Francis was the principal conductor of the Ulster Orchestra from 1966 for ten years. In 1978 he conducted the premiere of Donizetti's opera Gabriella di Vergy in the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.
From 1979 to 1985 he was Music director of the Northwest Chamber Orchestra in Seattle, then he was artistic counselor of the ensembles Opera Forum in Enschede.
From 1987 to 1990 he was Generalmusikdirektor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie. Afterwards he conducted the Haydn-Orchester in Bolzano, the Berliner Symphoniker and the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi. From 2003 to 2008 he was principal conductor of the Thüringen Philharmonie Gotha. He has been a regular guest conductor of the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra. As of 2010, he is principal conductor of the Orquesta Filarmónica de la UNAM in Mexico City. . User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
