Cynthia Erivo

Music Director

Known as both a composer and conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen is the Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony. He is the Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he was Music Director from 1992 until 2009, the Philharmonia Orchestra, where he was Principal Conductor & Artistic Advisor from 2008 until 2021, and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. As a member of the faculty of Los Angeles’s Colburn School, he directs the preprofessional Negaunee Conducting Program. Salonen cofounded, and until 2018 served as the Artistic Director of, the annual Baltic Sea Festival, which invites celebrated artists to promote unity and ecological awareness among the countries around the Baltic Sea.

Salonen has an extensive and varied recording career. Releases with the San Francisco Symphony include recordings of Kaija Saariaho’s opera Adriana Mater, Bartók’s piano concertos, as well as spatial audio recordings of several Ligeti compositions. Other recent recordings include Strauss’s Four Last Songs, Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin and Dance Suite, and a 2018 box set of Mr. Salonen’s complete Sony recordings. His compositions appear on releases from Sony, Deutsche Grammophon, and Decca; his Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, and Cello Concerto all appear on recordings he conducted himself.

Esa-Pekka Salonen is the recipient of many major awards. Most recently, he was awarded the 2024 Polar Music Prize. In 2020, he was appointed an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by the Queen of England.

Cynthia Erivo is a Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award–winning actress, singer, author, and producer, as well as an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild nominee. She stars as Elphaba in Universal’s upcoming film adaptation of the hit musical Wicked, opposite Ariana Grande’s Glinda. Part 1 of Wicked releases on November 27, with Part 2 releasing next year.

Erivo produced and starred in Drift, a movie about a young Liberian refugee who escapes her war-torn country to a Greek island. She also starred opposite Idris Elba and Andy Serkis in Netflix’s Luther: The Fallen Sun, and starred in Disney+’s Pinocchio as the Blue Fairy opposite Tom Hanks.

Erivo has received widespread critical acclaim including two Academy Awards nominations, two Golden Globe nominations, and a Grammy Award nomination for her portrayal of Harriet Tubman in 2019’s Harriet, for which she cowrote and performed the song “Stand Up.” Erivo also received SAG and Emmy Award nominations for her portrayal of Aretha Franklin in National Geographic’s Emmy-winning global anthology series Genius: Aretha.

In addition to her acting career, Erivo is a Grammy-nominated songwriter and performer, and has appeared at the Kennedy Center Honors, Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, and Governor’s Ball. She released her debut album, Ch. 1 Vs. 1, with Verve/Universal Music Group in 2021. She makes her San Francisco Symphony debut with this concert.

Erivo became an author in 2021 with the release of her first children’s book, Remember to Dream, Ebere. The book follows a young girl whose mother encourages her to dream as big as possible. Erivo wrote the book as an ode to a child’s imagination, a parent’s love, and the big dreams shared by both.

In August 2020, Erivo launched her production company, Edith’s Daughter, and announced her first-look deal with MRC Television and Civic Center Media. Edith’s Daughter focuses on projects that express the beauty in the stories and people who are often overlooked and underrepresented.