Program Information
PRICE | Dances in the Canebrakes
BRUCH | Scottish Fantasy
DVOŘÁK | Symphony No. 6
Chad Goodman, conductor
Kerson Leong, violin
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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Kerson Leong has been described as “not just one of Canada’s greatest violinists but one of the greatest violinists, period” (Toronto Star). Since his First Prize win at the International Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition in 2010 he continues to win over colleagues and audiences alike with “a mixture of spontaneity and mastery, elegance, fantasy, intensity that makes his sound recognizable from the first notes” (Le Monde).
A recording artist for Alpha Classics, his albums have been awarded ‘Editor’s Choice’ by Gramophone, ‘The Strad Recommends’ by The Strad, and the ‘Choc de Classica’ by Classica as well as five-star recommendations from the Sunday Times and Diapason among others. His latest album, featuring works by Gabriel Fauré with pianist Jonathan Fournel, was released in late May 2026.
Highlights of the 2026/27 season include his debut at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw as soloist with the Nederlands Kamerorkest during a tour around the Netherlands, as well as his debut in South Korea, where he appears with the Korean Chamber Orchestra in Seoul. The season also sees a tour of Sweden as soloist with the Camerata Nordica. Further orchestral debuts include the Orchestra of Teatro Verdi di Trieste, the Louisville Orchestra, the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, the Elgin Symphony, and the Kaohsiung Symphony Orchestra, and he has been invited by pianist Alexandre Tharaud to join him in recital at the Cité de la Musique in Paris.
A sought-after soloist, he was hand-picked by Yannick Nézet-Séguin to be his artist-in-residence with the Orchestre Métropolitain during the 18/19 season and has performed in such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, Wigmore Hall, the Auditorium du Louvre and the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing. Past highlights include performances with such ensembles as the Royal, Oslo, and Brussels Philharmonic Orchestras, the Seattle, Singapore, Toledo, Montreal, Tucson, and Wuppertal Symphony Orchestras, as well as recording John Rutter’s Visions with the composer himself and the Aurora Chamber Orchestra, after giving its world premiere in London, UK.
As an avid chamber musician, he has performed at such international festivals and concert series as the Rheingau Musik Festival, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Flâneries musicales de Reims, and Bergen International Festival among others. Passionate about pedagogy and music outreach, he has been invited to give masterclasses at various festivals and universities including the Colburn School, the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, the Gustav Mahler Academy, the Avos Project in Rome among others.
Fostering a significant audience away from the concert hall as well, he is cementing his noteworthy role in reaching young people, aspiring musicians, and potential music lovers alike with his art in creative and engaging ways on social media. He is an associate artist of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium, where he was mentored by Augustin Dumay.
He has been keen on making connections between music and other fields. Ever since his dad started introducing him to physics concepts about string resonance, they have strongly influenced his playing and philosophy on sound production. Together with his dad, he has given lectures about this subject in places such as the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, the Barratt-Due Music Institute in Oslo, and various universities in California.
Kerson performs on the 1741 ‘ex Bohrer, Baumgartner’ Guarneri del Gesu courtesy of Canimex Inc, Drummondville (Quebec), Canada.