20th Annual
UCLA Philharmonia
All-Star Concert

Isaac Fromme is currently a third-year undergraduate cello performance major at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, where he studies with Ben Hong.
Isaac began cello studies with his father at age five. Although he planned to pursue a career as a soccer player, it was not until his junior year of high school, when he participated in the San Francisco Youth Orchestra, that he decided to pursue music seriously. The exceptional level of musicianship and passion he encountered there inspired him to pursue a professional career, with the goal of performing in a major orchestra.

During his last year of high school, Isaac studied cello with San Francisco Conservatory of Music faculty member Jennifer Culp. Prior to performing at the Junior Bach Festival Competition concert, he took a lesson with the renowned cellist Bonnie Hampton.
In addition to his academic studies, Isaac has participated in several summer programs, including Summer Music West at SFCM, Philadelphia International Music Festival, Pacific Crest Music Festival, Boulder Cello Festival. He will participate in the Round Top Festival (TX) this summer.

Mana Tatsuki is a third-year undergraduate at UCLA pursuing a Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance. She studies violin with Movses Pogossian and Varty Manouelian. Former music mentors have included Jin Shan Dai, Peter Marsh, Hana Kim, Moni Simeonov, Mathew Ward, and Sakura Tsai.

Mana has attended prestigious summer programs including the Interlochen Arts Camp, Boston University Tanglewood Institute’s Violin Workshop/Young Artists Orchestra program (where she served as assistant principal second violin), and the American Institute of Musical Studies. She was recently chosen as a member of the California Young Artists Symphony.

A high school graduate of the California School of the Arts-San Gabriel Valley, Mana was a leader in its Strings and Orchestra program and Instrumental Music Conservatory, serving as concertmaster of the school’s orchestras, performing in its flagship chamber ensemble, and working as Assistant to the Music Director for numerous gala, musical, ballet, and opera productions. An enthusiastic advocate for collaboration in the performing arts, Mana performed as first violinist in the L.A. Opera’s production of Nathan Wang’s On Gold Mountain at Huntington Gardens in Pasadena.

With her colleagues, Mana co-founded the non-profit organization group ARCK Chamber, which performs in hospitals and retirement centers and provides immersive musical experiences to those who have limited access to live classical performances.
Outside of music, Mana enjoys reading, drawing, and collecting decorative pins.

Esther Kim is a fourth-year undergraduate clarinet performance major at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music. She began playing clarinet in fourth grade and has performed with honor ensembles including the CBDA All-State Orchestra and the Pacific Symphony Youth Orchestra. She has also been recognized through competitions and honors such as the Southwestern Youth Music Festival and as an Orange County Register finalist. At UCLA, Esther studies with Boris Allakhverdyan and also participates in studio classes with Joshua Ranz. A member of the Gluck Fellows Program, she shares chamber music through outreach performances in retirement communities and other community settings.

***

Cyrus Asasi is a fourth-year undergraduate at UCLA, where he pursues a double major in clarinet performance and computer science. At age eleven, he began classical and klezmer clarinet studies with Robert Zelickman, and also studied piano throughout his childhood. As a high school student, he performed with the Mainly Mozart Youth Orchestra and the Palomar Symphony Orchestra.

At UCLA, Cyrus’ principal teacher is Boris Allakhverdyan. He has also studied clarinet with Joshua Ranz, gained extensive orchestral and wind ensemble experience under the direction of Neal Stulberg and Travis Cross, and has participated in chamber music coached by Jan Baker, Jonathan Davis, Catherine Gregory and John Steinmetz. He remains committed to both the performance and computer science fields.

A native of San Francisco, Grace Brandes is a third-year undergraduate flute major at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, where she studies with Benjamin Smolen. Her previous teachers include Denis Bouriakov and Catherine Payne; she has participated in masterclasses with Sebastian Jacot, Silvia Carredu, and Marina Piccinini. Grace trained for four years in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Pre-College program and has studied at summer intensive programs including the Domaine Forget Académie de Musique, The Juilliard School, and Oberlin Conservatory. She performs regularly in solo and ensemble settings.

Qeanu Smith is a saxophonist and educator from Massachusetts. She is currently a first-year Master’s student at UCLA, where she studies with Jan Berry Baker. In addition to her graduate studies, she serves as a Graduate Teaching Assistant for the UCLA Bruin Marching Band.

Qeanu currently serves as one of the Western Region Outreach Coordinators for the organization, Women of Color in Classical Saxophone. She is the baritone saxophonist for the Zuma Saxophone Quartet, a group founded as part of the UCLA Gluck Fellows Program to provide educational performances to the Los Angeles County community. Most recently the Quartet was selected to be a finalist in the North American Saxophone Alliance Quartet Competition.

Qeanu earned dual undergraduate degrees in Music Education and Saxophone Performance from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she studied with Jonathan Hulting-Cohen. During her time there, she performed extensively with ensembles including the UMass Wind Ensemble, and the Valley Winds Ensemble.

Outside of her academic and performance endeavors, Qeanu continues to explore interdisciplinary projects that connect music with storytelling, visual art, and social engagement. She aspires to use her platform as a performer and educator to inspire dialogue, representation, and innovation within the classical saxophone community.

Born in Woodland Hills, CA, Damian Eloy Silvera is a first-year Spanish- and Jamaican-American undergraduate clarinet performance major at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, where he studies with Boris Allakhverdyan. An active orchestral, chamber, and solo musician, Damian performs regularly with UCLA Symphony and UCLA Wind Ensemble and has a deep interest in in ensemble and solo performance.

Damian has received significant recognition in regional and national competitions. He was awarded First Prize in the Virtuoso Category of the Southern California Philharmonic Orchestra Young Artists Solo Competition and Second Prize in the 38th Annual Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts Instrumental Competition (Woodwinds). As an awardee of the Kadima Conservatory Philharmonic Orchestra Concerto Competition, he performed movements from the Krommer and Mozart clarinet concertos.

As an orchestral musician, Damian has served as principal clarinet of the Kadima Conservatory Philharmonic Orchestra and the Kadima Senior Philharmonic. He was selected as a California All-State (CASMEC) Wind
Symphony clarinetist and performed at the California Music Educators Association Conference.

In addition to classical contexts, Damian performs in a wide range of musical settings and values music as a means of connection and outreach. Outside of music, Damian enjoys cooking, cycling, swimming, practicing jiu-jitsu, and traveling.

Saxophonist Haruka Taguchi is a first-year doctoral student at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, studying with Jan Berry Baker. She is a Gluck Performance Fellow and an outreach coordinator for the organization, Women of Color in Classical Saxophone.

A native of Seymour, Indiana, Haruka previously earned her Masters degree at Michigan State University as a student of Joseph Lulloff and her Bachelors degree at the University of Michigan as a student of Timothy McAllister. During her years in Michigan, she collaborated and performed with the Akropolis Reed Quintet, Col. Jason Fettig, Michael Haithcock, Kevin Sedatole, among other outstanding performers.

Haruka has performed at and participated in many competitions, conferences, and clinics, including the Hamamatsu Wind Academy, International Andorra Saxophone Competition, and National Repertory Orchestra. She was recently named a finalist for the North American Saxophone Alliance Collegiate Solo Competition.

Sofia Dell’Agostino is a second-year undergraduate at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, double-majoring in voice performance and music composition. She studies voice with Vladimir Chernov and has studied composition with Ian Krouse, Richard Danielpour, and Naveed Perkins.

At UCLA, Sofia has performed in opera and scenes productions conducted by Rakefet Hak and Neal Stulberg and directed by Peter Kazaras and James Darrah. These include Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell (2023), an opera scenes program (2024), The Grand Hotel Tartarus by Richard Danielpour (2024), and a Kurt Weill cabaret (2025). In 2025, she sang the role of Miles in Opera UCLA’s production of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw and also premiered the role of Young Wolfgang in the new pop opera Nannerl by Mia Ruhman. Her piano suite premiered at a 2025 UCLA Composers Spring Concert.

A native of San Francisco, Sofia attended the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, studying vocal music with Michael Desnoyers (2019-2023) and serving as Student Conductor during her senior year. She attended the High School Composition Intensive and Vocal/Choral Intensive (Boston Conservatory at Berklee) and the International Vocal Artists Academy (Payerbach, Austria), and has been a member of the San Francisco Opera Scouts and UCLA Chamber Singers. At Inspire Music, a private music studio in the Bay Area, she studied voice with Victor Cervantes and Sergio Gonzalez, and piano with Jeffrey Huspek.

Jessica Li is a fourth-year undergraduate at UCLA double-majoring in biochemistry and piano performance. Previous teachers have included John Perry and Mina Hirobe-Perry at the John Perry Academy of Music, John McCarthy at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Hans Boepple from Santa Clara University. She currently studies with Inna Faliks at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.

Jessica has received many accolades and opportunities to perform both locally and internationally. In her first year at UCLA, she was invited to play a solo concert on the prestigious Chancellor’s Residence series. She then received top prizes at UCLA’s 20th, 21st, and 22nd annual Benno Rubinyi Piano Competition. She received the Grand Prize at the Mondavi Center National Young Artist Competition, first place at the American Beethoven Young Pianist Competition, first place at the Music Teachers Association of California Piano Solo Competition, and first prize and a Carnegie Hall debut at the AADGT International Young Gifted Musicians Competition. She has also been invited to perform with international orchestras, including a 2017 debut with the Virtuosi Brunensis Orchestra in Perugia, Italy, and has participated in piano masterclasses taught by Jon Nakamatsu, Gary Graffman, Matti Raekallio, and Pedja Mužijević.

Jessica is the former co-president of the UCLA American Medical Women’s Association undergraduate division, current senior vice president of Eta Omega Chi (UCLA’s East Asian professional business fraternity), and current recruitment chair of the Clinical and Translational Science Institute Research Associates Program (CTSI-RAP). She participates in clinical research with the UCLA Department of Cardiology, teaches piano to local K-12 students with the UCLA Music Partnership Program, and performs in clarinet and piano trios with the UCLA Gluck Program.

In her free time, she enjoys singing karaoke and trying new cafes and restaurants.

Oliver Chan is a conductor, pianist, harpsichordist, and organist. He earned Bachelor of Arts and Master of Music degrees in piano performance at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, where he studied with Walter Ponce. He then received a Master of Music degree in orchestral conducting at the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music of Cal State Long Beach, where he studied with Johannes Müller Stosch. Chan currently pursues his doctoral degree in orchestral conducting at UCLA with Neal Stulberg. Other conducting teachers have included Dean Anderson, Jacob Sustaita, Edward Dolbashian, Andreas Mitisek, Mark Gibson, Neil Varon, and Kenneth Kiesler. Chan is currently music director of the Los Angeles-based opera company Opera Italia and staff accompanist at UCLA and Santa Monica College. In November 2025, he served as assistant conductor of Opera UCLA’s production of Benjamin Britten’s “The Turn of the Screw.”

Chinese-born conductor Gan Xiong has led orchestras including the Case Western Reserve University Orchestra (Cleveland, OH), Tokyo Sinfonia, UCLA Symphony, Miami Music Festival Orchestra, and Bacâu Philharmonic Orchestra (Romania), and has conducted student productions of musicals including “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” and “Dear Evan Hansen.” He has led youth orchestras in Shanghai including the Huangpu District Youth Orchestra and Shanghai Kite Youth Orchestra, where he served as faculty in a Baroque summer camp session and conducted its final concert in 2019.

Also a vocalist, Gan was a member of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus from 2021 to 2022, where he participated in a recording of Shostakovich Symphony No. 3 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He holds a bachelor’s in vocal performance from Case Western Reserve University and a master’s in orchestral conducting from The Boston Conservatory at Berklee. His teachers have included Kathleen Horvath, Bruce Hangen, Charles Gambetta, and Ovidiu Balan; he has participated in masterclasses with Mark Gibson, Arthur Fagen, Apo Hsu, Robert Ryker, and John Farrer. He currently pursues a doctoral degree in orchestral conducting at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, studying with Neal Stulberg.

Naveed Perkins is a young self taught Pianist and Composer. He was born and grew up in San Diego, California where he’d gone to school his entire life. Since he was young, he’d always had an ear for music and having been able to explore music on his own, he developed a much deeper appreciation and intuition that can be seen, heard, and felt in his own compositions. Over his high school career, he attended both Indiana University Piano Academy for Piano Performance and the Curtis Institute of Music Young Artist Summer Program for Composition. He began studying with Professor Victor Labenske at Point Loma Nazarene University during his Junior Year of high school where he began to refine his skills and compose more intuitive music. He is currently studying with Dr. Richard Danielpour and Professor Ian Krouse at the University of California, Los Angeles where he continues to refine his skills by finding new ways to convey the beauty of music through his own works. Naveed is not only an avid composer, but poet as well. 

He has written a book of short poems titled “Letters To My Unconscious Mind,” as well as the libretto for his upcoming oratorio. As a composer of mixed descent, he continues to find new avenues to express his rich heritage. For the past two years, he has been the Assistant Conductor of the Iranshahr Orchestra, an Iranian Orchestra under the direction of Dr. Shahab Paranj. These opportunities, paired with his pursuit of cultural integration through his music has led him to meld personal poetry with compelling narratives that tell stories about fundamental aspects of our lives. 

As a first-year graduate student at UCLA, his future prospects all deal with a greater integration of narratives within his community of colleagues, faculty, and those in the greater LA area and beyond. His most recent project, ‘Heaven’s Garden’, is a song cycle in both Armenian and English to be performed on April 15th, 2026 with the Iranshahr Orchestra at UCLA. Upcoming performances of his work include poems of Hafiz put to music with the UCLA Chamber Singers, and another choral work slated for performance in Carnegie Hall December 2027. He deeply looks forward to further storytelling through his music, art, and poetry, and he cannot wait to share the wonders of music with those around him.

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.