American Voices

All concerts of the 2021-2022 Concord Orchestra season are planned and directed by finalists auditioning for the position of Music Director.

In 2001 Jeffrey Rink made his conducting debuts with The New Japan Philharmonic, the Tokyo Philharmonic and the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra and conducted a sold-out performance of Chinese and Western music in Carnegie Hall.  During his 20 years in Boston Mr. Rink served as Music Director of Chorus pro Musica, the Newton Symphony Orchestra, the New England Philharmonic, Concert Opera Boston and Assistant Conductor to Sir Christopher Hogwood with the Handel and Haydn Society. Mr. Rink served from 2007-2018 as Music Director of the Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra.  He is a recipient of the Jacopo Peri Award for outstanding contributions to the art of opera in New England.

This season, the Concord Orchestra features several young performers who participated in the annual young artist competition. The competition is open to musicians of high school age or younger who live in eastern Massachusetts. This season the winners were chosen by a panel of orchestra members and Eric Culver, consulting conductor.  Winners of this season’s competition perform at the March and May concerts.

Ayaan Ahmad, winner of the young artist competition, performs Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major. Ahmad, a resident of Sharon, Massachusetts, began studying the violin at the age of four with Daniela Rubenstein. Since 2015, he has been studying with Jan Mark Sloman at the Cleveland Institute of Music as well as Ryan Meehan of the Calidore String Quartet.  In 2015, Ahmad won first prize at MMTA’s Bay State Competition. In November of 2020, he won the Massachusetts round of the MTNA junior strings competition as well as the eastern division round, advancing to the final national round.   In the summer of 2021, Ahmad was accepted into and attended the Perlman Music Program where he worked with esteemed teachers such as Li Lin and Catherine Cho, and performed and worked with world renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman.