All-Star Concert

Cellist Isabelle Fromme hails from a family of musicians and artists. She is both an avid student of the arts and an aspiring music teacher. She attended the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Pre-College for four years, where she advanced on both the cello and piano through chamber music and theory classes. For three years, she was the cellist of Ruth Asawa’s Dragon Quartet, the showcase quartet of her arts high school. Her quartet did community outreach in San Francisco elementary schools and had opportunities to work with both the Telegraph and Kronos string quartets, including performing at the Kronos Festival. Isabelle was also a member of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra for two years. In 2019, the orchestra toured Europe, performing in major concert halls including the Musikverein in Vienna and the Berliner Philharmonie.  Summer festivals have included Round Top Festival Institute, Lancaster International Piano Festival, Pacific Crest Music Festival and Dominican Summer Chamber Music Camp.

Carmen Edano is a Filipino mezzo-soprano from Vallejo, California who found her start in music by belting “Wicked” in the shower as a young child. Now, she sings everything from traditional Bel Canto opera to the newest works of the 21st Century. She has studied with distinguished teachers including Ida Nicolosi, Henry Price, Peter Kazaras, and Julianna Gondek. At Pepperdine University, she performed in Massenet’s Cendrillon as Dorothee. At UCLA, Carmen sang the role of Baba the Turk in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress and Giannetta in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. She has also performed in Pepperdine’s Heidelberg Summer Music Program, as well as the Trentino Summer Music Festival as Cherubino from Le nozze di Figaro and Arnalta in L’incoronazione di Poppea.

She earned her BA in Music with emphases in both Classical Voice and Music Education from Pepperdine University, and is currently pursuing her Master of Music degree in Opera at UCLA. This year, Carmen will appear as Eleni Nikopoulos in the workshop premiere of Richard Danielpour’s The Grand Hotel Tartarus, and as Le Mari in a UCLA staged production of Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias.

Lorenna Garcia is a Filipina/Latina classical violist born and raised in Canoga Park, California.  As a fourth year undergraduate studying viola performance at UCLA, Lorenna has received many notable opportunities to work around the greater Los Angeles area as a professional musician.  Aside from freelance recordings and gigs, Lorenna is a section violist in the highly-competitive American Youth Symphony where she has had opportunities to perform at Royce Hall and Walt Disney Concert Hall. She is also a section violist of the new California Young Artists Symphony.  She would like to thank her friends at the Herb Alpert School and Samahang Pilipino, and her family for their love and support throughout her musical career. She would like to especially thank her professor Brian Chen for his amazing guidance and tutelage throughout her years at UCLA.

Bassoonist Matthew Rasmussen is a performer, composer, and educator. He currently serves as the inaugural principal bassoonist of the California Young Artists Symphony, second bassoonist of the Santa Monica Symphony, and bassoonist for the Los Angeles-based reed quintet Fivemind Reeds. Matthew’s passions lie in new music and education; he has premiered and commissioned new works for solo bassoon and reed quintet, and has given outreach concerts as a member of Fivemind and as a two-time UCLA Gluck Fellow. Matthew currently pursues a Masters of Music degree in bassoon at UCLA, studying with John Steinmetz.

Mathew Harget (he/him) is a woodwind artist, graphic designer, and administrator specializing in classical saxophone. Beginning as a jazz musician, Mathew spent many years as a member of various big bands. He has previously performed at the OMEA annual conference with featured artist Bobby Selvaggio and performed alongside guests Wayne Bergeron and Rusty Higgins. Mathew then began to broaden their musical vision toward classical saxophone, studying under Dr. Michael Weiss-Holmes at the Chicago College of Performing Arts (BM). He is continuing his studies under Dr. Jan Berry Baker at the Herb Alpert School of Music (MM). Mathew continues to bring the in-the-moment, visceral character of jazz into the classical saxophone realm to give emotional and dynamic performances.

Pianist Phyllis Pan currently pursues a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at UCLA, studying with Inna Faliks and serving as the Teaching Assistant in the Music Department piano studio.  Her previous teachers have included Menahem Pressler and Boris Slutsky. She has performed extensively across the United States and won numerous international and regional competitions including the Los Angeles International Liszt Competition, Bradshaw and Buono International Piano Competition, and National Society of Arts and Letters National Competition in Piano.   Phyllis maintains a private teaching studio and is an active member of the Music Teachers’ Association of California.

Violinist Janice Hu is a second-year UCLA undergraduate pursuing bachelor degrees in neuroscience and music performance. She studies violin with Movses Pogossian and Varty Manouelian. She has held principal positions in the San Diego Youth Symphony (SDYS) Ovation Ensembles, the Canyon Crest Academy Orchestras, and the Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts Philharmonic. She has won numerous awards, including the 2021 Music Teachers’ Association of California’s State VOCE Senior Solo Strings Competition and the 2020 SDYS Ovation Concerto Competition. Janice has previously studied with Michael Tseitlin, Huifang Chen, Maree Sawhney, and Patrick Clifford.

Jacob Freiman is a clarinetist and educator  from Danville, CA. Since 2020, he has served as inaugural principal clarinet of the California Young Artists Symphony. An accomplished chamber musician, Jacob won the 2020 Beverly Hills National Auditions and finished as semifinalists in the 2020 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition with the groundbreaking flute, oboe and clarinet trio: Zephyrus Trio. In 2021, Jacob graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree in clarinet performance from UCLA, where he now continues to work towards a Masters of Music in clarinet performance. During Jacob’s time at UCLA, his principal teachers have included Boris Allakhverdayn, Joshua Ranz, Steven Barta and Gary Gray.

Born in Nanjing, China, flutist Yundian Cao is a second-year Masters’ student at UCLA, studying with Denis and Erin Bouriakov. With her grandfather inspiration, she began piano studies at age three and flute studies at age 12. A winner of major competitions, she has performed at the Kennedy Center, among other venues, and is currently producing a solo album.

A San Diego native, Shiun Choi is currently a second-year undergraduate at UCLA studying clarinet performance with Joshua Ranz. He is a clarinetist and bass clarinetist in the UCLA Symphony, and also plays bass clarinet in a clarinet quartet.

A native of West Hills, California, Nicholas Kim began clarinet studies at age 12.  He is currently a second-year undergraduate music major at UCLA, studying with Boris Allakhverdyan. Nicholas has been principal clarinetist of the CSUN Youth Philharmonic and Colburn Youth Orchestra. Since 2017, he has been a member of the California All-State Honor Ensembles. In the summer of 2019, he was selected to participate in the Idyllwild Chamberfest Intensive and performed at Walt Disney Concert Hall. He has received first prizes in competitions including the Lamont Young Artist National Competition, Golden Classical Music Awards, Grand Prize Virtuoso International Competition, and Great Composers Young Artist International Competition. In 2020 and 2021, he was chosen as a winner of the National Young Arts Foundation, and in December 2021, made his Carnegie Hall debut.  In November 2022, he performed on a Los Angeles Philharmonic concert as a substitute clarinetist.

Sean Takada is currently a third-year undergraduate violin performance major at UCLA, studying with Movses Pogossian and Varty Manoelian.  A native of Mountain View (CA), he has redently been appointed as a section violinist with the Long Beach Symphony. Sean previously studied at the Juilliard School Pre-College Division with Li Lin, where he graduated from Stuyvesant High School. Sean’s accolades include First Prize in the Yehudi Menuhin – Helen Dowling Competition, a winner of Pacific Musical Society & Foundation Competition, honorable mention for YoungArts National Arts Competition, anad concertmaster of the New York All-State Orchestra. In 2013-14, he was the youngest member of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra.  He has participated in festivals including the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America and the Tanglewood Music Center. Sean is an avid soccer fan, and plays with friends in UCLA’s intramural league.

Neal Stulberg has conducted many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Atlanta, Houston, Saint Louis and San Francisco Symphonies, Netherlands Radio Symphony, West German Radio Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra and Moscow Chamber Orchestra.  He has appeared as opera and ballet conductor with New York City, San Francisco and Netherlands Ballets, Long Beach Opera, Norwegian National Ballet and Hollands Diep Opera Company.  For West German Radio, he has recorded orchestral and solo piano works of Lazare Saminsky, Alexander Veprik, Mikhail Gnessin and Charles Griffes.  His performances of Mozart concertos conducted from the keyboard have been uniformly praised for their buoyant virtuosity.  

Formerly assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Carlo Maria Giulini and music director of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, he is a recipient of the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award, America’s most coveted conducting prize. 

A native of Detroit, Mr. Stulberg is a graduate of Harvard College, the University of Michigan, the Juilliard School and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.

Since 2005, he has served as Professor and Director of Orchestral Studies at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.  From 2014 to 2018, he served as Chair of the UCLA Department of Music.

Born and raised in Bakersfield, California, Gemalene (“Gemi”) Rae Pacleb Acupan is a first-generation, Filipina-American conductor based in Southern California.  She has received orchestral training across the globe, studying with Venezuela Symphony conductor Rodolfo Saglimbeni, London Conducting Academy founder Denise Ham, Eastman School of Music conductor Neil Varon, and Pacific Symphony conductor Carl St. Clair. Acupan graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BM in Conducting and Trumpet Performance, as well as a minor in Leadership Studies, from Chapman University. At Chapman’s Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music, she studied with Daniel Wachs and Tim Hall and was named Chapman’s inaugural Presser Scholar .

Outside of conducting, Acupan enjoys a career as an educator and trumpet player. She has presented numerous educational concerts with the Orange County Youth Symphony and the Huntington Brass Quintet, served as a teaching assistant at Idyllwild Arts Camp, and organized several Chapman University Honor Band Festivals. She currently teaches a private trumpet studio in the Los Angeles area. She also co-owns and edits Music Workouts by Gary Scudder, a music curriculum helping  students of all ages to maximize their musical success. 

Acupan currently pursues her master’s in orchestral conducting with Neal Stulberg at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music

Polish-born conductor Jakub Rompczyk is a third-year doctoral orchestral conducting student at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, studying with Neal Stulberg. At UCLA, he co-directs UCLA Symphony, assists in productions of Opera UCLA, and serves as a graduate teaching associate. Before moving to Los Angeles, Rompczyk graduated from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, where he served as Assistant Conductor of the Eastman Philharmonia and Eastman School Symphony Orchestra. In 2016-17 and 2017-18, he was a conducting apprentice at the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich, where he was mentored by the orchestra’s chief conductor Mariss Jansons. He has participated in masterclasses with Bertrand de Billy, Mark Gibson, Nicolas Pasquet, Leonard Slatkin, Mark Stringer, Kirk Trevor, and David Zinman.

Recent engagements include assistant conducting the world premiere workshop reading of Quake, a new opera by UCLA Professor Kay Rhie; concerts with the Eastman School and UCLA orchestras; and performances with Eastman’s OSSIA New Music Ensemble. Among the international orchestras he has conducted are the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra (Czech Republic), MAV Symphony Orchestra (Hungary), Sibiu Philharmonic Orchestra (Romania), and Poznan Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra (Poland).  In Spring 2023, he will conduct a staged Opera UCLA production of Poulenc’s “Les Mamelles de Tirésias” in the two-piano version by Benjamin Britten and Viola Tunnard.

A passionate scholar, Rompczyk received the Erasmus Program scholarship to study at the renowned University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. In 2021-22, he was awarded two prestigious UCLA research awards: a Department of Musicology Ciro Zoppo Research Fellowship and a Graduate Summer Research Mentorship Program Award. Both awards have supported his ongoing research into the Hollywood composer duo of Walter Jurmann and Bronislaw Kaper.  He plans to write his DMA dissertation on Mieczysław Weinberg’s Symphony No. 6 (“Polish Flowers”).

VIOLIN I

Ela Kodzas, concertmaster 

Rebecca Beerstein

David Chang

Kayla Lee

Kayla Phan

Srijan Satpathy

Arya Shapouri

Sophia Shih

Angel Sun

VIOLIN II

Alisa Luera, principal 

Rubani Chugh

Alisa Khodos

Michelle Sheehy

Emily Taylor

Joce Wang

Mingye Wang

VIOLA

Damon Zavala, principal

Charlotte Goode

Daniel Oviedo

Ian Lee

Subin Lee

Ellen Lozada

Jocelyn Pon

Layla Shapouri

Amy Takagi

Larry Joe Williams

CELLO

Peter Walsh, principal

Benji Fleischaker

Jasmine Lam

Alvin Liu

Kaya Ralls

Minnie Seo

Aerie Walker

DOUBLE BASS

Lee Skyler, principal

Zachary Hauser

Luca Lesko

Atticus Simmons

FLUTE

Matthew Origel*

John Robert Santiago*

* = Piccolo

OBOE

Abigail Hong

Tyler Morrison*

Tina Shigeyama* 

* = English horn

CLARINET

Luke Candias^

Darren Liou

Kai Nakkim

Devin Walsh

^ = Bass clarinet

BASSOON

Corey Castillo

Zane Marquez*

Tobias Menon

* = contrabassoon

TRUMPET

Cyrus Alva

Remy Ohara

Nick Washburn

HORN

Noah Arst

Abby Higgins

Vincent Jurado

Hannah Lee

Rory O’Regan

TENOR TROMBONE

Nathan Culcasi

Reuben Molina

BASS TROMBONE

Carlos Castaneda 

PERCUSSION

Alejandro Barajas

Madison Bottenberg

Robby Good

Cash Langi

Matthew LeFebvre

Connor Ridley

HARP

Jillian Lopez

Jacob Freiman, orchestra manager

Joce Wang and Ian Lee, orchestra librarians