UCLA Symphony Fall Quarter Concert
UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music
Wednesday, December 6, 2023
8:00 pm
Schoenberg Hall
Performers
![UCLA Symphony](https://schoolofmusic.ucla.edu/app/uploads/2018/08/Philharmonia-at-KB85-2-300x200.jpg)
UCLA Symphony
See RosterVIOLIN I
Mingye Wang +
Gabby Arreglo
Camila Blank
Christian Byun
Brian Cheng
Ben Goldman
Kenneth Guo
Matheo Irazabal
David Jang
Jeannie Kim
Valerie Kuo
Spencer Mangan
Kevin Nam
Vanessa Niu
Charlie Russell
Iris Shen
Sophia Ting
Jacey Yang
John Yoon
VIOLIN II
Ariana Chin +
Conley Ball
Santiago Cardenas
Verna Chen
David Gaines
Hasti Hedayatiparsa
Viviana Hsiao
Alexa Jennings
Yassna Khosravi
Faith Kim
Angie Lee
Michael Lee
Robert Lee
Andrea Liang
Siofra Linden
Isabelle Preston
Zishu Stewart Fang
Lizzie Su
Sarah Sung
Trina Tang
Anqi Zang
VIOLA
Coleman Hoffner +
Subin Lee
Jared Lewis
Sullivan Rodriguez
Mallika Shah
Jeffrey Shen
Jason Stange
Ariel Villaroya
Sarah Wu
Jason Zhang
CELLO
Joshua Ferrer +
Kai Dizon
Yuta Kiami
Alvin Liu
Caroline Ozmun
Savine Mergy
Emma Morrison
Abigail Tsai
Zachary Tu
Minnie Seo
Camila Wilson
Emma Yim
Charles Zhang
BASS
Dharma Dorazio +
Melissa Heredia
Jasmine Herring
Richard Li
FLUTE
Katlyn Lang
Amanda Lee
Kayla Pei *
Petunia Rizo
*Piccolo
OBOE
Cayden Bloomer
Karen Clark
Kate Fallon
Laura Hernandez *
*English Horn
CLARINET
Cyrus Asasi
Oren Dror *
Harrison Garff
Max Kaminsky
*E-flat clarinet
BASSOON
Kevin Bae *
Abigail Brendza
Adam Moss
*Contrabassoon
FRENCH HORN
Noah Arst
Julian Dohi
Drew Slipka
Abraham Zaman
TRUMPET
Jackson Bacon
Saul Gutierrez
McCartney Hutchinson
Christian Cruz Morales
Sean Zender
TROMBONE
Kenji Fujimoto
Spencer Mar
Frankie Ye
TUBA
Bradley Stires
TIMPANI
Shawronna Sengupta
PERCUSSION
Demitrius Alleyne
Rathul Anand
Matthew Lefebvre
Connor Ridley
Shawronna Sengupta
HARP
Chloe Bang
Shania Ghassemi
Isabelle Lee
Jillian Lopez
PIANO/CELESTE
Rin Homma
Denotes Principal +
![](https://schoolofmusic.ucla.edu/app/uploads/2023/10/Billy-Headshot-200x300.jpg)
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 Degree in vocal performance from Case Western Reserve University and a Master’s Degree 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 DMA degree in orchestral conducting at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, studying with Neal Stulberg.
![](https://schoolofmusic.ucla.edu/app/uploads/2023/10/Jakub-Headshot.jpg)
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.
![](https://schoolofmusic.ucla.edu/app/uploads/2023/10/Yijin-Headshot-200x300.jpg)
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.
![](https://schoolofmusic.ucla.edu/app/uploads/2023/10/Karen-Tanaka.jpg)
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.
Repertoire
Karen Tanaka (b. 1961)
“Rose Absolute” (2002)
Jakub Rompczyk, conductor
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622 (1791)
I. Allegro
II. Adagio
III. Rondo: Allegro
Yijin Wang, clarinet
Jakub Rompczyk, conductor
INTERMISSION
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47 (1937)
I. Moderato
II. Allegretto
III. Largo
IV. Allegro non troppo
Gan Xiong, conductor
Donor Acknowledgement
This event 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 2023 – 24 Dobrow Series.
Program Notes
Rose Absolute was inspired by a perfume of the same name, Rose Absolue, created by the French perfumery Annick Goutal located near Place Vendome in Paris. It embodies the quintessence of the most exquisite and pure rose. The idea for this composition, a harmonious blend of sounds and colors came to my mind instantly when I visited the boutique and was handed a beautiful bottle of the perfume with a scent of roses. The piece was written as a floral bouquet, intended as a personal and romantic gift for a beloved.
Rose Absolute was commissioned by the Michael Vyner Trust in England. It was first performed by the NHK Symphony Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, at the Suntory Hall in Tokyo, on 1 December 2002. This work is dedicated to Esa-Pekka Salonen.
-Karen Tanaka