Francesco Lecce-Chong

Conductor · American

A conductor building Santa Rosa's season around bold pairings of new and canonic works.

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In short

Francesco Lecce-Chong is a conductor who serves as music director of the Santa Rosa Symphony. Across this season he leads a wide sweep of repertoire, from Liszt and Tchaikovsky to Mahler, Orff's Carmina Burana, and a multi-year traversal of the complete Beethoven symphonies. Listeners can expect programs that mix a new or recent piece with a familiar concerto and a large-scale symphonic work.

On the podium

Based on this season's programming, expect an evening built around contrast: a freshly commissioned or recently written piece opening the concert, a concerto as its centerpiece, and a large romantic or twentieth century symphony to close. The Santa Rosa lineup pairs Liszt's flashy Piano Concerto No. 1 with Tchaikovsky's turbulent Fourth Symphony, sets Rachmaninoff's hushed Vocalise beside Mahler's sunlit Fourth Symphony, and later brings the full chorus and orchestra together for Orff's percussive Carmina Burana. There is also a standing commitment to new music, with world premieres and recent scores by composers such as Matt Browne, Shuying Li, and Gabriela Lena Frank placed alongside canonical works. The ongoing complete Beethoven symphony cycle suggests a conductor interested in long-form projects that let an audience track a composer's development concert by concert rather than in isolated performances.

Written by OrchestraFinder, reviewed September 2026.