UCLA Symphony Fall Concert

Founded in 2002, UCLA Symphony is UCLA’s campus-wide orchestra, drawing its membership from throughout the university community and performing a full spectrum of symphonic repertoire. It meets Wednesday evenings from 7:15 to 9:45 PM, performs one concert per quarter, and is open to all UCLA undergraduates, graduate/professional school students, faculty, staff, and affiliates. Concerts are in Schoenberg Hall; Symphony is led by advanced MM and DMA conducting majors, supervised by the UCLA conducting faculty. UCLA Symphony may be taken for credit.

Born and raised in Bakersfield, CA, Gemalene (“Gemi”) Rae Pacleb Acupan is a first-generation, Filipina-American conductor based in Southern California.  She has received orchestral training across the globe, studying with Venezuela Symphony conductor Rodolfo Saglimbeni, London Conducting Academy founder Denise Ham, Eastman School of Music conductor Neil Varon, and Pacific Symphony conductor Carl St. Clair. Acupan graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BM in Conducting and Trumpet Performance, as well as a minor in Leadership Studies, from Chapman University. At Chapman’s Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music, she studied with Daniel Wachs and Tim Hall and was named Chapman’s inaugural Presser Scholar.

Outside of conducting, Acupan enjoys a career as an educator and trumpet player. She has presented numerous educational concerts with the Orange County Youth Symphony and the Huntington Brass Quintet, served as a teaching assistant at Idyllwild Arts Camp, and organized several Chapman University Honor Band Festivals. She currently teaches a private trumpet studio in the Los Angeles area. She also co-owns and edits Music Workouts by Gary Scudder, a music curriculum helping  students of all ages to maximize their musical success.

Acupan currently pursues her MM in orchestral conducting with Neal Stulberg at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music.

Polish-born conductor Jakub Rompczyk is a third-year DMA orchestral conducting major at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, studying with Neal Stulberg. At UCLA, he co-directs UCLA Symphony, assists in productions of Opera UCLA, and serves as a graduate teaching associate. Before moving to Los Angeles, Rompczyk graduated from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, where he served as Assistant Conductor of the Eastman Philharmonia and Eastman School Symphony Orchestra. In 2016-17 and 2017-18, he was a conducting apprentice at the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich, where he was mentored by the orchestra’s chief conductor Mariss Jansons. He has participated in masterclasses with Bertrand de Billy, Mark Gibson, Nicolas Pasquet, Leonard Slatkin, Mark Stringer, Kirk Trevor, and David Zinman.

Recent engagements include assistant conducting the world premiere workshop reading of Quake, a new opera by UCLA Professor Kay Rhie; concerts with the Eastman School and UCLA orchestras; and performances with Eastman’s OSSIA New Music Ensemble. Among the international orchestras he has conducted are the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra (Czech Republic), MAV Symphony Orchestra (Hungary), Sibiu Philharmonic Orchestra (Romania), and Poznan Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra (Poland).  In Spring 2023, he will conduct a staged Opera UCLA production of Poulenc’s “Les Mamelles de Tirésias” in the two-piano version by Benjamin Britten and Viola Tunnard.

A passionate scholar, Rompczyk received the Erasmus Program scholarship to study at the renowned University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. In 2021-22, he was awarded two prestigious UCLA research awards: a Department of Musicology Ciro Zoppo Research Fellowship and a Graduate Summer Research Mentorship Program Award. Both awards have supported his ongoing research into the Hollywood composer duo of Walter Jurmann and Bronislaw Kaper.  He plans to write his DMA dissertation on Mieczysław Weinberg’s Symphony No. 6 (“Polish Flowers”).

Austin Ho is a solo and collaborative pianist who has performed throughout his native Southern California.  Among other awards, he has received first prize in the UCLA Benno Rubinyi Piano Competition, second prize in the LA Young Pianist Competition, third prize in the Edith Knox Concerto Competition, and was selected as winnter of the CSUN Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition.  He has been the recipient of the David Weiss, Elaine Krown Klein, and Mimi Alpert Feldman Scholarships, and was the inaugural recipient of the General Merrill A. McPeak Scholarship Award.

Currently principal pianist of the American Youth Symphony, Austin has performed a wide variety of classical and modern repertoire, including full live-to-picture productions of How to Train Your Dragon and Superman for the orchestra’s  annual Hollywood Project Concerts.  He will also perform in AYS’ upcoming Los Angeles Philharmonic Sounds About Town series at Walt Disney Concert Hall, featuring  a collaboration with the National Children’s Chorus.

Austin’s UCLA faculty instructors have included Inna Faliks, Neal Stulberg, Rakefet Hak, David Kaplan, and James Lent.  He has received merit scholarships, the Dean’s Medal Recipient and Chancellor’s Service Award at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, where he is keyboardist of UCLA Philharmonia, vocal ensemble pianist in the Gluck Fellows Program, and an active staff accompanist.  He graduated cum laude from UCLA with a BA in music performance and  a minor in mathematics, and currently pursues a Master of Music degree at UCLA.