This concert is the North Carolina Symphony debut of Francesco Lecce-Chong.

    Conductor Francesco Lecce-Chong is Music Director of the Eugene Symphony in Oregon and the Santa Rosa Symphony in Northern California. He has appeared with orchestras around the world, including the San Francisco Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Seattle Symphony; the National Symphony Orchestra and the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Toronto, and St. Louis; and the Hong Kong Philharmonic.
    In 2019, Lecce-Chong debuted in subscription concerts with the San Francisco Symphony. The San Francisco Chronicle called his conducting “first rate,” praising the “vitality and brilliance of the music-making he drew from members of the San Francisco Symphony.” Other recent debuts include the Seattle Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, and Xi’an Symphony Orchestra. The 2021/22 season will mark his subscription debuts with the Utah and North Carolina Symphonies.
    During the 2021/22 season, both the Eugene and Santa Rosa symphonies are continuing the four-year “First Symphony Project” that is commissioning a symphony each year from a young American composer. The Eugene Symphony will embark on a three-part concert presentation of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and the Santa Rosa Symphony will begin a cycle of the large orchestral works of Rachmaninoff paired with legendary film composers.
    Lecce-Chong has served as Associate Conductor with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and is the recipient of such distinctions as the Career Assistance Award from the Solti Foundation U.S. Trained also as a pianist and composer, he completed his studies at the Curtis Institute of Music after attending the Mannes School of Music in New York City and Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Italy.