Composer and pianist Conrad Tao has performed as a soloist with many of the world’s finest orchestras. His first large-scale orchestral work, Everything Must Go, received its world premiere with the New York Philharmonic and its European premiere with the Antwerp Symphony. He received a 2019 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for his work on More Forever.

In the 2022–23 season, Mr. Tao returns to the New York Philharmonic and curates a program for the Artist Spotlight series and debuts with the National Symphony. After the premiere of his Violin Concerto with the Atlanta Symphony, he performs as a soloist with that orchestra. He reunites with the Naples Philharmonic and opens the season with the Tampere Philharmonic.

As a pianist, Mr. Tao has recorded three solo albums for Warner Classics. In 2021, in collaboration with the brass quartet The Westerlies, he released Bricolage, a set of improvisations and experiments recorded in a small cabin in rural New Hampshire. Born in Urbana, Illinois, Mr. Tao received an Avery Fisher Career Grant and was named a Gilmore Young Artist. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in February 2008 and is a Shenson Young Artist.

(1/2023)

Ross Jamie Collins is a Finnish-British conductor and is a part of the inaugural class of Salonen Fellows in the Negaunee Conducting Program at the Colburn School. Previously a student of Jorma Panula at the Panula Academy in Finland, Collins began his studies with Esa-Pekka Salonen at Colburn in fall 2019. In 2018 he was awarded Third Prize in the VII International Jorma Panula Conducting Competition, and in 2019 he made his debuts with the South Denmark Philharmonic and the Kirkkonummi Chamber Orchestra. Born in 2001 in Nottingham, United Kingdom, Collins has been living in Helsinki, Finland since 2008 where he began conducting studies at the age of fourteen with Klaus Mäkelä. In 2017 he founded his own orchestra, named Symphony Orchestra ROSSO, and conducted a full symphony concert at the age of fifteen.

In the 2021–22 concert season, Collins will make his conducting debut with the Philharmonia Orchestra, alongside violinist Randall Goosby in music of Felix Mendelssohn, Carl Nielsen, and Jean Sibelius. He will also make his debut with the Turku Philharmonic, Finland’s oldest orchestra, where he will lead them alongside the classic British animated film The Snowman. Supported by a scholarship from The Finnish Cultural Foundation, Collins has participated in numerous international conducting masterclasses and has had experience conducting the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra, Vaasa City Orchestra, Sinfonietta Cracovia, MAV Symphony Orchestra, Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra, Lappeenranta City Orchestra, St. Michel Strings, The Camerata Antonio Sole, and has served as assistant conductor of the Lauttasaari Symphony Orchestra.