Celebrating its tenth anniversary season in 2012-2013, the COLBURN ORCHESTRA is the flagship ensemble of the Colburn Conservatory of Music. Under the direction of Music Director and Conductor Yehuda Gilad, the Colburn Orchestra performs for Southern California audiences at venues such as Walt Disney Concert Hall, Ambassador Auditorium, Royce Hall, Segerstrom Concert Hall and the Valley Performing Arts Center in Northridge.

Since its inception, Gilad and the esteemed faculty at Colburn have invited leading guest artists to perform with the Colburn Orchestra to mirror a professional orchestral experience. Previous visiting conductors include James Conlon, Jamie Laredo, Sir Neville Marriner, Kurt Masur, Nicolas McGegan, and Esa-Pekka Salonen, among others. Guest soloists include violinists Joshua Bell, Cho-Liang Lin, Elmar Oliveira and Pinchas Zukerman (play/conduct); soprano Elizabeth Hynes; mezzo-sopranos Sasha Cooke and Michelle DeYoung; pianist Vladimir Feltsman and saxophonist Claude Delangle. Esteemed artists such as Mstislav Rostropovich and Itzhak Perlman actively worked with the orchestra during its inaugural year.

This evening’s concert marks the Colburn Orchestra’s first performance with Los Angeles Philharmonic Music Director Gustavo Dudamel and his Conducting Fellow, Dietrich Paredes.

In 2012, the Colburn Orchestra opened the GRAMMY Foundation’s 14th Annual Music Preservation Project, One Night Only: A Celebration of the Live Music Experience, sharing the stage with GRAMMY Award winners, nominees and stars of the future from all musical genres. In 2010, Academy and GRAMMY Award-winning composer Michael Giacchino conducted the Colburn Orchestra at Royce Hall in a special concert Lost Live: The Final Celebration coinciding with the finale of the worldwide hit television show.  In October 2007, the Colburn Orchestra participated in the International Youth Orchestra Festival in Los Angeles, together with the Sibelius Academy Youth Orchestra and the USB Verbier Festival Orchestra.  The ten day festival included the orchestra playing in master classes lead by Esa-Pekka Salonen and his teacher, Jorma Panula, as well as performances with musicians from Finland’s prestigious Sibelius Academy.

The Colburn Orchestra has made three commercial recordings and is actively recording for future releases.  The first recording, released by Live Classics in 2006, features the music of Menachem Wiesenberg, including his Cello Concerto with Colburn faculty member Ron Leonard as soloist.  The orchestra’s second album, recorded in Zipper Hall on the Colburn campus and released in August 2012 on the Yarlung Records label, is mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke’s latest CD If You Love For Beauty featuring works by Adams, Chausson, Handel and Mahler.  The orchestra’s third album, a recording debut of Paul Chihara’s Concerto for Viola and Orchestra When Soft Voices Die with Colburn faculty member Paul Coletti as soloist, will be released in 2013. 

Since Spring 2012, the Colburn Orchestra and Chamber Music Series concerts have been recorded in HD, broadcast and streamed on Southern California’s independent television station, KCET, in its new arts series Open Call.

Dedicated to serving the greater Los Angeles community, The Colburn Orchestra performs for schools in neighboring communities twice a year giving six concerts in a one-week period to school children of all ages.  Committed to excellence and access, The Colburn School provides complimentary tickets to all of its orchestra concerts to members of the community.

For more information, please visit The Colburn School’s website: www.colburnschool.edu.