This concert is dedicated to the memory of Frank Maxson, a great friend of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, member of the Board of Directors and long-time supporter and lover of orchestral music.
Este concierto es dedicado a la memoria de Frank Maxson, un gran amigo de la Orquesta Sinfónica de Elgin, miembro de la Junta Directiva y un gran amante y mecenas de la música orquestal.
Program Information
MISSY MAZZOLI | These Worlds in Us
SAINT-SAËNS | Cello Concerto No. 1
TCHAIKOVSKY | Symphony No. 6, “Pathétique”
Chad Goodman, conductor
Matthew Agnew, cello
Ticket Information
Prices: Gold $65 / Red $42 / Green $20
Student tickets $10
Call and ask about our Free Youth Tickets for children ages 17 and under
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Chad Goodman has received widespread praise for thrilling conducting that combines “precision, agility and fervor” and for displaying the “pitch perfect combination of abandon and subtlety” (South Florida Classical Review).
The 2023/24 season marked Goodman’s inaugural year as Music Director of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra—only the fifth leader in the orchestra’s prestigious seven-decade history. Goodman also serves as Artistic Director of IlluminArts, Miami’s art song and chamber music concert series. In this role, he curates site-specific classical music programs in collaboration with the leading museums, art galleries, and historic venues of Miami.Goodman made his Minnesota Orchestra subscription debut in June 2024, stepping in on short notice to lead the season finale program featuring works by Smyth, Poulenc, and Tchaikovsky.
From 2019 to 2023, he was the Conducting Fellow of the New World Symphony, where he was the assistant conductor to Michael Tilson Thomas. In addition to leading the orchestra in more than fifty performances, Goodman created the educational program “SPARK: How Composers Find Inspiration,” which blended engaging audience participation with captivating light design and videography.
Goodman has served as an Assistant Conductor to the San Francisco Symphony, working alongside Michael Tilson Thomas, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Manfred Honeck, Daniel Harding, Elim Chan, Simone Young, and James Gaffigan, among others. He has recently made debuts with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de Puebla (OSEP).
As Founder and Artistic Director of Elevate Ensemble, Goodman’s ambitious vision for concert programming resulted in the pairing of music from San Francisco Bay Area composers with underappreciated gems of the 20th and 21st centuries. Under his leadership, Elevate Ensemble established a Composer-in-Residence program and commissioned fifteen new works.
Goodman also 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.” Last year, 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. -
A native of Michigan, Matthew Agnew completed early cello studies with Marilyn Kesler, Shirley Mullins (a protege of Janos Starker), and Jane Katsuyama of the Dayton Philharmonic. He attended DePaul University on scholarship and studied with William Cernota from the Lyric Opera Orchestra.
As an orchestral player, Matthew serves as the principal cellist of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, a position he has held since 2002, and plays with several Chicago area orchestras, including Chicago Opera Theater and Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2005 he was awarded the assistant principal position with the Lancaster Festival Orchestra, a summer festival orchestra in Lancaster, Ohio.
As a soloist, Matthew has been performing concertos since high school, when he premiered a cello concerto, composed by his father, at the Dayton Art Institute. Since then, he has had the privilege of soloing often with the Elgin Symphony, including concertos by Haydn and Vivaldi, and the Crouching Tiger Cello Concerto by Tan Dun, based on the soundtrack to the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In February 2020 he performed the Saint-Saëns' First Cello Concerto with the Fox Valley Orchestra, and is looking forward to performing that concerto with the ESO in January.