Distant Worlds: Music From Final Fantasy

Conductor Arnie Roth is a Grammy Award–winning artist known in the world of video game music for his work with Nobuo Uematsu and Square Enix Ltd as music director, producer, and conductor of Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy, Dear Friends: Music from Final Fantasy, and Voices: Music from FINAL FANTASY. He was chosen to conduct a series of symphonic concerts based on the music of various video game series in Cologne with the WDR Radio Orchestra, including Symphonic Fantasies, Symphonic Shades, and Symphonic Odysseys. Mr. Roth is equally at home in the areas of film and composition and was the winner of the Best Score Award at the 2003 DVD Premier Awards and nominated for an Emmy Award for his original song “Shine” from the Mattel movie Barbie in The 12 Dancing Princesses.

Mr. Roth has produced dozens of best-selling CDs on the American Gramophone, JVC, Mattel, Warner Bros., Sony, Koch, Razor & Tie, AWR Records, and Square Enix recording labels. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 2009.

Jenny Wong is the newly appointed Chorus Director of the San Francisco Symphony, as well as the associate artistic director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Recent conducting engagements include the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Series, The Industry, Long Beach Opera, Pasadena Symphony and Pops, Phoenix Chorale, and Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles. She debuts this season with the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra.

Under Ms. Wong’s baton, the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s performance of Frank Martin’s Mass was named by Alex Ross one of ten “Notable Performances and Recordings of 2022” in the New Yorker. In 2021 she was a national recipient of Opera America’s inaugural Opera Grants for Women Stage Directors and Conductors. She has conducted Peter Sellars’s staging of Orlando di Lasso’s Lagrime di San Pietro, Sweet Land by Du Yun and Raven Chacon, and Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and Kate Soper’s Voices from the Killing Jar with Long Beach Opera in collaboration with WildUp. She has prepared choruses for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, including for a recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, which won a 2022 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance. She has also prepared choruses for the Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and Music Academy of the West.

A native of Hong Kong, Ms. Wong received her doctor of musical arts and master of music from the University of Southern California and her undergraduate degree in voice performance from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She won two consecutive world champion titles at the World Choir Games 2010 and the International Johannes Brahms Choral Competition 2011.