Our 2022-23 season spotlights three finalists seeking to be our new Music Director-Conductor. We open the season with a holiday program celebrating European dance traditions, led by Dr. Maxim Kuzin and featuring violinist Yirou Ronnie Zhang, a 2019 Parness Concerto Competition winner. Admission to this concert is free, on Saturday, December 10 at 7:30pm at the Robert Frost Auditorium in Culver City.
Program highlights include Alexander Glazunov’s Violin Concerto, Taras Bulba Overture by Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko; Dances of Galanta by Zoltan Kodaly; Ritual of Fire by Manuel de Falla; and selections from Slavonic Dances by Antonin Dvorak, and Hungarian Dances by Johannes Brahms.
Maxim Kuzin, a native of Ukraine, is the current Music Director of the Thousand Oaks Philharmonic, a Lecturer at UC Santa Barbara, and Music Director of the UCSB Chamber Orchestra. He has 19 years experience conducting professional and student orchestras, opera companies and choirs in Ukraine, Eastern Europe and the United States. He also conducted the orchestra for the popular “Dancing With The Stars” show in Ukraine. He received a Doctor of Musical Arts in Orchestral Conducting from UCLA.
Yirou (Ronnie) Zhang studies violin at New England Conservatory with Paul Biss and previously studied with Martin Beaver at the Colburn Music Academy. She is a prize winner in numerous competitions including JCM Concerto competitions, SYMF, Alexander & Buono International String Competition, and our own Parness Concerto Competition. As a featured soloist, she has performed with the San Fernando Valley Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Doctors Symphony Orchestra.
The next concert, Saturday, February 11 at 7:30pm at the Robert Frost, will be led by Clyde Mitchell and feature 2019 Parness Competition Senior winner Abriana Church in a performance of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No.2, followed by Dvorak’s Symphony No.9, From the New World.
Culver City Symphony
