Polish-born conductor Jakub Rompczyk is in his final quarter of DMA in orchestral conducting at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, studying with Neal Stulberg. At UCLA, he co-directs the campus-wide orchestra UCLA Symphony, assists in productions of Opera UCLA, and serves as a Teaching Fellow. His recent 2023 engagements include conducting Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tiresias and the workshop reading of Richard Danielpour’s The Grand Hotel Tartarus for Opera UCLA. In 2022, he was Assistant Conductor for Opera Santa Barbara’s production of La Traviata and led Opera UCLA’s final performance of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress. Before moving to Los Angeles, Rompczyk graduated with an MM from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, where he served as Assistant Conductor of the Eastman orchestras. In 2016-17 and 2017-18, he was a conducting apprentice at the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, where he was mentored by the orchestra’s former chief conductor Mariss Jansons. As the recipient of the Erasmus Program scholarship, Rompczyk studied conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. He has participated in masterclasses with Bertrand de Billy, Mark Gibson, Nicolas Pasquet, Leonard Slatkin, Mark Stringer, Kirk Trevor, and David Zinman.

Karen Tanaka is an exceptionally versatile composer and pianist. Her works have been performed by distinguished orchestras and ensembles worldwide including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Utah Symphony, Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Kronos Quartet, Brodsky Quartet, BIT20 Ensemble, among many others. Various choreographers and dance companies, including Wayne McGregor and Nederlands Dans Theater, have often featured her music.

Born in Tokyo, she started formal piano and composition lessons as a child. After studying composition with Akira Miyoshi at Toho Gakuen School of Music, she moved to Paris in 1986 with the aid of a French Government Scholarship to study with Tristan Murail and work at IRCAM. In 1987 she was awarded the Gaudeamus Prize at the International Music Week in Amsterdam for her piano concerto Anamorphose. She studied with Luciano Berio in Florence in 1990-91 with funds from the Nadia Boulanger Foundation and a Japanese Government Scholarship. In 1996, she received the Margaret Lee Crofts Fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Center. In 1998 she was appointed as Co-Artistic Director of the Yatsugatake Kogen Music Festival, previously directed by Toru Takemitsu. In 2012, she was selected as a fellow of the Sundance Institute’s Composers Lab for feature film and mentored by Hollywood’s leading composers. Recently, she served as Lead Orchestrator for the BBC’s TV series, Planet Earth II. Karen Tanaka lives in Los Angeles and teaches composition at California Institute of the Arts.

Yijin Wang is a 2016 National YoungArts Foundation Finalist. She made her solo debut with the Wuhan Philharmonic Orchestra at age of 12. In 2017, Yijin toured with the NYO-China. She was invited to perform a recital by the Beijing Clarinet Festival in 2018. She had a European tour with the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra in 2019. She had the privilege to play in the Berliner Philharmonie, the Wiener Musikverein, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Carnegie Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Davies Symphony Hall, etc. Yijin has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony.

Yijin was born into a musical family. She started to play the piano at age of 3 and began the clarinet at 8 years old. Yijin started to study in the Colburn Music Academy with Yehuda Gilad in 2013. She received her Bachelor and Master degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with full scholarship under Luis Baez and Carey Bell. Yijin is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Clarinet Performance at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music with Boris Allakhverdyan.