UCLA Philharmonia
The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music
Department of Music presents
UCLA Philharmonia
Neal Stulberg, conductor
November 2nd, 2024, 8PM
Schoenberg Hall
Performers
UCLA Philharmonia
See RosterViolin 1
Gabriel Esperon*
Makiba Kurita*
Jason Chen
Ally Cho
Rubani Chugh
Jonathan Han
Janice Hu
Nina Huang
Jimin Koo
Jamily Lee
JJ Liao
Lyndsey Lipscomb
Nathan Robinson
Mana Tatsuki
Kelly Tsai
Isaac Visoutsy
* = concertmaster
Violin 2
Mattin Aframian
Alex Collins
Johannes Eberhart
Honor Frisco
Alisa Gukasian
Kayla Lee
Andrew Dela Peña
Erin Tsui
Helen Wang
Jeremiah Youngblood
Viola
James Renk*
Zara Amendt
Panithi Kachinthorn
Stefan Kosmala-Dahlbeck
Ellen Lozada
Layla Shapouri
Isaac Tin-Long Chan
Zhiyu Wang
* = principal
Cello
Jasmine Lam*
Dylan Renk*
Leon Cho
Holly Chen
Kayson Chen
Sarah Clark
Isaac Fromme
Kayleen Kim
Edward Li
Annabelle Lo
Naohiro Nadahara
Candice Oh
Kaya Ralls
Aerie Walker
Aiden Woodruff
* = principal
Double Bass
Leon Simmans*
Dawson Lam
Luca Lesko
Terence Malloy
Aidan Neuman
James Shogren
* = principal
Flute/Piccolo
Nayeon Cho*
Katlyn Lang*
Sohee Park
* = Piccolo
Oboe
Daniela Chavez*
Khuyen Hyler
Adelle Rodkey
* = English Horn
Clarinet
Nicholas Kim
Aria McCauley
Alexander Parlee*
Devin Walsh
* = E-flat
Bassoon
Davis Lerner*
Dani Santana
Daniel Torrero
* = Contrabassoon
Horn
Bryan Chiu
Em Ellis
Nathan Jones
Vasili Magaziotis
Michelle Yang
Trumpet
Cyrus Alva
McCartney Hutchinson
Remy Ohara
Andrew Smith
Sean Zender
Trombone
Ryan Heisinger
Spencer Mar
Christopher Tam*
* = Bass Trombone
Tuba
Daler Babaev
Bradley Stires
Percussion
Robbie Darling
Kevin Needham
Frankie Peacock
Viraj Sonawala
Trey Tappan
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.
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, 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.
Collaborators have included John Adams; Leonard Bernstein; Chris, Dan and Darius Brubeck; Dee Dee Bridgewater; John Clayton; Mercer Ellington; Michael Feinstein; Philip Glass; Morton Gould; David Krakauer; Lar Lubovitch; 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 returns to conduct its symphony orchestra in June 2024.
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.
Repertoire
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 – 1975)
Symphony No. 9 in E-flat major, Op. 70 (1945)
I. Allegro
II. Moderato
III. Presto
IV. Largo
V. Allegretto – Allegro
Neal Stulberg, Conductor
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 – 1975)
Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93 (c. 1953)
I. Moderato
II. Allegro
III. Allegretto – Largo –Più mosso
IV. Andante – Allegro – L’istesso tempo
Neal Stulberg, Conductor
Donor Acknowledgement
This performance is made possible by the David and Irmgard Dobrow Fund. Classical music was a passion of the Dobrows, who established a generous endowment at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music to make programs like this possible. We are proud to celebrate this program as part of the 2024–2025 Dobrow Series.