Mandle Cheung will guest conduct London, England’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra this summer
The amateur conductor paid a reported half-million dollars to lead a Toronto Symphony Orchestra performance last year
Mandle Cheung, the amateur conductor who paid a reported half-million dollars to lead a Toronto Symphony Orchestra performance last year, is continuing his maestro journey.
In May, Cheung will conduct Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 at North York’s Meridian Arts Centre, with his own orchestra and choir, known as Mandle Philharmonic. In July, they’ll perform at the Ontario Place RBC Amphitheatre. A spokesperson for the Mandle Philharmonic said it will be a full classical symphony, before an audience of up to 16,000 people.
Ahead of Cheung’s TSO debut in 2025, some orchestra members questioned the ethics of a tech entrepreneur paying to lead orchestras of high calibre and complexity without the requisite experience.
Cheung told Toronto Life last year that he had his sights set on playing the New York Philharmonic and the Berliner Philharmoniker. In August, he’ll get closer, as he has arranged to guest conduct the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, England, at Alexandra Palace.
“I started out as a self-taught amateur conductor in 2017. Since then, I’ve gone on to lead concerts with full houses and standing ovations, and have built Mandle Philharmonic into a legitimate, professional orchestra,” Cheung said by email.
In November, Mandle Philharmonic will perform at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall, featuring a 400-person choir.
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Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
