Conductor Donald Runnicles has been equally active in opera and concert music in Europe and the U.S. In 1990, Runnicles conducted Wagner's Ring Cycle with the San Francisco Opera, and two years later, he was appointed the company's music director. He remained in that post through 2009. Runnicles made his recording debut in 1994 with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, leading Engelbert Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel. He became the principal guest conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in 2001, and he became the music director of the Grand Teton Music Festival in Colorado in 2005, continuing to hold those positions as of the early 2020s. as well. Runnicles has a large recording catalog, much of it made with the above-named groups. In 2023, leading the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra in support of pianist Garrick Ohlsson in the complete piano concertos of Beethoven.