PASADENA SYMPHONY ANNOUNCES SEVEN ARTISTIC PARTNERS TO LEAD THE ORCHESTRA FOR THE 2021-2022 SYMPHONY SERIES TOGETHER WITH NEWS THAT MUSIC DIRECTOR DAVID LOCKINGTON WILL BE ON LEAVE OF ABSENCE FOR THE SEASON

In recent years, he has made appearances with the Saint Louis Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Colorado Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Bamberger Symphoniker, New World Symphony Orchestra, Spoleto Festival Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música, and  the Orquesta Sinfonica y Coro de RTVE (Madrid); among others in the U.S. and Europe.

In his most recent role Joseph served as the Assistant Conductor of the Atlanta Symphony where he conducted more than 50 concerts per season  Mr. Young also served as the Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, where he was the driving force behind the ensemble’s artistic growth.  Previous appointments have included Resident Conductor of the Phoenix Symphony,  and the League of American Orchestras Conducting Fellow with Buffalo Philharmonic and Baltimore Symphony.

Joseph is a recipient of the 2015 Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award for young conductors, an award he also won in 2008, and 2014.  In 2013, Joseph was a Semi-finalist in the Gustav Mahler International Conducting Competition (Bamberg, Germany). In 2011, he was one out of six conductors featured in the League of American Orchestras’ prestigious Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview.

Joseph completed graduate studies with Gustav Meier and Markand Thakar at the Peabody Conservatory in 2009, earning an artist’s diploma in conducting.  He has been mentored by many world-renowned conductors including Jorma Panula, Robert Spano and Marin Alsop whom he continues to maintain a close relationship

Randall has been featured on National Public Radio’s “From the Top,” and he has been honored as a Rising Star of the Stradivari Society. Randall was a prize winner at the 2018 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, leading to his addition to the artist roster of Young Classical Artists Trust in London. As YCAT’s inaugural Robey Artist, in partnership with London Music Masters, Randall mentors and works closely with young musicians in schools around the UK. He is also a recipient of a career advancement grant from the Bagby Foundation. He has spent his summers studying at the Perlman Music Program, Verbier Festival Academy, and Mozarteum Summer Academy, among others.

As a soloist, Randall has performed widely throughout the USA, having appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and the New World Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has also given recitals at such venues as the Kennedy Center (Washington D.C.), Kaufman Center (New York City),  and Wigmore Hall (London).

In addition to his concerts, Randall shares his love of music through community engagement programs for public schools, children’s hospitals, and music programs across the USA.  Through Concerts in Motion, a non-profit organization in New York City, he provides private house concerts for elderly and otherwise homebound patrons. In addition, he gives private virtual performances for COVID-19 patients through Project Music Heals Us.

Randall received a full scholarship to The Juilliard School’s Pre-College program and has earned his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music from Juilliard under the tutelage of violinists Itzhak Perlman, Catherine Cho, Laurie Smukler, and Donald Weilerstein. He is now pursuing an Artist Diploma at Juilliard, where he will continue his studies with Mr. Perlman and Ms. Cho. Randall was a proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship throughout his collegiate studies at Juilliard.

He currently plays on a Guarneri del Gesu (1735) on generous loan from the Stradivari Society.

Jessie was born and raised in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the 1980s during a time when the neighborhood was at a major turning point in its history. Artists gravitated to the hotbed of artistic experimentation and community development. Her parents – her father a musician, her mother a theater artist and storyteller – were engaged in the activities of the neighborhood and regularly brought Jessie to rallies, performances, and parties where neighbors, activists, and artists gathered to celebrate and support the movements of the time. It is from this unique experience that Jessie has created a life that merges composing, performance, education, and advocacy.

Since 1999, Jessie has been affiliated with The Sphinx Organization, which supports young African-American and Latinx string players. She currently serves as composer-in-residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, the Organization’s flagship professional touring ensemble. She was a two-time laureate of the annual Sphinx Competition and was awarded a generous MPower grant to assist in the development of her debut album, Strum: Music for Strings (Azica Records). She has received additional grants and awards from the ASCAP Foundation, Chamber Music America, American Composers Orchestra, the Joyce Foundation, and the Sorel Organization.

Her growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral works. Some recent highlights include Five Slave Songs (2018) commissioned for soprano Julia Bullock by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Records from a Vanishing City (2016) for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Caught by the Wind (2016) for the Albany Symphony and the American Music Festival, and Banner (2014) – written to mark the

200th anniversary of The Star-Spangled Banner – for The Sphinx Organization and the Joyce Foundation.

In the 2019-20 season, new commissioned works will be premiered by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the National Choral Society, and ASCAP Foundation. Jessie is also teaming up with composer-violinist Jannina Norpoth to reimagine Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha; it is being produced by Volcano Theatre and co-commissioned by Washington Performing Arts, Stanford University, Southbank Centre (London), National Arts Centre (Ottawa), and the Banff Centre for the Arts. Additionally, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony will all perform Montgomery’s works this season.

The New York Philharmonic has selected Jessie as one of the featured composers for their Project 19, which marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting equal voting rights in the United States to women. Other forthcoming works include a nonet inspired by the Great Migration, told from the perspective of Montgomery’s great-grandfather William McCauley and to be performed by Imani Winds and the Catalyst Quartet; a cello concerto for Thomas Mesa jointly commissioned by Carnegie Hall, New World Symphony, and The Sphinx Organization; and a new orchestral work for the National Symphony.

Jessie began her violin studies, at the Third Street Music School Settlement, one of the oldest community organizations in the country. A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and currently a member of the Catalyst Quartet, she continues to maintain an active performance career as a violinist appearing regularly with her own ensembles, as well as with the Silkroad Ensemble and Sphinx Virtuosi.

Jessie’s teachers and mentors include Sally Thomas, Ann Setzer, Alice Kanack, Joan Tower, Derek Bermel, Mark Suozzo, Ira Newborn, and Laura Kaminsky. She holds degrees from the Juilliard School and New York University and is currently a Graduate Fellow in Music Composition at Princeton University.

In addition to her responsibilities in Boston, Anna Rakitina was named 2019-20 Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Under the supervision of the orchestra’s Music and Artistic Director, Gustavo Dudamel, she conducted Los Angeles Philharmonic youth concerts at Walt Disney Concert Hall and developed her craft through involvement in the LA Phil’s orchestral, education and community programs such as Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA).

In the 2020-21 season Anna Rakitina will make her subscription series debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and debut concerts with Baltimore Symphony orchestra, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and Orchestre de Paris amongst others.

In 2019 Anna made her debut with Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Sinfonieorchester Biel Solothurn in Switzerland, and the Jenaer Philharmonie in Germany. In 2018 she became a fellow in The National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia. In 2017 she was a guest conductor in Taiwan National Orchestra.

Anna was born in Moscow. She began her musical education as a violin player then has studied conducting at Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in the class of associate professor Stanislav Diachenko (assistant of Prof. Gennadiy Rozhdestvensky). From 2016 to 2018 she studied conducting in Hamburg Hochschule für Musik und Theater (Prof. Ulrich Windfuhr).

During her studies, Anna conducted the following stage performances: “Eugene Onegin” and “Iolanta” by Tchaikovsky, “Aleko” by Rachmaninov,

“The Rape of Lucretia” by Britten and others. Also, Anna wrote PhD thesis work about Rachmaninov.

In 2016 as a participant of Lucerne Academy she took part in the master-class by Alan Gilbert. The year later, 2017, she was Bernard Haitink’s apprentice in his master-class at Lucerne. Also, she participated in master-classes by Gennadiy Rozhdestvensky, Vladimir Jurowski, Johannes Schlaefli. In June 2018 she became a finalist of Workshop with Critical Orchestra in Berlin.

One of Anna’s main achievements is the creation of the chamber orchestra “Affrettando” in conjunction with another conductor Sergey Akimov.

The orchestra became already famous in Moscow as a group of highly professional musicians, which always performs interesting programs.

Anna conducted such orchestras as: Los Angeles Philharmonic, Kölner Philharmonie WDR Sinfonieorchester, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Lucerne Festival Strings, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonieorchester Biel Solothurn, Jenaer Philharmonie, Bucharest George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, Lucerne Festival academy orchestra, Hamburger Symphoniker, Meiningen Court Orchestra, The National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia, Das Kritische Orchester, Concert Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, Royal Northern College of Music chamber orchestra and others.

In March 2020, the State of Michigan issued a proclamation acknowledging Dr. Okoye’s “extraordinary contributions” to the history of Detroit, Michigan, for Black Bottom, a symphonic experience commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, in celebration of the centennial season of Orchestra Hall. Her other recent works include Tales from the Briar Patch, a sung story, commissioned by The American Opera Project, and Charlotte Mecklenburg,  commissioned by the Charlotte Symphony.  Some of her upcoming compositions for the 2021-2022 season include Euba’s Dance, for cellist Matt Haimowitz, When young spring comes for pianist and NPR Host, Laura Downes, and a micro-opera, 600 Square Feet, for Cleveland Opera Theatre.

Dr. Okoye is a board member of Composers Now!. She holds a BM in Composition from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and a PhD in Music Theory and Composition from Rutgers University.

Jenny Wong
Conductor

A native of Hong Kong, Jenny Wong is currently the Associate Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale. In addition to the regular season, Wong has conducted performances of Peter Sellars’ staging of di Lasso’s Lagrime di San Pietro at the Melbourne International Arts Festival in Australia, the Festival Internacionale Cervantino and the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico, and in the United States. As chorus master, Wong has prepared choruses for Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic, Susanna Mälkki, Eric Whitacre, María Guinand, and Music Academy of the West, including the U.S. premier of Tan Dun’s Buddha Passion and the LA Philharmonic’s recent release of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with Deutsche Grammophon. Most recently, Wong was Assistant Producer of the Master Chorale’s latest album, Eric Whitacre’s The Sacred Veil with Signum Classics.

This season, Wong was one of nine national recipients of OPERA America’s inaugural Opera Grants for Women Stage Directors and Conductors, through which she will be conducting Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and Kate Soper’s Voices from the Killing Jar with Long Beach Opera, in collaboration with WildUp. This season also includes an engagement with the Pasadena Symphony. Other recent engagements and positions have included opera Sweet Land by Du Yun and Raven Chacon with opera company The Industry, directed by Yuval Sharon and Cannupa Hanska-Luger, the Grammy-winning ensemble Phoenix Chorale in Phoenix, Arizona, the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, as well as the University of the Pacific Conservatory of Music and All Saints Church Pasadena, California.

Wong won two consecutive World Champion titles at the World Choir Games (China, 2010) and the International Johannes Brahms Choral Competition (Germany, 2011), conducting the Diocesan Girls’ School Choir from Hong Kong. She has been a conducting fellow for the Oregon Bach Festival, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Distinguished Concerts International New York and Hong Kong SingFest, by which she conducted the Hong Kong Sinfonietta and Hong Kong City Chamber Orchestra.

Wong received her Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music from the University of Southern California, when she was also assistant conductor of the Donald Brinegar Singers. She earned her undergraduate degree in voice performance from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She has given lectures on Chinese choral music and is an active clinician for choirs. As a singer, Wong sang back-up for Elton John at the 2013 Emmy Awards and for Barry Manilow.

McGegan has established the San Francisco-based Philharmonia as one of the world’s leading period-performance ensembles, with notable appearances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the London Proms, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and the International Handel Festival, Göttingen. One of their greatest successes was the recent fully-staged modern-day premiere of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s 1745 opera-ballet Le Temple de la Gloire. A recording of the live performance was released in summer 2018, marking the 10^th album produced on the Philharmonia Baroque Productions label. As part of their initiative of performing new music written for period instruments, PBO gave the world premiere of Sally Beamish’s The Judas Passion in 2017.

Highlighting PBO’s 2018/19 season is the completion of a PBO-commissioned song cycle by Caroline Shaw featuring mezzo Anne Sofie von Otter. The program will be toured to Alice Tully Hall at New York’s Lincoln Center. McGegan and PBO also bring Handel’s Atalanta to Caramoor Music Festival in addition to presenting Saul, one of the composer’s most inventive and popular oratorios, on their west coast subscription series.

Throughout his career, McGegan has defined an approach to period style that sets the current standard: intelligent, infused with joy, and never dogmatic. Under his leadership Philharmonia continues to expand its repertoire into the Romantic Era and beyond. Calling the group’s recent recording of the Brahms Serenades “a truly treasurable disc,” James R. Oestreich in The New York Times made special note of the performance’s “energy and spirit.” The recording, said Voix des Arts, offers “evidence that ‘period’ instruments are in no way inhibited in terms of tonal amplitude and beauty. These are … exceptionally beautifully played performances.”

McGegan’s ability to engage players and audiences alike has made him a pioneer in broadening the reach of historically informed practice beyond the world of period ensembles to conventional symphonic forces. His guest-conducting appearances with major orchestras — including the New York, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong Philharmonics; the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Toronto, Sydney, and New Zealand Symphonies; the Cleveland and the Philadelphia Orchestras; and the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Scottish Chamber Orchestra — often feature Baroque repertoire alongside Classical, Romantic, 20th-century and even brand-new works: Mendelssohn, Sibelius, Britten, Bach and Handel with the Utah Symphony; Poulenc and Mozart with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; Mahler and Mozart with the Pasadena Symphony Orchestra; and the premiere of Stephen Hough’s Missa Mirabilis with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, paired with Haydn, Brahms and Mendelssohn. His position in Pasadena provides the opportunity to conduct a wider range of his favorite repertoire, including Dvořák, Britten, Elgar, Mahler, Brahms and Wagner.

His 18/19 guest appearances in North America include his annual return to St. Louis Symphony as well as engagements with Baltimore, Detroit, Calgary, National and Pasadena Symphonies. Abroad, McGegan makes returns to the New Zealand Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and appears with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra in performance and in the recording studio for an upcoming release with soloist Gil Shaham. Summer Festivals include Aspen, Music Academy of the West, and MDR Musiksommer in Germany. In the summer of 2017, McGegan conducted the Royal Northern Sinfonia for the BBC Proms in Hull, marking 300 years since Handel’s Water Music was first famously performed on the River Thames. It was the first time since the 1930s a festival performance had been moved outside London.

Active in opera as well as the concert hall, McGegan was principal conductor of Sweden’s perfectly preserved 18th-century Drottningholm Theater from 1993 to 1996, Artistic Director and conductor at the Göttingen Handel Festival for 20 years (1991-2011), and Principal Guest Conductor at Scottish Opera in the 1990s. Guest appearances have brought him to the podium at Covent Garden, San Francisco, Santa Fe, and Washington. Mr. McGegan has enjoyed a long collaboration with groundbreaking choreographer Mark Morris, notably the premiere performances of Morris’s production of Rameau’s Platée at the Edinburgh Festival, and Handel’s Acis and Galatea and L’Allegro at venues including the Ravinia Festival, the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York, and Cal Performances in Berkeley.

McGegan’s prolific discography includes more than 100 releases spanning five decades. Having recorded more than 50 albums of of Handel, McGegan has explored the depths of the composer’s output with a dozen oratorios and close to twenty of his operas. Under its own label, Philharmonia Baroque Productions (PBP), Philharmonia has recently released almost a dozen acclaimed albums of Handel, Scarlatti, Vivaldi, Brahms, Haydn, Beethoven, and more. McGegan’s latest release with PBO is the first-ever recording of the recently rediscovered 300-year-old work La Gloria di Primavera by Alessandro Scarlatti, recorded live at the U.S. premiere. Since the 1980s, Nic has released more than 20 recordings with Hungary’s Capella Savaria on the Hungaroton label, including groundbreaking opera and oratorio recordings of repertoire by Handel, Monteverdi, Scarlatti, Telemann and Vivaldi. Recently, the collaboration has produced albums of Kraus, Mendelssohn, Schubert, a 2-CD set of the complete Mozart violin concerti, and in fall of 2018, Haydn’s Symphonies 79, 80, and 81. A new album of early horn concertos was released in spring of 2018, with McGegan conducting the Swedish Chamber Orchestra along with soloist Alec Frank-Gemmill. Grammy nominations include Handel’s Susanna for Best Choral Performance and Haydn’s Symphonies 104, 88 & 101 for Best Orchestral Performance, both with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra

Mr. McGegan is committed to the next generation of musicians, frequently conducting and coaching students in residencies and engagements at Yale University, the Juilliard School, Harvard University, the Colburn School, Aspen Music Festival and School, Sarasota Music Festival, and the Music Academy of the West. He returns to Yale in Fall 2018 for a residency and performance with the Institute of Sacred Music. He has been awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Music by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music; an honorary professorship at Georg-August University, Göttingen; and in 2016 was the Christoph Wolff Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Harvard. McGegan’s fun and informative lectures have delighted audiences at Juilliard, Yale Center for British Art, American Handel Society, and San Francisco Conservatory.

Born in England, Nicholas McGegan was educated at Cambridge and Oxford and taught at the Royal College of Music, London. He was made an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for 2010 “for services to music overseas.” His awards also include the Halle Handel Prize; an honorary professorship at Georg-August University, Göttingen; the Order of Merit of the State of Lower Saxony (Germany); the Medal of Honour of the City of Göttingen; and an official Nicholas McGegan Day, declared by the Mayor of San Francisco in recognition of his distinguished work with Philharmonia.

Visit Nicholas McGegan on the web at www.nicholasmcgegan.com.

After winning “Young Musician of the Year” Winds Open Class Competition (Hong Kong, China and Macau) at age 14, Martha appeared as soloist in 2010 with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. She was also awarded the highest distinction in Associate Diploma and Licentiate Diploma from Trinity College of London at the age of 11.

Martha made her New York solo debut in Carnegie Hall’s Weil Recital Hall after winning first prize at the 2015 American Fine Arts International Concerto Competition. She also won first place in the Vienna Virtuoso International Competition and was invited to the Mettallener Saal Musikverein. A top prize winner in the London Virtuoso International Competition, she was invited to perform at Royal Albert Hall. She was the first prize winner of the 2019 Donald Peck international flute competition, 2019 Colorado Flute Association Young Artist Competition, 2015 Rochester Flute Association Emerging Artist Category, Parson Music Scholarship for Winds, Brass and Percussion Instruments. She was also a finalist in the Coeur d’Alene Symphony Young Artist Competition and the 56th Annual Eastern Connecticut Symphony Instrumental Competition. Martha was selected to receive a Performer’s Certificate from Eastman School of Music for her achievements as a flutist and was runner up for the Shepherd School of Music’s Concerto competition.

As an orchestral musician, Martha has performed as principal flute at The John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts with the National Symphony Orchestra Summer Music Institute and at Lincoln Center with the Eastman Philharmonia. Martha has spent summers performing at festivals including Spoleto Festival USA, Aspen Music Festival and School, Sarasota Music Festival, where she performed J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 alongside Thomas Robertello and Margaret Batjer as a soloist, The Kennedy Center’s National Symphony Orchestra Summer Music Institute with full scholarship, Hamamatsu International Wind Instrument Academy and Festival and Orford Musique.

Chunchu Competition, Educlassic Music Competition, Korea Germany Brahms Association Competition, The Seoul Orchestra Competition, Eumyoun Piano Competition and The Korean Liszt Competition. She has also participated in a number of festivals, including the Seoul National University International Piano Adcademy, Seoul National University International Chamber Music Festival and Rebecca Penneys Piano Festival. Now, she is an Artist Diploma candidate at the Colburn Conservatory of Music, where she studies with Fabio Bidini.

concerts and also performs with such leading organizations as LA Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Pasadena Symphony and POPS, Calder Quartet, Jacaranda and MUSE/IQUE.

The Chorus serves more than 300 children ages 6 to 18 from 50 communities across Southern California in seven choirs – Concert Choir, Chamber Singers, Chorale (LACC’s soprano, alto, baritone, bass ensemble), Young Men’s Ensemble, Intermediate Choir, Apprentice Choir and Preparatory Choir – and a First Experiences in Singing program and First Experiences in Choral Singing Ensemble for 6-8-year-olds. LACC, recipient of Chorus America’s 2014 Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence, the nation’s highest choral honor, has toured North and South America, Africa, China, Cuba, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Europe. It appears on John Williams’ latest recording, John Williams & Steven Spielberg: The Ultimate Collection, release in 2017, as well as the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s critically acclaimed Decca recording A Good Understanding. The subject of four documentaries by Academy Award^®-winning filmmaker Freida Mock, LACC is featured in the Academy Award^®-nominated Sing!, about a year in the life of the choir; Sing Opera!, documenting the production of the LACC-commissioned family opera Keepers of the Night; Sing China!, chronicling its groundbreaking tour to China prior to the Beijing Olympics; and the CHOIR and the CONDUCTOR, which documents Artistic Director Emerita Anne Tomlinson’s final year as conductor and lasting impact on the chorus. LACC has performed with John Mayer on NBC’s “The Tonight Show” and was featured on PBS’s “Great Performances,” BBC Radio and Public Radio International’s nationally syndicated show “From the Top,” among other credits.

For more information, please visit www.lachildrenschorus.org.

Artistic Directors Diane De Franco Browne, Tania Grafos, and Zoe Vidalakis bring over fifty years of dance training, choreography, and performance experience to the school. PCB dance faculty has an acclaimed reputation with backgrounds ranging from American Ballet Theater, Beijing Dance Theater, Joffrey Ballet, and Hungarian State Ballet. In addition, faculty members have collaborated with and performed works by renowned choreographers including George Balanchine, Antony Tudor, Twyla Tharp, Martha Graham, and Agnes De Mille.

Pasadena Civic Ballet Company is committed to presenting original productions to stimulate the development of its students and to enhance the artistic offerings available to our community. Company members have the opportunity of performing in major productions before large audiences. The Company’s original presentations have included “Cinderella,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “The Little Mermaid,” “The Twelve Dancing Princesses,” and “Peter Pan.” These performances provide a wonderful showcase for all of the dancers, with ensemble and solo opportunities. Dancers also perform in our annual “Solo Fete” and the PCB Center Showcases, as well as invitational events, charity groups, in-studio concerts, and guest appearances.

Recent highlights include the world premiere of a new work for Roomful of Teeth and Dover Quartet at Bravo! Vail Music Festival, and performances of Tumblebird Contrails by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in January 2019, conducted by John Adams. Current projects include a new solo piano piece for Timo Andres and recording an album at Greenhouse Studios in Iceland.

During the 2016-17 season, Gabriella was the Nashville Symphony’s inaugural Composer Lab & Workshop Fellow. Other recent residencies include two months as an artist fellow at Instituto Sacatar on the island of Itaparica in Bahia, Brazil and a Copland House Residency at Aaron Copland’s home in Cortlandt Manor, New York. After graduating, she returned to the Curtis Institute of Music as an ArtistYear Fellow for the 2015-16 season, dedicating a citizen-artist year of national service in the Philadelphia region.

She has received commissions from Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, the People’s Commissioning Fund for Bang on a Can’s Field Recordings project, the Pacific Harmony Foundation for the 2014 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, the New York Youth Symphony as part of their First Music program, Tucson Symphony, yMusic, the Barnes Foundation for the opening of their 2015 exhibition Order of Things, Friction Quartet, One Book One Philadelphia in celebration of their 2012 book selection Create Dangerously by Edwidge Danticat, Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival for their 2012 season opening concert, Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble for their 9th Annual Young Composers Concert, the Rock School of Ballet in Philadelphia, and Monadnock Music in collaboration with poet Marcia Falk, among others.

Gabriella is a recipient of a BMI Student Composer Award (2018), the ASCAP Leo Kaplan Award (2014),  three ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, a winner of the American Modern Ensemble Ninth Annual Composition Competition (2015), the Theodore Presser Foundation Music Award (2012), and the First Place Prize in the 2009 Pacific Musical Society Composition Competition.

Gabriella received her Bachelors of Music in composition from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with David Ludwig, Jennifer Higdon, and Richard Danielpour. After Curtis, she attended Princeton University for graduate studies, where she has studied with Steve Mackey, Paul Lansky, Dan Trueman, Dmitri Tymoczko, Donnacha Dennehey, and Ju Ri Seo.

When not composing, she can be found hiking, backpacking (playing trail songs on her ukulele along the way), birding, playing capoeira, and recording underwater soundscapes with her hydrophone.

In the 2021/22 season, Ms. Yankovskaya makes a trio of Texan debuts, leading performances of Carmen at Houston Grand Opera, a tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg at Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and a concert of Gershwin and Dawson at Fort Worth Symphony. Elsewhere, she makes her Minnesota Opera debut with Voices United and leads a program of Brahms and Wagner at Elgin Symphony. At Chicago Opera Theater, she’ll conduct the Chicago premiere of Mark Adamo’s Becoming Santa Claus and a concert version of Carmen, starring Jamie Barton opposite Stephanie Blythe.

Elsewhere, Ms. Yankovskaya has recently conducted Don Giovanni at Seattle Opera, Pia de’ Tolomei at Spoleto Festival USA, Il barbiere di Siviglia at Wolf Trap Opera, Ellen West at New York’s Prototype Festival, and the world premiere of Taking Up Serpents at Washington National Opera. On the concert stage, she has been recently engaged with Chicago Philharmonic, Rhode Island Philharmonic, and the symphony orchestras of Mobile and Oviedo, Spain. Upcoming debuts include Dallas Opera, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Glimmerglass Festival, Hawaii Symphony Orchestra, Houston Grand Opera, and Opera Seville.

Ms. Yankovskaya is Founder and Artistic Director of the Refugee Orchestra Project, which proclaims the cultural and societal relevance of refugees through music, and has brought that message to hundreds of thousands of listeners around the world. In addition to a National Sawdust residency in Brooklyn, ROP has performed in London, Boston, Washington, D.C., and the United Nations. She has also served as Artistic Director of the Boston New Music Festival and Juventas New Music Ensemble, which was the recipient of multiple NEA grants and National Opera Association Awards under her leadership.

As Music Director of Harvard’s Lowell House Opera, Ms. Yankovskaya conducted sold-out performances of repertoire rarely heard in Boston, including Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the U.S. Russian-language premiere of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden. Her commitment to exploring the breadth of symphonic and operatic repertoire has also been demonstrated in performances of Rachmaninoff’s Aleko and the American premieres of Donizetti’s Pia de’ Tolomei, Rubinshteyn’s The Demon, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Kashchej The Immortal and Symphony No. 1.

An alumna of the Dallas Opera’s Hart Institute for Women Conductors and the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship, Ms. Yankovskaya has also served as assistant conductor to Lorin Maazel, chorus master of Boston Symphony Orchestra, and conductor of Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra. She has been featured in the League of American Orchestras Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview and Cabrillo Festival for Contemporary Music, and assisted Vladimir Jurowski via a London Philharmonic fellowship.

Ms. Yankovskaya holds a B.A. in Music and Philosophy from Vassar College, with a focus on piano, voice, and conducting, and earned an M.M. in Conducting from Boston University. Her conducting teachers and mentors have included Lorin Maazel, Marin Alsop, Kenneth Kiesler, and Ann Howard Jones.

Ms. Yankovskaya’s belief in the importance of mentorship has fueled the establishment of Chicago Opera Theater’s Vanguard Initiative, an investment in new opera that includes a two-year residency for emerging opera composers. Committed to developing the next generation of artistic leaders, she also volunteers with Turn The Spotlight, a foundation dedicated to identifying, nurturing, and empowering leaders – and in turn, to illuminating the path to a more equitable future in the arts.

Recipient of Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Awards in 2018 and 2021, Ms. Yankovskaya has been a featured speaker at the League of American Orchestras and Opera America conferences, and served as U.S. Representative to the 2018 World Opera Forum in Madrid.

Recent and upcoming highlights include the symphony orchestras of Houston, Seattle, NHK, Yomiuri Nippon, Osaka, Hawaii, Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Memphis, Louisiana, Charlotte, West Virginia, Tucson, Phoenix, Virginia, as well as the Osaka Philharmonic, Kanagawa Philharmonic, Nagoya Philharmonic, New Japan Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, and Orquesta Filarmónica de Sonora (México).

No stranger to the operatic cannon, Harada returns next season for Puccini’s La bohème with North Carolina Opera, for whom he has previously led productions of Pagliacci, Carmen and Britten’s Turn of the Screw. In 2017, he conducted Mazzoli’s Song from the Uproar for Cincinnati Opera, as well as run of Carmen for Bulgaria’s Sofia National Opera and Ballet that reprised with a Japan tour in fall 2018. In past seasons and as Associate Conductor of Arizona Opera, he led productions of Don Pasquale, Le Fille du Regiment, and Tosca. As a 2010 Seiji Ozawa Fellow at Tanglewood, Harada conducted critically-acclaimed performances of Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos.

Having completed his fourth season as Associate Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops, Harada regularly assisted Music Director Louis Langrée, conducted the CSO and POPS, and collaborated with James Conlon and Juanjo Mena for theConductor Keitaro Harada maintains a growing, international presence throughout North America, Asia, Mexico, and Europe. With his home bases in the United States and Japan, the 2020-21 season marks his tenure as Music & Artistic Director of the Savannah Philharmonic and Associate Conductor of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. Harada’s broad scope of musical interest in symphonic, opera, chamber works, pops, film scores, ballet, educational, outreach, and multi-disciplinary projects leads to diverse and eclectic programs.

Recent and upcoming highlights include the symphony orchestras of Houston, Seattle, NHK, Yomiuri Nippon, Osaka, Hawaii, Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Memphis, Louisiana, Charlotte, West Virginia, Tucson, Phoenix, Virginia, as well as the Osaka Philharmonic, Kanagawa Philharmonic, Nagoya Philharmonic, New Japan Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, and Orquesta Filarmónica de Sonora (México).

No stranger to the operatic cannon, Harada returns next season for Puccini’s La bohème with North Carolina Opera, for whom he has previously led productions of Pagliacci, Carmen and Britten’s Turn of the Screw. In 2017, he conducted Mazzoli’s Song from the Uproar for Cincinnati Opera, as well as run of Carmen for Bulgaria’s Sofia National Opera and Ballet that reprised with a Japan tour in fall 2018. In past seasons and as Associate Conductor of Arizona Opera, he led productions of Don Pasquale, Le Fille du Regiment, and Tosca. As a 2010 Seiji Ozawa Fellow at Tanglewood, Harada conducted critically-acclaimed performances of Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos.

Having completed his fourth season as Associate Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops, Harada regularly assisted Music Director Louis Langrée, conducted the CSO and POPS, and collaborated with James Conlon and Juanjo Mena for the May Festival. He is a five-time recipient of The Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award (2021, 2020, 2016, 2015, 2014), Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview (2013), the Seiji Ozawa Conducting Fellowship at Tanglewood Music Festival, and was a student of Lorin Maazel at Castleton Festival and Fabio Luisi at Pacific Music Festival. In 2018 and 2016, he was invited by Valery Gergiev to serve on the faculty of the Pacific Music Festival.

May Festival. He is a five-time recipient of The Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award (2021, 2020, 2016, 2015, 2014), Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview (2013), the Seiji Ozawa Conducting Fellowship at Tanglewood Music Festival, and was a student of LorConductor Keitaro Harada maintains a growing, international presence throughout North America, Asia, Mexico, and Europe. With his home bases in the United States and Japan, the 2020-21 season marks his tenure as Music & Artistic Director of the Savannah Philharmonic and Associate Conductor of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. Harada’s broad scope of musical interest in symphonic, opera, chamber works, pops, film scores, ballet, educational, outreach, and multi-disciplinary projects leads to diverse and eclectic programs.

Recent and upcoming highlights include the symphony orchestras of Houston, Seattle, NHK, Yomiuri Nippon, Osaka, Hawaii, Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Memphis, Louisiana, Charlotte, West Virginia, Tucson, Phoenix, Virginia, as well as the Osaka Philharmonic, Kanagawa Philharmonic, Nagoya Philharmonic, New Japan Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, and Orquesta Filarmónica de Sonora (México).

No stranger to the operatic cannon, Harada returns next season for Puccini’s La bohème with North Carolina Opera, for whom he has previously led productions of Pagliacci, Carmen and Britten’s Turn of the Screw. In 2017, he conducted Mazzoli’s Song from the Uproar for Cincinnati Opera, as well as run of Carmen for Bulgaria’s Sofia National Opera and Ballet that reprised with a Japan tour in fall 2018. In past seasons and as Associate Conductor of Arizona Opera, he led productions of Don Pasquale, Le Fille du Regiment, and Tosca. As a 2010 Seiji Ozawa Fellow at Tanglewood, Harada conducted critically-acclaimed performances of Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos.

Having completed his fourth season as Associate Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops, Harada regularly assisted Music Director Louis Langrée, conducted the CSO and POPS, and collaborated with James Conlon and Juanjo Mena for the May Festival. He is a five-time recipient of The Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award (2021, 2020, 2016, 2015, 2014), Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview (2013), the Seiji Ozawa Conducting Fellowship at Tanglewood Music Festival, and was a student of Lorin Maazel at Castleton Festival and Fabio Luisi at Pacific Music Festival. In 2018 and 2016, he was invited by Valery Gergiev to serve on the faculty of the Pacific Music Festival.in Maazel at Castleton Festival and Fabio Luisi at Pacific Music Festival. In 2018 and 2016, he was invited by Valery Gergiev to serve on the faculty of the Pacific Music Festival.