Colburn School Reveals 2024-25 Roster for its Esteemed Colburn Artists Management Program

Colburn School has announced the roster of Colburn Artists for the 2024-25 season, featuring five remarkable young artists embarking on careers as soloists, chamber musicians, and conductors. The 2024-25 roster includes string quartet Quartet Integra, violinist and pianist Ray Ushikubo, conductors Aleksandra Melaniuk and Mert Yalniz, and pianist Ryota Yamazaki. Established in 2012, Colburn Artists is a unique in-house management program for Colburn Conservatory students on the cusp of professional careers. Created in order to provide guidance and support during the critical transition from the conservatory environment to a performance career, the Colburn Artists program is designed to prepare students to work with industry leaders and artist managers. In a supportive atmosphere linked closely with their individual performance studies, they receive personalized career advice and training, including guidance on building relationships with presenters, orchestras, and world-class musicians; developing repertoire; interview preparation; and creating a polished image and online presence.

Colburn students are chosen to join Colburn Artists by a faculty committee and teacher nomination process. Faculty observe student's growth through on-and-off campus performances, chamber music coaching, and individual instruction to evaluate their artistic achievements and personal artistic goals.

“Being selected for the Colburn Artists management program is an acknowledgement of the exceptional talent and dedication of these musicians,” said Colburn School President and CEO Sel Kardan. “Their inclusion in this roster signifies a significant milestone in their journey, posed to enhance their careers as soloists and chamber musicians. The Colburn Artists program is unique in its comprehensive approach, combining individualized career development with unparalleled performance opportunities. Our program not only nurtures exceptional musical talent but also equips artists with the professional skills needed to thrive in today's competitive landscape.”

Polish conductor Aleksandra Melaniuk is one of the leading young conductors of her generation. She has worked with the London Symphony Orchestra as a semi-finalist of the 17th Donatella Flick Conducting Competition, and is one of the winners of the 2023 Das Kritische Orchester, led by Forum Dirigieren. Raised between Warsaw and Edinburgh, Melaniuk was a Britten-Pears Young Artist for the 2023–24 season and a Salonen Fellow in the Negaunee Conducting Program at Colburn Conservatory and the San Francisco Symphony, where she assisted Esa-Pekka Salonen internationally. Despite her young age, Melaniuk has already conducted numerous orchestras in Europe, including the Flanders Symphony Orchestra, Stavanger Symfoniorkester, Baltic Sea Philharmonic, Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, Moravska Filharmonie Olomouc, Lower Silesian Philharmonic Orchestra or the Orchestra of the Grand Theatre in Poznan. She made her professional debut with the Silesian Philharmonic in their ‘For the Young’ concert series.

Described as having “an enormous wealth of colors… and sparkling rhythms,” (All News Press), Quartet Integra are quickly developing a reputation of international prestige. In 2022, the Quartet won Second Prize and the coveted Audience Award at the 2022 ARD International Music Competition, First Prize at the 2021 Bartók World Competition, and First Prize and the Prize of Beethoven and Grand Prix Award at the 2019 Akiyoshidai Music Competition. Upcoming performances include over twenty performances throughout Japan including the Kanazawa, Hukuyama and Takefu International Festivals and at venues such as Tokyo Opera City, Toppan Hall, and Suntory Hall, among others. Additionally, they have performances planned as part of the Discovery Series at the La Jolla Music Society, the California Club in Los Angeles and Thayer and Zipper Halls at the Colburn School.

Known for his “disciplined focus and clarity… and marvelous dynamic nuance” (Arts Knoxville), Ray Ushikubo is a twenty-one-year-old Japanese-American pianist and violinist who has performed on the stages of Carnegie Hall and Walt Disney Concert Hall, and appeared on NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Ushikubo made his orchestral debut at age ten with the Young Musicians Foundation Orchestra in Los Angeles’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 alongside conductor Teddy Abrams. A recipient of the prestigious Davidson Fellow Laureate Award in 2014, Ushikubo was named a Young Steinway Artist and won the 2017 Hilton Head International Piano Competition and the 2016 Piano Concerto Competition at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Ushikubo was featured as a Young Artist-in-Residence of the national radio broadcast Performance Today with host Fred Child and he has been featured on NPR’s From the Top where he was named a Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist.

Turkish-German conductor, pianist, and composer Mert Yalniz has been described as “extremely individual, charismatic and convincing” (Osthessen News), his piano playing as “passionate, enthusiastic and highly virtuosic” (Braunschweig Newspaper), and his compositions as a “statement from the new generation” (Heidelberger Frühling). This season, Yalniz will make his debut with the NDR Radiophilharmonie in Hanover, where he will conduct Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with pianist Igor Levit, Weber‘s Clarinet Concertino, Chausson‘s Poème, and Wagner‘s Wesendonck Lieder. Recent performances include Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Uniorchester Leibniz and Braunschweiger Kammerorchester; Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Göttinger Symphonieorchester and Deutsches Juristenorchester, Bach’s Concerto in D Minor and Joaquín Turina’s Rapsodia Sinfonica with the Beethoven Orchester Hessen, and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the chamber orchestra La Tempesta. Yalniz made his debut at the international music festival Heidelberger Frühling, performing excerpts from Frederic Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated! and conducting and playing in his nearly 45-minute long composition People-Fantasy for chamber ensemble.

Japanese pianist Ryota Yamazaki is emerging as one of this generation’s finest musicians, both sensitive and commanding at the keyboard. A recent third prize and junior jury prize winner of the 64th Busoni International Piano Competition, Yamazaki’s prowess and “his flawless technique produced some fine pianistic fireworks” (Cleveland Classical). Yamazaki has performed with orchestras all over the world, performing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with conductor Jahja Ling and the Cleveland Orchestra, Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with Chikara Iwamoto and the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra and again with Takeshi Oi and the Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra, Liszt’s Piano Concerto No.1 with Joseph Stepec and the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra, and Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Daiki Omori and the Virtuoso Youth Orchestra, among others.

All Colburn Artists will perform in Colburn School concerts, and are actively engaged in performances across the country and around the world. Aleksandra Melaniuk will lead the opening work of the Colburn Orchestra concert on September 28, 2024, conducting Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde Prelude. Aleksandra will also conduct a Recovered Voices concert, “Music of Poland,” at Zipper Hall on March 15, 2025. Both Aleksandra and Mert Yalniz and will lead the Colburn Orchestra and soloists from the Conservatory of Music in a Concerto Forum concert on March 22, 2025.

Quartet Integra will tour in Japan in September 2024, and will appear on the Colburn Presents series throughout the year in performances with the Calidore Quartet on November 15, 2024 and pianist Fabio Bidini on February 9, 2025. Ray Ushikubo will perform the Sibelius Violin Concerto under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen with the Colburn Orchestra at Walt Disney Concert Hall on October 26, 2024. Ryota will participate in Rob Kapilow's 'What Makes it Great' Series in February 2025. For programming details and additional tour dates, please visit colburnschool.edu/colburn-artists/. 

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