Rafael Payare’s prodigious musicianship, technical brilliance and charismatic presence on the podium have made him one of the world’s most sought-after conductors. Born in 1980 and a graduate of the celebrated El Sistema music education program in Venezuela, Mr. Payare began his formal conducting studies in 2004 with José Antonio Abreu. Since winning the prestigious Malko International Competition for Young Conductors in Denmark in 2012, Maestro Payare’s career has advanced rapidly. Since 2015, he has served as Principal Conductor of the Castleton Festival, founded by his mentor the late Lorin Maazel. He was Chief Conductor of the Uster Orchestra from 2014 to 2019 and in 2019, took up the position of Music Director of the San Diego Symphony. In recent years, Rafael Payare has conducted many of the world’s most prestigious symphony orchestras, in Berlin, Vienna, London, Munich, Chicago and Paris, among others. Beginning in the 2022-2023 season, he becomes the ninth Music Director in the history of the OSM.

Jeremy Denk is one America's foremost pianists, hailed by the New York Times as an artist “you want to hear no matter what he performs.” Denk is also a New York Times bestselling author, winner of both the MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Denk has performed multiple times at Carnegie Hall and in recent years has worked with such orchestras as Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and Cleveland Orchestra. Recent highlights include his performance of the Well-Tempered Klavier Book 1 at the Barbican in London, and performances of John Adams’ Must the Devil Have All the Great Tunes? with the Cleveland Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, and Seattle Symphony, as well as a return to the San Francisco Symphony to perform Messiaen under Esa-Pekka Salonen.