Adams’s The Chairman Dances during the Opening Gala and All San Francisco Concerts in September.

Prior to the October 29–31 concerts, Elim Chan will join Associate Director of Editorial Benjamin Pesetsky for an Inside Music Talk to talk about her career and the evening's program. Inside Music Talks are presented on stage one hour before each concert and are free to all ticketholders.  

October 1 & 3–4: Renée Fleming Sings Strauss  

Santtu Matias-Rouvali, principal conductor of Philharmonia Orchestra and honorary conductor of Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, makes his Orchestral Series debut in an all-Strauss program featuring leading Strauss interpreter, soprano Renée Fleming. Fleming joins Matias-Rouvali for the composer’s Four Last Songs, which bids farewell to Strauss’s life in music, paying tribute to his wife and father. The program also includes Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, a semi-autobiographical symphonic poem containing many quotations from the composer’s previous works, including Also sprach Zarathustra, Don Quixote, and Death and Transfiguration. 

October 9–11: Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances

Karina Canellakis, chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducts Victoria Borisova-Ollas's The Kingdom of Silence, a mysterious tone poem written as both a requiem for the composer’s teacher Nikolai Korndorf and a meditation on what lies beyond death. Nicola Benedetti joins Canellakis and the Orchestra to perform Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2, a bold showpiece influenced by traditional Russian folk music as well as Spanish elements. The program closes with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s expressive Symphonic Dances, the composer’s final major work.

October 16–18: Dvořák Symphony No. 8 

Xian Zhang, music director of the New Jersey Symphony and the Seattle Symphony, leads the Orchestra in Zoltán Kodály’s Dances of Galánta, a piece that reinvents the Roma folk music that Kodály heard during his childhood in Galánta. Cellist Pablo Ferrández performs Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s virtuosic Rococo Variations, inspired by the 18th century style of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who the composer idolized. Zhang also conducts Antonín Dvořák’s lyrical and nostalgic Symphony No. 8, which conjures images and sounds of nature, transporting the listener to the same Bohemian countryside where Dvořák wrote the symphony in 1889.  

October 2: A Concert for MTT

The San Francisco Symphony honors the life, artistry, and enduring legacy of Michael Tilson Thomas with a special memorial concert. A Concert for MTT celebrates one of the most transformative figures in the Orchestra’s history and a beloved cultural figure in San Francisco and throughout the classical music world. The program will feature many of Tilson Thomas’s longtime friends and collaborators, including conductors Teddy Abrams and Edwin Outwater, mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, vocalist Audra McDonald, pianists Jeremy Denk, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Yuja Wang, and John Wilson, and guest speaker Jamie Bernstein, alongside the San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Symphony Chorus with Director Jenny Wong. 

The evening will reflect the breadth of Tilson Thomas’s musical imagination, his passion for artistic discovery, and the lasting and profound relationships he cultivated throughout his career. Through a mix of personal tributes and anecdotes, archival footage and recordings, and performances of iconic repertoire, all drawn from a lifetime of music-making, the concert will trace Michael Tilson Thomas’s remarkable journey and illuminate the indelible mark left by his 25-year tenure leading the San Francisco Symphony. Under his leadership, he helped the Orchestra achieve artistic acclaim, expand its global reach, and champion contemporary and American music, while reimagining how orchestras can connect with audiences and communities.

From mid-September through mid-October, the San Francisco Symphony will also highlight Michael Tilson Thomas’s transformative tenure in an exhibit in the Davies Symphony Hall First Tier lobby. The exhibit will feature photos from throughout Tilson Thomas’s long career with the Orchestra, as well as personal items from MTT’s collection, including scores, batons, awards, and other memorabilia.

October 4: Lang Lang in Recital

Lang Lang returns to Davies Symphony Hall to perform a solo piano recital featuring selections from Isaac Albéniz’s Suite española, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata and Piano Sonata No. 31, Enrique Granados’s Quejas, o La Maja y el ruiseñor from Goyescas, Franz Liszt’s Consolation No. 2 in E major and Tarantella from Venezia e Napoli, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Rondo in D major. Lang Lang last performed at Davies Symphony Hall alongside his wife, pianist Gina Alice, at the SF Symphony’s annual Opening Gala in 2024. 

October 12: Ludovico Einaudi: Solo Piano

Another Planet Entertainment and the San Francisco Symphony present a special concert featuring world-renowned pianist and composer Ludovico Einaudi performing solo piano works. Born in Turin in 1955, Einaudi is well known for not only his classical compositions but also his film and TV scores. Music from his albums Seven Days Walking and Elements were featured in two highly acclaimed films in 2021: Nomadland and The Father. A new album, The Summer Portraits, released in 2025 via Universal Records, broke classical chart records by reaching the top of the Official UK Classical Album Chart in its first week after the release. This program is sold out. Verified resale tickets are available on Ticketmaster.

October 22–24: Hisaishi Conducts Hisaishi

Joe Hisaishi conducts the SF Symphony-commissioned West Coast premiere of his Concerto for Orchestra, as well as additional contemporary works to be announced. Hisaishi, a composer, conductor, and pianist, has established himself as a formidable force in contemporary music for his delicately crafted symphonic and solo works, as well as his globally successful film music. His credits include 12 enchanting, animated Studio Ghibli films, including Hayao Miyazaki's Academy Award-winning works, as well as being the Composer-in-Association of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Composer In Focus of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Composer in Residence for the Philadelphia Orchestra. These performances mark Hisaishi’s return to the San Francisco Symphony following four sold-out performances of his music in September 2024.These concerts are sold out. Limited numbers of returned tickets may become available; check sfsymphony.org for current information.

October 15: Batiashvili/Capuçon/Thibaudet Trio

The Great Performers Series kicks off with violinist Lisa Batiashvili, cellist Gautier Capuçon, and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet playing Claude Debussy’s Piano Trio, Antonín Dvořák’s Piano Trio No. 3, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 1. The superstar trio last performed at Davies Symphony Hall in 2023. 

October 25: Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal

Rafael Payare and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal return to Davies Symphony Hall for the first time since 1989 to perform Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, joined by renowned violinist Leonidas Kavakos. The performance is part of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal’s three-concert California tour, with stops in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. 

October 20: The Ring—Film with Live Orchestra

On October 20, The Ring—the landmark psychological horror film directed by Gore Verbinski—will be shown on the big screen as the SF Symphony performs Hans Zimmer’s haunting score, conducted by Jason Seber. The Ring, released by DreamWorks Pictures in 2002, helped redefine modern horror and remains one of the most influential psychological thrillers of its era. Zimmer has described the score’s minimalist, unsettling approach as essential to the film’s creeping dread and psychological tension.

October 24: Music for Families

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