Heroic Aspirations

Dai Wei’s The Dancing Moonlight opens with shimmering color and rhythmic lift, transforming poetic imagery into vivid orchestral motion. Pianist Jon Nakamatsu returns for Edward MacDowell’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in D Minor, a work that bridges European tradition and an emerging American voice. After intermission, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, “Eroica,” crowns the evening with a bold reimagining of the symphony’s scale and emotional reach. Each work—through color, virtuosity, or structural daring—creates a journey of aspiration and transformation.

Program
- WEI: The Dancing Moonlight
- MACDOWELL: Piano Concerto No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 23
- BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55 (“Eroica”)

Featured artists

Austin Chanu, conductor

Brazilian-American conductor Austin Chanu is the newly appointed Music Director of The Syracuse Orchestra. He has received the Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award four times and won third prize and the orchestra prize at the Korean National Symphony Orchestra International Conducting Competition. He previously served as Assistant Conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra, assisting Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Chanu has also worked with orchestras including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. He studied composition at the USC Thornton School of Music and orchestral conducting at the Eastman School of Music.

Jon Nakamatsu, piano

American pianist Jon Nakamatsu won the gold medal at the 1997 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. He performs worldwide as a soloist, concerto artist and chamber musician, and has appeared with more than 150 orchestras. With clarinetist Jon Manasse, he tours as the Manasse/Nakamatsu Duo; the two have served as Artistic Directors of the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival since 2007. Nakamatsu teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Stanford University.