Maestro Jindong Cai is a professor of music at the Stanford University and Music Director and Conductor of the Stanford Symphony Orchestra. Maestro Cai has conducted many American orchestras and he maintains strong ties to his homeland and conducted several top orchestras in China.

Born in Beijing, Mr. Cai received his early musical training in China. He did his graduate studies at the New England Conservatory and the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati. He studied at Tanglewood music center with Leonard Bernstein, and won the Conducting Fellowship Award at the Aspen Music Festival in 1990 and 1992. He held assistant conducting positions with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. He was on the faculties at the Louisiana State University, the University of Arizona, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and the University of California at Berkeley.

Together with Sheila Melvin, Mr. Cai has co-authored a book Rhapsody in Red: How Western Classical Music Became Chinese.