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Tech C.E.O. Pays $400,000 to Conduct the Toronto Symphony

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Mandle Cheung, a 78-year-old amateur conductor, led a performance of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony over the objections of some musicians.

A conductor, with hands raised and holding a baton, is seen in the foreground leading an orchestra, whose seated members are seen in the background.

June 27, 2025, 9:46 a.m. ET

The musicians of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra took their seats at Roy Thomson Hall on Wednesday for a performance of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony. Then a stage door swung open, and out walked the conductor.

He was not a world-renowned maestro or even a trained musician. The man who walked out, wearing a crisp white shirt and taking the podium, was Mandle Cheung, a 78-year-old technology executive who had paid the Toronto Symphony nearly $400,000 to lead it for one night.

Cheung, a lifelong fan of classical music who played in a harmonica band in high school and has dabbled in conducting, persuaded the orchestra to allow him to act out his long-held dream of leading a top ensemble.

“I had watched the videos and heard the recordings,” Cheung, the chairman and chief executive of ComputerTalk Technology in Toronto, said in an interview. “I had seen the magic of the guy standing in front of the orchestra with a stick. So I said, ‘Why can’t I do it, too?’”

He added: “I can afford to do it, that’s the main thing. So when it came across my mind, I said, ‘Hey, maybe I should give it a try.’”

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“I had seen the magic of the guy standing in front of the orchestra with a stick,” Cheung said. “So I said, ‘Why can’t I do it, too?’”Credit...Allan Cabral