He’s got a Chicago and Illinois connection.

I’ve never seen or heard a pianist play with such energy, determination, beauty and skill. Conrad Tao brought the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra’s house down with his performance of  Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor.

Here’s a review:

The concert opened with the Mozart concerto, featuring soloist Conrad Tao on piano. From the outset it was clear that Mr. Tao was approaching Mozart from a wide artistic perspective. Playing with an unapologetically big-boned sonority and deploying an extremely wide range of color and dynamics, Mr. Tao revealed Mozart not as a pretty porcelain figure on a pedestal, but as a passionate, turbulent, all-too-human composer whose emotional landscape sweeps from lofty serenity to deep fear, doubt, and even regret. This perspective shined a light into the more complex and difficult emotional side of this composer, which lesser performances all too often shy away from. As we have come to expect over the years, Music Director Courtney Lewis proved to be a sharp and responsive concerto accompanist, holding things tightly together and functioning as an equal partner with the soloist.  Following the concerto Mr. Tao treated the audience to an encore. It was a piece written in 2006 by American composer Elliot Carter entitled “Caténaires,” a highly chromatic and virtuosic tour de force which brought the audience jumping back to its feet with applause.  

Right, what he said. This is not what you might expect to hear during a regional symphony. But the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra is a mighty fine one, attracting performers, like Tao, from throughout America and beyond.

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