Events
Classic Series
Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2
Saturday
Oct 24, 2026
10:30AM (Dress Rehearsal)
Saturday
Oct 24, 2026
7:30PM
Alberta Bair Theater
2801 3rd Ave N
$10-80
Wilbur Lin, Music Director Candidate
Michael Stephen Brown, Piano
Known for his creative programming and inviting stage presence, Music Director Finalist Wilbur Lin kicks off with Anna Clyne’s PIVOT which shows how a single idea can shift perspective without losing its core. Not to be outdone, Amy Beach’s Gaelic Symphony has a “simple, rugged, unpretentious beauty,” using old Irish melodies to paint her picture of the American national concert music that composers were trying to find at the time. For the second half of the evening, guest artist Michael Stephen Brown will dazzle on the piano with Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Written after the disastrous premiere of his First Symphony, it’s a true triumph over tragedy as Rachmaninoff recovered from his depression and found himself inspired again.
Anna Clyne
PIVOT
Amy Beach
Gaelic Symphony
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Piano Concerto No. 2
- Our second concert in The Search, Wilbur Lin joins us on stage to provide a night of stunning music.
Guest artist
WILBUR LIN | MUSIC DIRECTOR CANDIDATE
Known for his creative programming and inviting stage presence, Taiwanese-American conductor Wilbur Lin’s career has taken him to symphony halls and opera theaters across the United States, Europe, Latin America, and Taiwan. Lin is currently the music director of the Missouri Symphony and associate conductor of the Colorado Symphony.
The 2025/26 season marks a series of milestones for Lin, with debuts at Symphony Nova Scotia, the Louisiana Philharmonic, and his first guest conducting appearance with the Cincinnati Pops, alongside continued performances with the Missouri and Colorado symphonies. Recent seasons have featured engagements with the Rochester Philharmonic and the symphonies of Elgin, Acadiana, and Juneau, in addition to frequent return invitations from the Taipei Symphony, Ann Arbor Symphony, and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra.
A equally strong advocate for new music and neglected composers of the past, especially American and British women composers, Lin is closely associated with the research and performance of works by Alice Mary Smith and Amy Beach. In his role as the associate conductor of the Colorado Symphony, Lin also serves as the music director of the Denver Young Artists Orchestra, with whom he released a recording of Marion Bauer’s “American Youth” Piano Concerto and a premiere digital single of Alice Mary Smith’s The Masque of Pandora Oveture. Further recent activities include the release of a new studio recording with pianist Eric Zuber and the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, the creation of an interactive multimedia education concert series for the Taipei Symphony, and conducting and covering the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops where he finished his tenure as assistant conductor in 2022.
A graduate of Riccardo Muti’s Italian Opera Academy, Lin’s operatic endeavors include conducting Verdi’s Macbeth at Teatro Alighieri, Le nozze di Figaro and L’elisir d’amore with the Missouri Symphony, Die Zauberflöte and Barber of Seville with the Winter Harbor Music Festival, Menotti’s The Medium and Amelia Goes to the Ball as the conductor of Northern Illinois University, and has coached and performed as a pianist with the Indianapolis Opera, Indiana University Opera Theater, Reimagining Opera for Kids, and the Cincinnati Ballet. In 2022, Lin led a new workshop of Robeson by Scott Davenport Richards at the Cincinnati Opera.
Educated in Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, Lin has studied with Arthur Fagen and David Effron at Indiana University, Clark Rundell and Mark Heron at the Royal Northern College of Music, and Apo Hsu at the National Taiwan Normal University. He has also received conducting coaching with, notably, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Riccardo Muti, Sir Mark Elder, Helmuth Rilling, and has assisted Peter Oundjian, Jun Märkl, Louis Langrée, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Ken-David Masur, James Gaffigan, and John Morris Russell, among many others.
Lin resides with his wife in Denver, Colorado, is an avid runner, and flies just enough to justify maintaining his private pilot certificate.
MICHAEL STEPHEN BROWN | PIANO
Michael Stephen Brown is a pianist and composer hailed by The New York Times as “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers.” A 2026 Andrew Wolf Award winner and recent fellow at both MacDowell and Yaddo, he is also a recipient of Lincoln Center’s Emerging Artist Award and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Brown performs internationally and receives commissions from orchestras, soloists, and festivals around the world.
Recent highlights include appearances as soloist with the Seattle, Phoenix, North Carolina, and Albany Symphonies, as well as the NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra, and recitals at Carnegie Hall, the Louvre, Wigmore Hall, Beethoven-Haus Bonn, and the Tippet Rise Arts Center. He has appeared in recital for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and collaborates regularly with cellist Nicholas Canellakis and violinists Pinchas Zukerman, Kristin Lee, and Arnaud Sussmann.
Brown is currently composing The Carnival of Endangered Wonders, a Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center-led project co-presented by a consortium of U.S. presenters. His first album devoted entirely to his own music, Twelve Blocks, will be released in February 2026.
Brown earned dual degrees in piano and composition from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal, Robert McDonald, and Samuel Adler and was awarded the Petschek Piano Award. He is composing the score for Angeline Gragasin’s upcoming film Look But Don’t Touch and lives in New York with his two 19th-century Steinways, Octavia and Daria. Known for his engaging commentary on music and distinctive socks, audiences value both his insight and his presence onstage.
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