Why Sci-Fi?

A passionate communicator, Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser brings clarity and meaning to the concert hall, fostering deep connections between audiences and performers. He is concurrently the Resident Conductor of Engagement and Education of the San Francisco Symphony, Barrett Principal Education Conductor and Community Ambassador of the Toronto Symphony, Artist in Residence and Community Ambassador of Symphony Nova Scotia, and Principal Youth Conductor and Artistic Partner of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra. He previously served as assistant conductor of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and associate conductor of the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra. Bartholomew-Poyser has performed with the Detroit Symphony, Carnegie Hall Link-Up Orchestra, Canadian Opera Company, Vancouver Symphony, Edmonton Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Chicago Philharmonic, was cover conductor with the Washington National Opera in 2020, and was music director of the Kennedy Center Summer Music Institute in 2022.

Last season, Bartholomew-Poyser debuted with the New York Philharmonic and New Jersey Symphony in addition to making his debut at the Hollywod Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in an all-Tchaikovsky program. Host of Canadian Broadcasting Company’s (CBC) nationally broadcast weekly radio show Centre Stage, he also serves on the board of the Conductor’s Retreat at Medomak in Michigan. He is the subject of a multi award-winning CBC documentary Disruptor Conductor, focusing on his efforts to extend the boundaries of the orchestral music world through concerts for neurodiverse, incarcerated, African diaspora, and LGBTQ2S+ populations.

Bartholomew-Poyser earned his bachelor’s degree in music performance and education from the University of Calgary and his master of philosophy in performance from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England.

The San Francisco Symphony has launched the next generation of its award-winning, free online music education resource, SFSKids.org.

The new website, which was created by Rolling Orange and features artwork and animations by Bay Area artist Jesse Hernandez, is designed to be a fun online music education resource for children 8–13. Students can use the website for self-directed learning, while teachers or parents can use the site for group learning in the classroom, homework assignments, or cooperative learning projects.

SFSKids.org is accessible on desktop and mobile devices and is intended as a resource to support several of the learning targets outlined in music standards documents at national, state, and local levels. Active listening, responding to music, developing personal preferences, fostering awareness of the expressive characteristics in music, creating music, and making creative decisions about music are some of the music content areas the website supports.

The original SFSKids.org launched in March 2002 as one of the first music websites for children. The Symphony launched the second generation of the website in 2014. Since its debut, the site has reached more than five million users. The current SFSKids.org—the third iteration of the site—features an updated design and content to engage a new generation of users.

Lead sponsorship for SFSKids.org was provided by the Sakurako & William Fisher Family.