Visconti Arts Announces Signing of New Talent

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Visconti Arts Announces Signing of New Talent

Conductors Kazem Abdullah and Chia-Hsuan Lin as well as composer Brian Raphael Nabors

New York, NY – March 2, 2026 — Visconti Arts, a leading agency representing visionary talent across the performing arts, proudly announces the signing of conductor Kazem Abdullah, conductor Chia-Hsuan Lin, and composer Brian Raphael Nabors to its international roster.

The announcement comes at a moment of remarkable momentum for each artist. Kazem Abdullah opened the Metropolitan Opera 2023-24 season with Anthony Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, a production hailed by The New York Times as “an American classic.” Chia-Hsuan Lin drew high praise from the Richmond Times-Dispatch for her performance of Brahms’s Fourth Symphony, which remarked “I’ve never heard a more compelling live performance than this one.” Composer Brian Raphael Nabors is hailed as “a rising talent that demands our attention” in Arts ATL, and his work PULSE has been acclaimed as “an orchestral tour de force” by Boston Classical Review. This season, Nabors performs his own Hammond Organ Concerto with the Oakland Symphony and Minnesota Orchestra.

With these additions, Abdullah, Lin, and Nabors join a distinguished roster of internationally celebrated conductors, composers, and performers represented by Visconti Arts, including Damien Geter, Vijay Gupta, and Tobias Picker. Together, the roster reflects the agency’s commitment to artistic leadership at the highest level — pairing established luminaries with the next generation of transformative voices shaping the future of the field.

“We’re thrilled to welcome three exceptional new artists who expand the range of our roster in bold and engaging ways,” said Visconti. “These additions reflect our deep commitment to cultivating innovative opera and multimedia collaborations at the highest level, with the creation of new work as our top priority. All three artists likewise bring the same vivid creativity to orchestral engagements, adding their fresh voices and vision to those of our other roster artists – including our conductors Mélisse Brunet, Damien Geter, Rebekah Heller, Rei Hotoda, and Roger Kalia, who are already shaping the new orchestral landscape via major Music Director positions and artistic partnerships.”

Kazem Abdullah, Conductor
Internationally acclaimed conductor Kazem Abdullah joins Visconti Arts following a season of landmark appearances, including a new production of Anthony Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X at the Metropolitan Opera — a production hailed by The New York Times as “an American classic,” who cited Abdullah’s conducting as “passionate, but also clear, focused, and humble.”

Other recent opera engagements include an Opera Gala for the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the American premiere of Charles Wuorinen’s Brokeback Mountain, Tosca for Seattle Opera, and Hänsel und Gretel for Cape Town Opera. Abdullah’s 2025/26 season includes debut engagements with the Naples Philharmonic, Kansas City Symphony, and North Carolina Symphony, alongside return appearances with the Indianapolis Symphony and Seattle Opera. He has also recently been engaged by the Atlanta, Seattle, Indianapolis, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati symphony orchestras.

Recognized for his commanding technique, thoughtful interpretations, and innovative concert experiences, Abdullah excels in reaching new and diverse audiences through imaginative programming and dynamic concert formats. He is a dedicated champion of American composers and has led premieres of significant works including Rhiannon Giddens’s Omar, Gregory Spears’s Castor and Patience, and works by John Luther Adams, Caroline Shaw, Anthony Davis, George Lewis, Dai Fujikura, and Daniel Bernard Roumain.

Currently based in Nürnberg, Germany, Abdullah served as Generalmusikdirektor in Aachen from 2012 to 2017, where he conducted more than 25 operas and expanded audiences through innovative programming and non-traditional concert formats. He previously served as Assistant Conductor at the Metropolitan Opera and made his Met debut in 2009 conducting Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice.

Chia-Hsuan Lin, Conductor
“With the command and energy of a soccer star,” conductor Chia-Hsuan Lin (“jah-shwen”) electrifies concert halls with performances that are as precise as they are passionate. Whether leading Brahms and Bartók or championing fresh voices such as Ke-Chia Chen and Texu Kim, her concerts are celebrated for emotional depth, exquisite ensemble, and rhythmic vitality.

Now in her second season as Music Director of the Rochester Symphony (MN), Lin has already helped spark a notable surge in subscriptions and audience attendance. She also serves as Principal Guest Conductor of the Richmond Symphony, where she previously held the position of Associate Conductor. She opens the Richmond Symphony’s 2025–26 subscription series with Bizet’s Carmen and Schumann’s Konzertstück featuring the American Horn Quartet.

Her recent and upcoming highlights include debuts with the National Symphony Orchestra, Charlotte Symphony, Portland Symphony, and the Britt Festival Orchestra. In fall 2026, she makes her debut with the Orlando Philharmonic and returns to the Virginia Symphony, Portland Symphony, Charlotte Symphony, and the Minnesota Orchestra for its Lunar New Year concert.

Lin has conducted the Saint Louis Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Williamsburg Symphony, Richmond Ballet, and Taipei Philharmonic Chorus. In January 2025, she was one of four conductors selected by the National Symphony
Orchestra to work with Music Director Gianandrea Noseda and lead the orchestra in its Emerging Conductors Concert. She also served as Cover Conductor for the New York Philharmonic during its 2025 Bravo! Vail residency and has worked in similar roles with Opéra de Rouen Normandie, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, and Saint Louis Symphony, collaborating with conductors including Noseda, Thomas Søndergård, Osmo Vänskä, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Jahja Ling, Marin Alsop, Stéphane Denève, and Valentina Peleggi.

Her tenure as Associate Conductor of the Richmond Symphony and Assistant Conductor of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic demonstrated remarkable stylistic versatility, from classical masterworks to live-with-film performances and cross-genre collaborations. Critic Clarke Bustard of the Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote of her performance of Brahms’s Fourth Symphony with Richmond Symphony, “I’ve never heard a more compelling live performance than this one.”

A dedicated advocate for emerging talent and new music, Lin has collaborated with artists including Blake Pouliot, Paul Huang, Sterling Elliott, Amaryn Olmeda, Kevin Zhu, Inna Faliks, and Eduardo Rojas. She continues to champion contemporary composers, leading premieres by Abel Selaocoe, Marius Neset, Texu Kim, Ke-Chia Chen, Stephen Prutsman, Zachary Wadsworth, PaviElle French, Laura Schwendinger, Steve Heitzeg, and Jennifer Jolley.

Born in Taiwan, Lin began piano at age three and later majored in percussion at National Taiwan Normal University, performing with the Taipei Percussion Group. After a life-altering accident in her youth, she turned her focus to conducting, studying with Apo Hsu and Mark Gibson before earning her Doctorate of Orchestral Conducting at Northwestern University with Victor Yampolsky. She lives in Baltimore with her husband, horn player James Ferree.

Brian Raphael Nabors, Composer
The son of a church musician and pastor in Birmingham, Alabama, Brian Raphael Nabors was immersed in R&B, Neo Soul, Jazz, Funk, and Black marching band culture. This vibrant musical foundation informs a body of work that bridges genres and expands orchestral color.

His music has been performed by the Boston Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Munich Symphony, and Britain’s Chineke!, among others, at venues and festivals including Carnegie Hall, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Lucerne Festival, and Tanglewood.

He is the recipient of numerous honors including a Fulbright Fellowship and the 2025 A.I. duPont Composition Award. Nabors holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and currently serves as Assistant Professor of Composition at Louisiana State University.

Launched in 2024 with a unique roster of adventurous composers, conductors, soloists, and special projects, Visconti Arts serves the unique management needs of artists who are re-imagining rather than simply recreating.
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The Visconti Arts roster includes dreamers, musical creatives, citizen-artists, authors, and speakers who are sought after for their impact across disciplines. While they come from many different backgrounds, our artists are unified as changemakers who embrace the transformative power of art to heal and empower communities.

For more information on Visconti Arts, please visit https://www.viscontiarts.com/