Program Information
MISSY MAZZOLI | Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres)
BEETHOVEN | Piano Concerto No. 3
SHOSTAKOVICH | Symphony No. 5
Chad Goodman, conductor
Tony Siqi Yun, piano
Ticket Information
Prices: Gold $68 / Red $44 / Green $20
Student tickets $10
Call and ask about our Free Youth Tickets for children ages 17 and under
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Since becoming Music Director of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra in 2023, Chad Goodman has been praised for taking the orchestra to new artistic heights and dramatically expanding its impact in the community. In his first two seasons he led the ESO premieres of more than a dozen works, increased community engagement through run-out concerts and engaging presentations in Elgin and neighboring cities, and spearheaded the orchestra’s first ever Día de los Muertos concert, uniting the symphony with folkloric dance and vocals in a city-wide cultural celebration.
Named Conductor of the Year by the Illinois Council of Orchestras in 2025, Goodman has led orchestras including the Minnesota Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de Puebla (OSEP).
From 2023 to 2025, Goodman served as Artistic Director of IlluminArts, a Miami-based arts organization dedicated to the synthesis of music with visual art, poetry, and dance through bold, interdisciplinary collaborations. His programming created immersive experiences that transcended traditional boundaries, bringing audiences together to engage and connect in vibrant cultural dialogue.
From 2019 to 2023, Goodman was the Conducting Fellow of the New World Symphony and Assistant Conductor to Michael Tilson Thomas. In addition to leading the orchestra in more than fi fty performances, he collaborated with sound engineers, videographers, animators, and light designers to push the boundaries of how classical music can be presented.
Goodman has also served as an Assistant Conductor to the San Francisco Symphony, working alongside Esa-Pekka Salonen, Herbert Blomstedt, Michael Tilson Thomas, Elim Chan, Manfred Honeck, Daniel Harding and Simone Young, among others.
Goodman additionally leads workshops that teach young musicians the business skills needed to successfully navigate the music world. Forbes praised the conductor’s bold strides both on and off stage and hailed him as “An entrepreneur bringing innovation to classical music.” In 2022 he published the book You Earned a Music Degree. Now What?
Goodman holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music and a Master of Music degree from San Francisco State University. His mentors include Michael Tilson Thomas and Alasdair Neale.
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Canadian-born pianist Tony Siqi Yun, Gold Medalist at the First China International Music Competition (2019) and awarded the Rheingau Music Festival’s 2023 Lotto-Förderpreis, is quickly becoming a sought-after soloist and recitalist. He has been hailed as a “poet of the keyboard” (Pianist Magazine), and The Philadelphia Inquirer noted his thrilling performance and “interpretive flashes that point to an emergent big personality: moments of grandness or deep expressivity.”
In 2026-2027, he appears with the Seattle, New Jersey, Des Moines, West Virginia and Elgin Symphonies, and performs recitals for Princeton University Concerts, Steinway Society of the Bay Area, and BIG Arts Sanibel Island. He is a featured artist on the Midori & Friends benefit concert supporting accessible music education. Summer highlights include return engagements with festivals in Aspen, Boulder and Vail, Colorado.
Last season, Tony appeared with Orchestre Métropolitain, Louisville Orchestra, Las Vegas Philharmonic, and Lincoln’s Symphony Orchestra, and made his concerto debut at the Aspen Music Festival. Major recital debuts included Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw, Flagey, Harrogate, Royal Conservatory in Toronto, Celebrity Series of Boston as well as returns to Vancouver and Ghent.
His Carnegie Hall debut in 2024 was under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin with Orchestre Metropolitain, following his 2023 debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Mr. Yun has appeared recently with the Toronto Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Buffalo Philharmonic, Hamilton (ON) Philharmonic and Rhode Island Philharmonic; outside North America, he performed with Orchestre de Chambre de Paris and Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. Previous recital appearances in North America include Stanford Live, La Jolla Music Society, Gilmore Rising Stars Series, 92NY in New York, and the Vancouver Recital Series; in Europe, solo recitals have brought him to the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, and Philharmonie Luxembourg.
Mr. Yun is a 2024 graduate of The Juilliard School, where he was a recipient of the Jerome L. Greene Fellowship and studied with Professors Yoheved Kaplinsky and Matti Raekallio. He continues his studies in the Masters program at Juilliard.