Liederabend

Andreas Fevos Apostolou is a pianist, composer, and producer born into an artistic family in Athens, Greece. Storytelling, intricate rhythms, jazz, and classical piano are vital sources of inspiration in his music.

As a solo pianist, he has been featured in Piano Spheres, Jacaranda Music, Hear Now Festival, and Bargemusic. His mentors include André Watts, Rober Levin, Alain Lefevre, Vinia Tsopelas, and Gloria Cheng. After winning the First Prize for his work Synchronism 3:5 in the international competition IBLA Grand Prize (2018, Italy), he toured in Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Georgia, performing his works for piano. He has premiered works by Thomas Adès, John Luther Adams, Bernard Rands, Anders Hilborg, Steven Mackey, James Newton, Frederic Rzewski, and others.

As a composer, he writes in a wide range of musical styles for concerts, film, theater, as well as jazz trio and electronic music. His piano composition Metamorphosis was awarded First Prize in the competition Cum Laude Music Awards (2016, Spain) and was recorded by Naxos. His soundtracks for film and theater have been featured in The New York Times Op-Docs, LA Greek Film Festival, and the Getty Villa. His music albums are available on Spotify and Youtube.

Andreas has a PhD in Composition from UCLA and a PhD in Piano Performance from University of Macedonia– Greece, dual master’s degrees from Indiana University (piano and composition), and a bachelor’s degree from Temple University.

Twenty-two-year-old Shannae Bernales is currently a fourth-year global jazz major with an ambition to achieve a sustainable and fulfilling career in music. At UCLA, she sings with the premier a cappella group the ScatterTones, records her own original music, and performs with various student jazz and funk bands. In the spring of 2023, she had the honor of receiving a scholarship from the Barbara Morrison Scholarship Fund at the Barbara Morrison Tribute Concert, where she also performed as a jazz vocalist.

Baritone John Buffett enjoys a versatile career lending his “warm tone and ringing top” (Salt Lake Tribune) to music from the early baroque through the 21st century.   Recent solo engagements include singing both Bach passions, numerous Bach Cantatas including Ich habe genug and the Coffee Cantata, Scarlatti’s Il Primo Omicidio, Monteverdi’sVespers of 1610, Fauré’s and Duruflé’s Requiem and Handel’s Messiah  with the the Oregon Bach Festival, Cal Poly Bach Festival, LA Master Chorale, UC Irvine, Long Beach Camerata, the New West Symphony, Musica Angelica, Tesserae Baroque, Bach Collegium San Diego, the Charlotte Bach Festival, and Seraphic Fire.

Buffett has been a featured soloist with the Pacific Symphony, the Utah, San Antonio, Winston-Salem, Flagstaff, and Syracuse Symphonies, the Mark Morris Dance Group, the Pacific Chorale, and the Rochester Philharmonic.  He has also been a featured performer with many leading Early Music Ensembles including: Apollo’s Fire, Ars Lyrica, Bach Collegium San Diego, The Boston Early Music Festival, Con Gioia, The Charlotte Bach Academy, The Oregon Bach Festival, Musica Angelica and Tesserae Baroque.  Also an accomplished Chamber musician, he regularly performs with some of America’s best choral ensembles like Seraphic Fire, The Santa Fe Desert Chorale, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Solo appearances at the Tanglewood Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival and the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center highlight other important performances.  Buffett, currently on voice faculty at CSU Long Beach and previously for the Professional Choral Institute at the Aspen Music Festival, received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Eastman School of Music. He is excited to be returning to the voice faculty at UCLA for the winter quarter in 2026.

Joy H. Calico joined the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music in August 2023 as Professor of Musicology and Director of Graduate Studies in the Musicology Department. A scholar of Cold War cultural politics and contemporary opera, she has published two monographs with the University of California Press (Brecht at the Opera and Arnold Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw in Postwar Europe) and has a third under contract there, which is a theory of scene type for analyzing opera since Salome.  She is currently co-editor, with Justin Vickers, of a volume on Childhood and the Operatic Imaginary since 1900 for OUP. In recent years she has published on operas by Kaija Saariaho, Olga Neuwirth, and Helmut Lachenmann, and work on Chaya Czernowin is forthcoming. Calico is former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Musicological Society, and a current member of the international working team of the Black Opera Research Network. Her work has been supported by grants and fellowships from the ACLS, the American Academy in Berlin, the Howard Foundation, the NEH, the Paul Sacher Stiftung, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, among others.

Victoria Kirsch is a Southern California-based collaborative pianist/vocal coach/recitalist who curates and performs programs based on museum exhibitions, literature, and other themes. She has curated and performed twelve music/spoken word programs linked to exhibitions at the USC Fisher Museum of Art, as part of the campus’ renowned Visions and Voices program, as well as creating exhibition–inspired programs for several other Southern California museums.

In 2008 Victoria received a Chairman’s Grant from then-NEA Chair Dana Gioia to support the co-creation of the musical-theatrical piece, Emily Dickinson: This, and My Heart, which premiered at Grand Performances in downtown Los Angeles with Twin Cities actress Linda Kelsey and soprano/stage director Anne Marie Ketchum.

She was the onstage pianist for many theatrical programs with soprano Julia Migenes (Carmen in the award-winning opera film directed by Francesco Rosi), touring the world for many years with the celebrated singing actress (Diva on the Verge, Schubert, Migenes Sings Bernstein, La Vie en Rose).

Since 2015 Victoria has been a faculty vocal and opera coach at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, where she is now a continuing lecturer. In addition, in Fall 2024 she returned to the USC Thornton School of Music, this time as a Keyboard Collaborative Arts faculty member. She had previously been a member of the Thornton School vocal faculty.

She has worked with national and regional opera companies, including LA Opera, serving as a member of the music staff and as a teaching artist for LA Opera’s Community Programs Department, presenting over 35 programs to educators and students.

She has been an official pianist for the Operalia Competition and the Met’s National Council Auditions, among others.

Victoria was the music director of OperaArts, a Coachella Valley-based vocal performance organization, a faculty member at Angels Vocal Art and SongFest summer programs, and she was associated with the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara for many years, playing in the studio of renowned baritone and master teacher Martial Singher and serving as a member of the vocal faculty.

Israeli born, Mezzo-soprano, pianist and vocal coach Iris Malkin graduated from the Jerusalem Academy of Music with a master’s in vocal performance and an artist diploma in piano – with a vocal coaching emphasis. Iris has performed widely both as a singer and as a pianist in concerts and festivals in Israel, Europe, and the United States, and her performances have been broadcast worldwide.

In addition to the mainstream operatic repertoire, Iris has distinguished herself in the world of Hebrew and Jewish works as well as the highly nuanced Spanish song repertoire. She is dedicated to sharing her passion for art song performance with audiences around the world. Iris has performed under the baton of Pierre Boulez during the 2006 Lucerne Festival, including collaboration with Boulez’ celebrated Ensemble Intercontemporain, and in 2011 was a guest soloist with the Chamber Orchestra of the South Bay performing songs from Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn and De Falla’s El Amor Brujo. In January 2012 she released her CD Cadencia, with songs from England, Spain, and Puerto Rico with award winning guitarist Edward Trybek, and she is the featured soloist on Stig Jonas Pettersson’s Album The Dracula Letters that was released in 2015.

Iris is in demand vocalist in recordings for films, video games and movie trailers. She is a featured soloist on the soundtrack of the film Kill Zone, which was nominated for Best Original Score at the Hollywood Music in Media Awards in 2009. Iris performed as a soloist with the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony in a concert dedicated to works by Jewish women composers conducted by Dr. Noreen Green, and was on a tour in 2023 presenting the Israeli Art Song in St. Louis and Denver with pianist and moderator Ido Ariel. Last year, Iris performed Yiddish songs by Lazar Weiner with pianist Neal Stulberg at an event recorded for a documentary of the Lowell Milken Center, and most recently performed a recital at UCLA presenting the Israeli art song as part of the Milken Center concert series. Iris is on the faculty of The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music as a vocal coach – continuing lecturer in the voice department.

Hugo Nguyễn is a vocalist, instrumentalist, and arranger from Orange County, California. He is proficient on various instruments including keyboard, bass, and guitar, but has a particular passion for vocal music. Hugo has performed as a featured vocalist at the Hollywood Bowl and has crafted arrangements for ICCA semifinalists Uniting Voices. Hugo is currently attending The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, studying global jazz with a vocal emphasis. There, he also serves as an arranger and assistant music director for the ScatterTones, UCLA’s premier all-gender a cappella group. Outside of a cappella, Hugo has also gained experience in musical theater, serving as vocal and music director for several productions including Rock of Ages and RENT.

Heralded by the Los Angeles Times as “. . .a shining example of podium authority and musical enlightenment,” NEAL STULBERG has garnered consistent international acclaim for performances of clarity, insight and conviction. Since 2005, he has served as 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,  and currently serves as Distinguished Professor of Music Performance and Artistic Director of UCLA’s Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience.

In North America, Mr. Stulberg has led the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Atlanta, Fort Worth, Houston, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Mexico City, National, New Jersey, New World, Oregon, Pacific, Phoenix, Saint Louis, San Antonio, San Francisco, Utah and Vancouver symphonies, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and New York City Ballet and San Francisco Ballet. A former 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.

Mr. Stulberg’s European appearances have included performances in Germany with the WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln and the orchestras of Augsburg, Bochum, Dortmund, Freiburg, Herford, Jena, Münster, Nürnberg, Oldenburg and Rostock. In Holland, he has conducted the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and led the Netherlands Ballet Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, North Holland Philharmonic, Gelders Orchestra and Nieuw Sinfonietta Amsterdam. He has also appeared as guest conductor with the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra (Norway), Warsaw Chamber Orchestra, Klaipeda Chamber Orchestra (Lithuania), Athens State Orchestra, London Royal Ballet Sinfonia, Barcelona Liceu Orchestra and Norwegian National Opera Orchestra.

International engagements have also included the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, Korea Philharmonic (KBS), Queensland, Adelaide and West Australian symphonies, Haifa Symphony Orchestra, Israel Sinfonietta and Ra’anana Symphonette.

An acclaimed pianist, Stulberg has appeared as recitalist, chamber musician and with major orchestras and at international festivals as pianist/conductor. His performances of Mozart concertos conducted from the keyboard are uniformly praised for their buoyant virtuosity and interpretive vigor. In 2011-12, he performed the complete Mozart sonatas for violin and piano with violinist Guillaume Sutre at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall and at the Grandes Heures de Saint Emilion festival in France. In 2018, he performed throughout South Africa on a recital tour with saxophonist Douglas Masek and in 2022, appeared as solo pianist in the world premiere of Inclusion, a new work for pianist and chamber orchestra by Hugh Levick.

Mr. Stulberg has conducted premieres of works by Paul Chihara, Mohammed Fairouz, Jan Friedlin, William Kraft, Alexander Krein, Betty Olivero, Steve Reich, Peter Schat, Lalo Schifrin, Dmitri Smirnov, Earl Stewart, Morton Subotnick, Joan Tower and Peter van Onna, among others, and has also led works by UCLA composers Münir Beken, Bruce Broughton, Kenny Burrell, Mark Carlson, Richard Danielpour, Ian Krouse, David Lefkowitz and James Newton. He conducted the period-instrument orchestra Philharmonia Baroque in a festival of Mozart orchestral and operatic works, and has brought to life several silent movies from the early 1900s, including the Russian classic New Babylon, Shostakovich’s first film score. In August 2022, he conducted the North American premiere of Bas-Sheve, a recently rediscovered and orchestrated 1924 Yiddish-language opera by composer Henekh Kon and librettist Moishe Broderzon, at the Ashkenaz Festival in Toronto. In 2023, Stulberg led acclaimed performances of Dave Brubeck’s cantata, The Gates of Justice (1969) and the West Coast premiere of Lera Auerbach’s Symphony No. 6 (Vessels of Light) (2022) as part of the School of Music’s Music and Justice series, presented in collaboration with the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience.  And in May 2025, he conducted West Coast premiere performances of Tod Machover’s 2018 opera, Schoenberg in Hollywood, as part of the celebration of Arnold Schoenberg’ sesquicentennial.

Collaborators have included John Adams; Leonard Bernstein; Chris, Dan and Darius Brubeck; Dee Dee Bridgewater; John Clayton; Omar Ebrahim; Mercer Ellington; Michael Feinstein; Philip Glass; Morton Gould; David Krakauer; Lar Lubovitch; Tod Machover; Peter Martins; Mark Morris; Angel Romero; Cornel West; and Christopher Wheeldon. He has conducted Philip Glass’ opera Akhnaten at the Rotterdam Festival and Thomas Adès’ Powder Her Face with Long Beach Opera in Los Angeles, and has recorded for Naxos, West German Radio, Donemus, Yarlung Records, Sono Luminus and the Composers Voice label.

Mr. Stulberg has maintained a career-long passion for the training of young musicians. He has conducted and taught at the New World Symphony, Indiana University Summer Institute, Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, New Zealand School of Music, Henry Mancini Institute, Los Angeles Philharmonic Summer Institute, National Repertory Orchestra, Interlochen Arts Academy, American-Russian Youth Orchestra, Turkish Music State Conservatory (Istanbul), National Conservatory of Belarus (Minsk), Central Conservatory of Music (Beijing), Capitol Normal University (Beijing), Shanghai Conservatory of Music and National Taiwan Normal University.  In December 2019, he taught and lectured in Israel at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music, Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and Haifa University and returned to conduct its symphony orchestra in June 2024.  In March 2026, he conducts the Carlos Chávez Youth Orchestra in Mexico City.

A native of Detroit, Mr. Stulberg is a graduate of Harvard College, the University of Michigan and the Juilliard School. He studied conducting with Franco Ferrara at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, piano with Leonard Shure, Theodore Lettvin, William Masselos and Mischa Kottler, and viola with Ara Zerounian.

Ava Ulloa is a rising senior in global jazz studies. She is known for her soulful voice and broad vocal range. Ava also plays piano and (sometimes) the guitar. She is working on an album of original music and performed her first original song at UCLA’s prestigious Spring Sing.