Michael Tilson Thomas first conducted the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) in 1974 and has been music director since 1995. A Los Angeles native, he studied with John Crown and Ingolf Dahl at the University of Southern California, becoming music director of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra at age 19. He worked with Stravinsky, Boulez, Stockhausen, and Copland at the famed Monday Evening Concerts and was pianist and conductor for the Piatigorsky and Heifetz master classes. In 1969, Mr. Tilson Thomas won the Koussevitzky Prize and was appointed assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO). Ten days later, he came to international recognition, replacing Music Director William Steinberg mid-concert at Lincoln Center. He went on to become the BSO’s principal guest conductor, and he has also served as music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and as a principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. With the London Symphony Orchestra, he has served as principal conductor and principal guest conductor; he is currently conductor laureate. He is artistic director of the New World Symphony, America’s Orchestral Academy, which he co-founded in 1987.

Mr. Tilson Thomas’s recordings have won numerous international awards, including 12 Grammys for SFS recordings. In 2014, he inaugurated SoundBox, the San Francisco Symphony’s alternative performance space and live music series. His television credits include the New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts, and in 2004 he and the SFS launched Keeping Score on PBS. His compositions include From the Diary of Anne Frank; Shówa/Shoáh; settings of Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Rainer Maria Rilke; Island Music; Notturno; and, most recently, Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind.

Michael Tilson Thomas is a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France, was Musical America’s Musician and Conductor of the Year, and was inducted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame in 2015. He has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2010 was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Obama. Most recently, he joined the California Hall of Fame and was elected to the Academy of Arts and Letters as an American Honorary Member.

Renée Fleming is one of the most highly acclaimed singers of our time. In 2013, President Obama awarded her the National Medal of Arts, and in 2014 she became the first classical artist ever to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl. Winner of four Grammy Awards, she has sung for momentous occasions from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to the Diamond Jubilee Concert for Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.

Ms. Fleming was nominated for a Tony Award this year for her performance on Broadway in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. She was also named Female Artist of the Year at the 2018 Classic BRIT Awards. Her recent tour schedule has included concerts in London, Vienna, Paris, Madrid, Tokyo, and Beijing. She is heard on the soundtracks of the Best Picture Oscar winner The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and provided the singing voice of Roxane Coss, played by Julianne Moore, in the film of the best-selling novel Bel Canto. As artistic adviser to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, she spearheads a collaboration with the National Institutes of Health focused on music, health, and neuroscience.

Ms. Fleming’s new album, Renée Fleming: Broadway, was released last month by Decca. She has recorded everything from complete operas and song recitals to indie rock, jazz, and the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings. Among her awards are the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal, Germany’s Cross of the Order of Merit, and France’s Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.

Audra McDonald is unparalleled in the breadth and versatility of her artistry as both a singer and an actor. The winner of a record-breaking six Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards, and an Emmy Award, she received a 2015 National Medal of Arts from President Obama and was also named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people that year. Tony-winning performances include Carousel, Master Class, Ragtime, A Raisin in the Sun, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, and Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill—which served as the vehicle for her Olivier-nominated 2017 West End debut. On television, Ms. McDonald is known for her roles in ABC’s Private Practice and NBC’s The Sound of Music Live!, and she won an Emmy as the official host of PBS’s Live From Lincoln Center. She can currently be seen as Liz Lawrence on CBS All Access’s The Good Fight, which launches its third season in spring 2019. Recent film credits include Ricki and the Flash, Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast, and the movie-musical Hello Again. The Juilliard-trained soprano also maintains a major career as a concert and recording artist. Her latest solo album, Sing Happy, was recorded live with the New York Philharmonic for Decca Gold. Of all her many roles, her favorites are the ones performed offstage: passionate advocate for equal rights and homeless youth, wife to actor Will Swenson, and mother.

The San Francisco Symphony (SFS) gave its first concerts in 1911 and has grown in acclaim under a succession of distinguished music directors who include Henry Hadley, Alfred Hertz, Basil Cameron, Issay Dobrowen, Pierre Monteux, Enrique Jordá, Josef Krips, Seiji Ozawa, Edo de Waart, Herbert Blomstedt, and Michael Tilson Thomas, who assumed his post in 1995. The SFS has won such recording awards as France’s Grand Prix du Disque, Britain’s Gramophone Award, and the United States’ Grammy. The SFS education program Adventures in Music brings music to every child in grades 1–5 in San Francisco’s public schools. In 2004, the SFS launched the multimedia Keeping Score on PBS and the web. In 2014, the SFS inaugurated SoundBox, an experimental performance venue and music series located backstage at Davies Symphony Hall. SFS radio broadcasts, the first in the nation to feature symphonic music when they began in 1926, today carry the orchestra’s concerts across the country. For more information, go to sfsymphony.org.