When the Lake County Symphony Orchestra opens its 2026–27 season on September 12, the person on the podium will be new to our stage — and, in one respect, new to our organization's history. Jennifer Huang, who leads LCSO through Beethoven, Louise Farrenc, and Mendelssohn on opening night, is the first woman to conduct this orchestra since its founding in 2004.
It's a genuine milestone, and one we're glad to mark. But it's really just a single line in a much longer story about who Huang is as a musician — and that story is worth telling on its own terms.
Huang is a Taiwanese-American conductor who currently serves as Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Northwestern Medical Orchestra and Music Director of the Chicago Bar Association Symphony Orchestra. Her recent work includes serving as Music Director of the Merit School of Music Chamber Orchestra and Music Director of Thompson Street Opera Co. — a resume that already tells you she moves easily between the concert hall and the opera pit.
Before relocating to Chicago in 2021, Huang built her career across the San Francisco Bay Area, holding posts as Resident Conductor of the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, Music Director of both the Santa Rosa Symphony Aspirante Youth Orchestra and the UC Berkeley Summer and Chamber Orchestras, and Assistant Conductor and Chorus Director of West Edge Opera.
Beyond her conducting posts, Huang is a committed advocate for new music, working closely with living composers from around the world — a sensibility that fits naturally into a season built around discovery. She's also an accomplished violinist, pianist, and vocalist in her own right, and has performed as an instrumentalist under the baton of conductors as celebrated as Riccardo Muti, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Gustavo Dudamel — meaning she has sat inside some of the finest orchestras in the world before ever picking up a baton of her own.
Her academic path adds its own texture to the story: Huang holds a Bachelor of Arts from UC Berkeley in Molecular Cell Biology and Music — a dual degree that speaks to the same rigor and curiosity she now brings to the podium — and a Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting from the Northwestern University Bienen School of Music.
On September 12, Huang leads LCSO through a program built entirely around discovery: Beethoven's Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus, Louise Farrenc's Overture No. 1 — a genuine discovery for most of our audience — Mendelssohn's The Hebrides Overture, and Beethoven's own Symphony No. 1, the sound of a composer finding his own voice. It's fitting repertoire for a conductor who has spent her career finding new music worth championing.
Join us September 12 at the James Lumber Center for the Performing Arts to welcome Jennifer Huang to the LCSO podium — and to a small piece of our history. Tickets and season packages are available now.