Elim Chan’s first concert with the San Francisco Symphony since her appointment as its next music director felt like a coronation.
Before a note was played at Davies Symphony Hall on Friday, June 5, a standing ovation and torrent of applause greeted her as she took the stage. In response, Chan flashed a hand heart.
“I’m definitely feeling a lot of love,” she said.
After intermission, she flung her arms wide and told the packed house, “I just hope I can give you a big hug in my arms.”
During the roughly two-hour program, which focused on water — Chan’s way, of connecting “the City by the Bay and where I’m from, Hong Kong,” she noted — and ended with a tidal wave unleashed during Debussy’s “Le Mer,” the audience was swept into her embrace in ways both boisterous and distinctly personal.
Among them was pianist Anne Rainwater, a concert pianist based in Oakland who remarked on Chan’s “expressiveness” on the podium.
“Her moves are so fluid and beautiful,” she said of the 39-year-old conductor, who will become the first woman to lead the Symphony in its 115-year history when her six-year term begins in the 2027-28 season.
Joanna Garaventa, a violinist with the Diablo Symphony Orchestra, hadn’t attended a concert in Davies for years but returned to get a glimpse of what the future might hold for the Symphony under Chan. Garaventa said that being led by a woman conductor, as she is with Matilda Hofman at Diablo, creates “a different connection with the orchestra. It’s more intimate.”
Chan’s conducting presence reads big without being excessively demonstrative or showy. Most everything she does looks and feels purposeful and efficient, from her clear beats, to hand-pinched cutoffs and supple cues. When the moment demands it — a big surge, brass payoff or concussive climax — she delivers with full-body force.
Dressed in a fitted embroidered jacket over a black dress, Chan conveyed both elegance and dynamism in her bouncy knee bends and the way she leaned over the musicians as if to summon and shape every note and measure.
That affectionate atmosphere set the stage for Wagner’s Prelude and “Liebestod” from “Tristan und Isolde.”
Chan’s early tempos were dramatically poised, with hushed phrase endings and a subliminal, almost repressed lushness. It was gorgeously delicate, recalling her sensitive reading of Elizabeth Ogonek’s “Moondog” here in 2023. The Wagner grew a bit unruly later on, with some balance issues and momentum swerves that righted themselves for a movingly rendered finish.
With the sublime mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke as soloist, Hector Berlioz’s “Les Nuits d’eté” (The Nights of Summer) came next. Through its six emotional songs, Chan and the orchestra partnered exquisitely with the singer. The ensemble was by turns glossy and pulsing, lamenting and vigorous, as the moods of Théophile Gautier’s poems unfolded.
When it was over, Cooke took the microphone to recall a moment when the late Michael Tilson Thomas kissed the hem of her skirt after a performance of these Berlioz songs. She then leaned down and kissed Chan’s skirt, a touching gesture that felt like a metaphorical passing of the baton.
Equally moving was Cooke’s quietly plangent encore of Thomas’ setting of the Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “Widening Circle.”
Chris Eden, who came in from San Bruno to attend his first-ever Symphony concert, told the Chronicle during intermission that he was “overwhelmed with emotions.”
Debussy’s “La Mer” provided a fitting culmination to both the program’s water motif and the evening’s celebratory mood. In three movements, it portrays the complex interplay of the ocean’s currents, power, depth, and shimmering play of waves and light.
Chan led a powerfully charged performance that favored high impact over painterly subtleties. It may not have been the most finely-hued account of the piece, but on a high voltage night like this one, a power surge was a fitting climax. It also echoed the brilliant, galactic shine she brought to Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” here in 2023.
Chan’s spirit kept going after the music was through. Presented with a large bouquet, she plucked out flowers and handed them around to section leaders.
Fifteen minutes later, when she made her way out to the Grove Street block party in her honor, the first group she encountered was a family with two awe-struck children, who shyly asked for her autograph. Chan obliged and spent time chatting and listening to the girls before posing for pictures.
After her May 22 press conference at City Hall, an orchestra member said “she’s so normal” in admiration of Chan.
But perhaps it was David Landis, the Symphony’s public relations director from 1980-1987, who best captured what Chan’s ascension represents.
“They’re taking a risk on a young new talent instead of going for something familiar,” Landis said.
“San Francisco is changing. It’s a new world, and this meets the moment.”
Steven Winn is a freelance writer. This story has been provided in partnership with San Francisco Chronicle.
