An Evening of Music by David S. Lefkowitz

James K. Bass is Director of Choral Studies at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA and Associate Conductor at Seraphic Fire. He previously served on the faculties of Western Michigan University and University of South Florida, and holds a Doctoral degree from University of Miami, and Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees from University of South Florida. Bass has appeared with professional choral ensembles including Seraphic Fire, Conspirare, Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Apollo Master Chorale, Vox Humanae, and Spire. He appears on CD recordings on the Harmonia Mundi, Naxos, Albany, and Seraphic Fire Media labels. Solo orchestral engagements include appearances with The Cleveland Orchestra, New World Symphony, The Florida Orchestra, Grand Rapids Symphony, Back Bay Chorale, and The Sebastians. In 2011 Bass co-founded Seraphic Fire’s Professional Choral Institute at University of South Florida. In its inaugural year of recording, Seraphic Fire and PCI received a GRAMMY® nomination for Best Choral Performance for their recording of Brahms’ Ein Deuthches Requiem. Bass has prepared choirs for Sir Colin Davis, Sir David Willcocks, Jahja Ling, Michael Tilson Thomas, Gerard Schwarz, Giancarlo Guerrero, Michael Francis, Marcelo Lehninger, Stefan Sanderling, Evan Rogister, Danail Rachlev, Joshua Weilerstein, Markus Huber, Michael Francis, Patrick Quigley, and Robert Shaw among others.

Cantor Orly Campbell joined the clergy team at Sinai Temple this past July, after serving as Cantor at Temple Beth David for the past three years. She was ordained as a Cantor in 2019, from The Academy for Jewish Religion (California) where she also received a master’s degree in Jewish Sacred Music. She is a classically trained opera singer (“coloratura”) who fuses classic Hazzanut with other genres like Broadway and Jazz.  You may have seen Orly singing at temples such as Valley Beth Shalom, Temple Ramat Zion, Stephen Wise, Beth Shir Shalom, Temple Judea, Temple Akiba, Temple Beth David, and Desert Outreach Synagogue. She loves sharing her love of Hazzanut, being Jewish and the music with everyone around her. “As a Cantor, my hope is to teach, guide, and inspire with the power of music and prayer. I hope to elevate the spiritual experience at services and life cycle events, leading everyday with my heart, head and most importantly, my soul.”

Being a Cantor wasn’t something that Orly knew would become her future. She had dreams of being on Broadway. But sometimes things truly happen for a reason, and Orly was meant to go on this journey of becoming a Cantor. Besides her love of being a Cantor and serving her wonderful community at Sinai Temple, Orly is proud of her other role, being a mom to her 4 children: Joshua, Emma, Benjamin, and Madeline.

Kevin Cornwell II is a first-year graduate student in Choral Conducting at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. Before arriving at UCLA, Kevin served with Julian Goods as Co-Interem Choral Director for the Detroit School of Arts in Detroit, Michigan. As a conductor, Kevin has served as the Assistant Conductor with his mentor, Dr. Michael A. Mitchell, to the Oakland University Chorus and Chorale, where he received his Bachelor of Music in Vocal Music Education. He also was a finalist for the National American Choral Directors Association Conducting Undergraduate Masterclass in 2023.

Kevin attributes much of his musical inspiration to his father, Kevin Cornwell Sr., his High School Choir director, who helped shape him and instilled many of his core values at a young age.

Double bass Nathan Farrington (’06) has been the principal bassist for LA Opera since 2016. He regularly appears in the bass sections of many of America’s top orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, and the Seattle Symphony. He also pursues chamber music and solo opportunities avidly. He has appeared at the Marlboro Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the Olympic Music Festival, ChamberFest Cleveland, and at the Da Camera Society. Nathan also loves to travel with his trusty guitar, and often sings and plays operatic arias and folk songs alongside his bass playing.

Named one of The Top Five Best New Voices in Jewish Music by The Forward, Marcus Feldman is the Senior Cantor of Sinai Temple. His voice has been heard at Dodger Stadium, The Getty Center and all over the world via his YouTube channel. Trained in opera as a tenor, Cantor Feldman graduated from the University of Southern California as a Renaissance Scholar in 2007. Ordained as a cantor in 2011 at the Academy for Jewish Religion, California, Cantor Feldman holds a Master of Jewish Sacred Music degree from the same institution, where he serves as a Professor of Cantorial & Liturgical Studies. During his Cantorial studies, Cantor Feldman spent a semester in Jerusalem, Israel, studying Hazzanut with the renowned Cantor Naftali Herstik. Upon graduation, Cantor Feldman served as the Second Cantor of Stephen Wise Temple from 2011-2012, working alongside his mentor, Cantor Nathan Lam. In 2012, Cantor Feldman was appointed Senior Cantor of Sinai Temple, where he serves alongside the influential, prolific, and internationally recognized Rabbi David Wolpe. At Sinai Temple, Cantor Feldman oversees the B’nai Mitzvah program and the entire music department. He has produced numerous musical programs, lectures, and concerts. In 2017, he produced a professional album showcasing the multi-faceted music of Sinai Temple. Cantor Feldman instils the love of Jewish music within the next generation through the Sinai Temple Youth Choir, a group of students from Sinai Akiba Academy and Sinai Temple Religious School, who share their voices on Shabbat mornings and during the High Holy Days.

Alma Lisa Fernandez, violist, attended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and UCLA, where she received a Master’s Degree in Viola Performance. She performs regularly with such ensembles as the LA Opera Orchestra and LA Master Chorale. As a chamber musician, she has been described as “…a soulful violist” by the LA Times. Alma is  a member of the Eclipse Quartet, an ensemble dedicated to performing contemporary music, which has released recordings under Bridge Records, New World, and Microfest. She has been featured as a soloist with the Pepperdine University Orchestra, the Jacaranda Chamber Music series, People Inside Electronics, and Electronics Live! at UC Riverside, where she premiered new works for Viola & Electronics. Alma is also active in the Los Angeles recording industry, having played for numerous motion picture soundtracks, television shows, and record albums.

Benjamin Fingerhut studied composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he honed his skills in music theory, instrumentation, and orchestration. As the musical director at Great Portland Street Synagogue in London, he served in the current Chief Rabbi’s office and was responsible for curating and directing musical programming for all of the synagogue’s services and events. This allowed him to apply his compositional knowledge in a practical setting, creating arrangements of traditional Jewish music as well as original new pieces.

Maryland native, soprano Rachel Hahn is currently pursuing her master’s in voice performance at the University of California Los Angeles, studying with John Buffet and Michael Dean. Ms. Hahn received her bachelor’s in voice performance from the Boston Conservatory. She also received a minor in psychology from The Berklee School of Music and a certificate in vocal pedagogy from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Recent roles include, Belinda, Dido and Aeneas (UCLA), Rose, Street Scene by Kurt Weil (YAA:classical, virtual), Cecilio, Lucio Silla by Mozart (Chicago Summer Opera), and Parisian Journalist, Les Mamelles des Tiresias by Poulenc (UCLA). Rachel is looking forward to a busy final year of her master’s program and profusely thanks her family and friends for their loving support.

David Kaplan, pianist, has been called “excellent and adventurous” by The New York Times, and praised by the Boston Globe for “grace and fire” at the keyboard. He has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras including the Britten Sinfonia and Das Sinfonie Orchester Berlin, and this season makes debuts with the Symphony Orchestras of Hawaii and San Antonio. He has given recitals at the Ravinia Festival, Washington’s National Gallery, and New York’s Carnegie and Merkin Halls. Kaplan has collaborated with the Attacca and Tesla String Quartets, and is a core member of Decoda, the Affiliate Ensemble of Carnegie Hall. He has appeared at the Bard, Seattle Chamber Music, Mostly Mozart, and Chamber Music Northwest festivals, and is an alumnus of Tanglewood and the Perlman Music Program. Kaplan has recorded for Naxos, Marquis Records, and for Nonesuch as part of his duo with pianist-composer Timo Andres. Later this year, he will release his debut solo disc, “New Dances of the League of David,” on New Focus Recordings.

Kaplan is the Assistant Professor and Inaugural Shapiro Family Chair in Piano Performance at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, where he has taught since 2016. A graduate of UCLA, Yale, and a Fulbright scholar in Berlin, Kaplan’s teachers and mentors include Claude Frank, Walter Ponce, Miyoko Lotto, Richard Goode, and for conducting, Lutz Köhler. David is proud to be a Yamaha Artist. Away from the keyboard, he loves cartooning and cooking, and is mildly obsessed with classic cars.

Benjamin Lash leads a vibrant career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player, studio musician, and educator. He was a top prizewinner in the Washington International Competition and has performed concertos with orchestras in both the Chicago and Los Angeles metropolitan areas. Recent performances include an appearance on the WFMT Dame Myra Hess recital series with pianist Rudolfo Leone. Benjamin is an active chamber music collaborator. He is a member of the SAKURA Cello Quintet and has participated in summer festivals including Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, Sarasota Music Festival, Taos, Aspen, Holland International Music Sessions, Fortissimo Fest in Bulgaria, and Franco-American Chamber Music Festival in Missillac, France. An experienced orchestral musician, he is Assistant Principal of the Pacific Symphony and a frequent substitute for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

Composer, theorist, and professor David S. Lefkowitz has won international acclaim, with performances in Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Russia, Ukraine, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, UK, France, Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Spain, Canada, Mexico, Israel, and Egypt. He has won recognition from Fukui Harp Music, ASCAP Young Composers, NACUSA, Guild of Temple Musicians, Chicago Civic Orchestra, Washington International, Society for New Music’s Brian Israel, ALEA III, and Gaudeamus Music Week. Recent commissions include Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, Suzana Bartal, Sibelius Piano Trio, Inna Faliks, and Russian String Orchestra. Recent performances include Edinburgh Fringe, a portrait concert at Yeltsin Center in Ekaterinburg, and Segerstrom Hall. His CD Harp’s Desire, with about 80 minutes of his music for harp, was released on Albany Records, and his Ruminations for the Sibelius Piano Trio was released on Yarlung Records. He has composed more than 125 works of music.  His most recent works are two books of Preludes and Fugues, which include two Klezmer-influenced Prelude-and-Fugue pairs, and is in the final post-production stage of being released.

The brilliant Italian-born pianist Rodolfo Leone was the first-prize winner of the 2017 International Beethoven Piano Competition Vienna. Described as “a true sound philosopher” (Oberösterreichische Nachrichten), Rodolfo released his debut album on the Austrian label Gramola in May 2018. The all-Beethoven disc features two pillars of the piano repertoire: the “Hammerklavier” Sonata and the “Waldstein” Sonata. His playing has been described as having “impeccable style” and “absolute technical control.” (Il Nuovo Amico).

Rodolfo’s 2018-19 season included debuts with the San Diego Symphony (Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1) and the Pasadena Symphony (Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21). He also performed Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in Walt Disney Concert Hall with the Colburn Orchestra. In May 2019, he gave a recital tour in Austria, culminating in a performance in Vienna at the Brahms-Saal of the Musikverein. He also performed recitals in Los Angeles and Naples, Florida, and appeared on the chamber music series Le Salon de Musiques in Los Angeles. As a 2018–19 Performance Today Young Artist in Residence, Rodolfo’s live recordings were broadcast nationally throughout the United States

Heather Powell appears in performance with a diverse group of ensembles as orchestral violinist, chamber musician and soloist alike. She plays regularly for the Los Angeles Opera, the Pacific Symphony and is an active recording artist for motion pictures and television.  Before relocating to LA, the San Francisco native performed with the San Francisco Ballet, the San Francisco Opera, as Assistant Concertmaster of the Santa Rosa Symphony, Concertmaster of the Merced Symphony, and Associate Concertmaster of the Stockton Symphony.  Heather has made TV appearances on Little Big Shots, Best.Cover.Ever, The Voice and World’s Best. She has received awards for her musical achievements from the Harvard Musical Association, the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts and at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.

Violinist Rafael Rishik was born in New York City and started the violin at age 4. At age six he was one of the youngest students ever accepted to the Juilliard School of Music. During the next 12 years of study in New York, Mr. Rishik also attended the famed Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art. Upon graduation he continued his studies at Indiana University at Bloomington, completing his graduate studies at U.C. Santa Barbara as the first violinist of the Graduate String Quartet-in-Residence. While at U.C.-Santa Barbara, Mr. Rishik had the rare privilege of performing the Chausson Poeme in master class for the great Yehudi Menuhin. Mr. Rishik’s principal teachers have been Stuart Canin, Ramy Shevelov, Zinaida Gilels, Christine Dethier and Sally Thomas.

“Compelling Artistry…” is how the Jerusalem Post described Mr. Rishik’s violin playing. He has participated in numerous festivals, including the Israel Chamber Music Festival, Carmel Bach Festival, Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds, The Music Academy of the West and most recently The International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico. Chamber Music has always been a big part of Mr. Rishik’s musical life. He spent several years performing with the Camerata Pacifica, and is a founding member of the New Hollywood String Quartet. In the summer of 2019 the NHSQ, Quartet in Residence at the Restoration Concert Series launched their inaugural summer festival entitled “Summer of Brahms Chamber Music Festival”. To incredible critical acclaim and capacity audiences the NHSQ presented all twenty-five of the instrumental chamber works of Johannes Brahms in collaboration with some of the world’s most renowned chamber musicians. In December of 2021 the NHSQ presented the Vienna Holiday Concerts at Rothenberg Hall at the Huntington Library. The works of Mozart and Schubert were celebrated over a series of three consecutive concerts. Josef Woodward of the San Francisco Classical Voice wrote: ”At the Huntington, the group exuded a refined and luminous ensemble presence in keeping with its growing reputation, 20 years into its history”.

With a Music Education degree from Missouri State University, a Vocal Performance degree from UCLA, and pursuit of a doctorate in Choral Conducting at UCLA, Troy Robertson is a highly sought-after and versatile performer, conductor, and educator. His featured performances at UCLA include Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro, Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress, Sy in Kay Rhie’s Quake, and Mr. Lucian in Richard Danielpour’s The Grand Hotel Tartarus. Additionally, he has enjoyed professional choral opportunities singing with groups like Seraphic Fire, the Ireland Chamber Orchestra, and the Palisades Symphony. Currently, he works with the Grammy-award-winning UCLA Chamber Singers who are preparing the West Coast premiere of William Averitt’s Easter, 1906. In his free time, Troy is a dutiful husband, cat father, and soon-to-be human father.

James Scott is a conductor, singer and music educator from Fremont, CA. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Music Education (saxophone) from the University of the Pacific, where he conducted various choirs and instrumental ensembles. James is pursuing a Masters Degree in Choral Conducting at UCLA, where he studies with Dr. James K. Bass and Dr. Ryan Brown.

Gabrielle Sipen is a Los Angeles born pianist and educator whose performances have spanned the United States and Europe in venues including Chopin’s home at Zelazowa Wola, Zipper Concert Hall, Skirball Cultural Center, Steinway Gallery, and Richard Nixon Presidential Library.  Since her orchestral debut at the age of 12 with the Southwestern Youth Festival Orchestra, Gabrielle has appeared as a soloist with the Los Angeles Bach Festival Orchestra, Brentwood Westwood Symphony Orchestra, Antelope Valley Symphony Orchestra, and Polish Festival Orchestra.

Gabrielle is a prizewinner of many competitions, including the XIV Chopin International Piano Competition in Hartford CT, and X Los Angeles International Liszt Competition. She was a Young Musicians Foundation scholarship recipient and has received awards at the state and national level in MTNA, MTAC, and CAPMT competitions. She is pursuing her MM in Piano Performance at UCLA with Dr. Inna Faliks. Prior to her graduate studies, Gabrielle studied with Roza Yoder. She has participated in masterclasses with many distinguished musicians including Dina Joffe, Pavel Nerssesian, Natalia Troull, Eteri Andjaparidze, Edward Wolanin, Vitaly Margulis, Dmitry Rachmanov, and Gila Goldstein.

In addition to her piano studies, Gabrielle received a Bachelor of Science in Psychobiology from UCLA. She works as a Behavioral Neuroscience Teaching Associate at UCLA and is a research assistant at USC’s Brain & Music Lab. Combining her passion for music and neuroscience, Gabrielle is particularly interested in understanding how people experience music in order to optimize musicians’ learning process.

Soprano:

Krystal Mao

Yekaterina Lynch

Hannah Lande

Alto:

Emily Dietz

Justine Woodford

Tenor:

Solomon Reynolds

Nathan Heldman

Bass:

Ben Greenberg

Elias Berezin

Sopranos:

Madison Chamberlain

Habin Kim

Krystal Mao

Milla Moretti

Josie Rose

Mia Ruhman

Lilia Salido-Rico

Haley Somphone

Hannah Verduzco

Siqi Zhuang

Altos:

Sofia Dell’Agostino

Camryn Deisman

Celina Kintscher

Rachel Hahn

Olivia Lewinski

Katya Lynch

Phaedra Panagiotidis

Olivia Salazar

Carmen Voskuhl

Anneke Talke

Sydney Wang

Priscilla Yang

Joung-A Yum

Tenors:

Cooper Burdick

Kevin Corrigan

Benicio Corona de Flores

Joseph Marcinik

James Scott

Christopher Shayota

Sam Song

Basses:

Kevin Cornwell II

Diego Dela Cruz

Yoni Fogelman

Naveed Perkins

Troy Robertson

Leland Smith

Michael Torres

Joshua Valdes

Billy Xiong

Kyle Xu

The UCLA Chamber Singers, a 32-40 voiced mixed-choir, represents the highest level of ensemble singing. The ensemble has been conducted by choral luminaries including Roger Wagner, Donn Weiss, Donald Neuen and now Dr. James K. Bass. At UCLA, the choir routinely presents performances representing the entire spectrum of choral literature on campus and in the community. The choir annually performs with UCLA Philharmonia in presentations of major choral orchestral works in the historic on-campus venue Royce Hall. The ensemble has collaborated with other nationally recognized arts groups, including the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Minneapolis Guitar Quartet, Seraphic Fire, and the touring production of Distant Worlds, the music of Final Fantasy. Additionally, Chamber Singers often participate in the performing and recording premieres of new works such as Richard Danielpour’s The Passion of Yeshua, recorded by Naxos Records.