Praised by the Chicago Tribune for his “febrile intensity,” violist Ben Ullery enjoys a multifaceted performing career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral leader and educator.
In 2023 he was chosen by Music Director Gustavo Dudamel for the position of Associate Principal Viola of the LA Philharmonic and previously held the position of Assistant Principal in the same orchestra since 2012. In addition to his appearances with the LA Phil, Ullery has performed across the country and abroad in the role of Guest Principal Viola with the Chicago Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Australian Chamber Orchestra.
An active solo performer, he has recently given recitals at Festival Mozaic and La Sierra University where he premiered his own arrangement for viola of Brahms’ Violin Sonata No. 1. Ullery is currently planning his first full-length duo album with acclaimed pianist Dominic Cheli which will feature works of Paul Hindemith, Rebecca Clarke, and Lillian Fuchs.
As a chamber musician, he has been in high demand in the Los Angeles area and at festivals and concert series in the US and Europe. In addition to having performed over 50 chamber works on the LA Phil’s chamber music series in Walt Disney Concert Hall, Ullery has appeared at the Mozaic, Music in the Vineyards, Mainly Mozart, Emerald City, Music at Millford, Leksand, Grand Teton, and Aspen festivals, among others. He has been featured on NPR’s Performance Today as well as local broadcasts on KUSC in Los Angeles and Minnesota Public Radio. As a recording artist, he has been featured on releases on the Bridge and Albany record labels.
An enthusiastic teacher, Ullery is on the teaching faculty at the Colburn School in downtown Los Angeles where he teaches orchestral repertoire as well as coaching the Colburn Orchestra’s viola section. Many of his former students have gone on to hold positions with top orchestras in the US, Europe, and Asia. He has given masterclasses at the Aspen Music Festival, California State University Fullerton, Azusa Pacific University, and the Shanghai Orchestra Academy.
A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, Ullery earned a Bachelor of Music degree in violin performance from the Oberlin Conservatory, and later studied violin at New England Conservatory and viola at the Colburn School
Drawing on psychoacoustics, sonology, and computer programming, Brandon J. Rolle’s compositions engage interdisciplinary methods and technologies in order to realize the deeply-immersive sound worlds that define his music. Brandon has studied and worked with some of the century’s most groundbreaking composers, including Clarence Barlow, Pauline Oliveros, and Roscoe Mitchell; he holds a Master’s Degree from Mills College and a PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 2017, Rolle moved to Los Angeles, where he works as a freelance composer. Brandon has given masterclasses and lectures on his music at universities across the United States, and has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at UC Santa Barbara, Cal State University Northridge, Chapman University, and at the Colburn School Conservatory of Music where he is Music Theory & Ear Training Faculty.
Brandon’s musical work and research have been supported through commissions, grants, and awards, including from the Borchard Foundation, New Music USA, the University of California, Synchromy, and the Hear Now Festival. Giovanni Albini’s 2021 recording of “Afterward” on A Contemporary Ukulele (Da Vinci Classics) was called “a work of considerable imaginative power” that “really shows off the instrument (and player) to the greatest musical effect” (Musicweb-International). Brandon’s upcoming projects include his forthcoming debut album, Glitch Portraiture, which is being released by Arpaviva Recordings through the support of the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, a commission for the electronics to Joel Feigin’s new opera, Outcast at the Gate, and a new audio-video collaboration with artist Christopher Richmond for the Hear Now Festival in Los Angeles. Rolle’s musical catalog includes orchestral, chamber, electro-acoustic, and intermedia music, which have been performed at festivals and concerts of new music across the United States and Europe.
As a conductor and ensemble coach, Brandon is passionate about supporting new works by living composers. He has premiered numerous compositions by his colleagues, including at ArtShare LA, as Resident Conductor of the 2020 Black House New Music Workshop at Oh My Ears! Festival, and as the director of a major concert of new works by algorithmic music pioneer, Clarence Barlow, at the Roy and Edna Disney Cal Arts Theater (REDCAT) in Los Angeles in 2017. While Composition Associate at UC Santa Barbara, Brandon guest conducted the Ensemble for Contemporary Music, worked with the orchestra, coached jazz ensembles, and was the director of an orchestral reading of new works by doctoral composition students.
Outside of his creative work, Dr. Rolle is a committed advocate for the arts. In 2019, he co-founded the Impulse New Music Festival, a nonprofit organization that supports talented early-career composers through creative training, professional development opportunities, and career mentorship. Under his guidance as Artistic Director, the festival has grown to include a faculty of Los Angeles’ top artists to teach and mentor participants, programs including workshops, lessons, readings, performances, recordings, and mini-grants, and the commissioning of more than 40 new works from emerging artists. He has worked with other L.A.-based organizations as well, including as Modern Music Writer at NewClassic.LA, and as part of the teams at Equal Sound and Brightwork New Music. In January 2023, Rolle joined the acclaimed contemporary piano series, Piano Spheres, as Associate Director.
With his orchestral playing praised as “a rock-solid foundation” and his solo playing described as being “remarkable for both its solid power and its delicacy,” Aaron Tindall is the principal tubist of the Naples Philharmonic and the Sarasota Orchestra. Many of his students have obtained prestigious playing positions with top professional orchestras and premier military bands.
With his orchestral playing praised as “a rock-solid foundation” and his solo playing described as being “remarkable for both its solid power and its delicacy,” Aaron Tindall is the principal tubist of the Naples Philharmonic, Sarasota Orchestra, and the associate professor of tuba and euphonium at the Frost School of Music, University of Miami. In the summers he teaches and performs at the Festival Napa Valley in Napa, CA and at the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, NC, where he also serves as Principal Tuba with the EMF Festival Orchestra under the direction of Gerard Schwarz.
Mr. Tindall has previously served as the acting principal tubist of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, held the principal tuba position with the Aspen Festival Orchestra where he was an orchestral fellow, and has collaborated as guest tubist with orchestras such as the Teatro alla Scala Opera and Ballet Orchestra (Milan, Italy), Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (Australia), Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra (Kennedy Center), New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Utah Symphony.
He is a frequent soloist, guest artist/clinician, and orchestral tubist throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. He has been featured at all of the International Tuba and Euphonium Conferences since 2006, performed in England with the National Champion Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band, and his solo playing has been heard on NPR’s Performance Today. Mr. Tindall has been a prizewinner of many solo and chamber competitions across the world. He has also been a two-time finalist in the prestigious Concert Artist Guild Competition and released four highly acclaimed solo recordings; Yellowbird (solo tuba and jazz piano trio), Transformations (winner of the International Tuba Euphonium Association’s Roger Bobo Excellence in Recording Award, and winner of two 2017 Global Music Awards), This is My House… (awarded two 2015 Global Music Awards), and Songs of Ascent. His fifth album, At the Ballet, featuring the music of Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky will be recorded and released on the Bridge Record Label in 2023.
Many of Mr. Tindall’s students have obtained prestigious playing positions with the top professional orchestras in the USA and Canada and also in the premier military bands in Washington D.C. His students have won positions with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Florida Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Richmond Symphony, New Mexico Philharmonic, United States Navy Band, United States Air Force Band and Ceremonial Band, and the West Point Band. They are also frequent prizewinners at various national and international solo and chamber music competitions. His students have won Yamaha Young Performing Artists Awards, the Annual Leonard Falcone Artist Tuba and Euphonium Solo Competition, and the ITEA solo, mock orchestral, and military band competitions.
Mr. Tindall is an International Yamaha Performing Artist and a Denis Wick (London) artist and design specialist, having recently designed their complete Ultra Range AT signature series tuba mouthpieces.
As an educator with a creative practice, Georgia Bell fosters curiosity and creative thinking in the classroom. She is a teacher, composer, performer, and artist. Bell holds a Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from the University of California, Los Angeles and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music from Bard College, where she studied composition with Kyle Gann. She went on to do a postgraduate composition apprenticeship with Bunita Marcus and was Artist-in-Residence at California Institute of the Arts in 2019. Bell hosts a quarterly salon for experimental artists and musicians in Los Angeles and regularly performs and presents work throughout the greater L.A. area and beyond. She has been teaching English and exploring the connections between language, music, and art since 2018. Bell currently teaches English to speakers of other languages at the Colburn Conservatory of Music and Music Academy.
Tatjana Masurenko is one of the leading viola players of our time. Her distinctive style is shaped by her expressive playing and her thorough and intensive musical studies. Her charisma and natural stage presence are captivating. Alongside the great viola concertos by Walton, Bartók and Hindemith, Tatjana’s wide-ranging concert repertoire also includes modern classical works such as Schnittke, Gubaidulina and Kancheli and the rarely performed viola concertos by Hartmann and Bartel.
Tatjana Masurenko has made solo appearances with orchestras including the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Radio Symphonie Orchester Berlin, the NDR Radiophilharmonie and other leading orchestras in Europe and Asia. She has been a welcome guest at major international festivals as both soloist and chamber musician for many years.
She grew up in a family of Russian academics and jazz musicians. Her musical path began in St Petersburg where she was able to benefit from the traditional St Petersburg school with the best teachers of her time. She continued her musical studies in Germany with Kim Kashkashian and Nobuko Imai. Her search for new forms of expression on the viola and new techniques and tonal concepts were encouraged and influenced by encounters with figures including Boris Pergamenschikow, György Kurtág, Brigitte Fassbaender and Herbert Blomstedt.
For some years now, Tatjana Masurenko’s major objective in her musical career has been the further development of the viola as a solo instrument which also explains her commitment to contemporary music. She has given numerous first performances of new compositions, many of which are dedicated to her and originated on her initiative. She has worked with composers such as the recently deceased Gladys Krenek, Moritz von Gagern, Dimitri Terzakis, Wolfgang Rihm, Hans-Christian Bartel, Luca Lombardi and Nejat Başeğmezler. Tatjana Masurenko’s discography reflects the musician’s high artistic standards. Right from the start, she compiles the programmes of her CDs meticulously and with great deliberation.
Tatjana Masurenko plays the music of Ernst Krenek with enthusiasm, supports the Ernst Krenek Institute in Krems, Austria, and has recorded all his works for solo viola. Several of her CD recordings (for example the concerto by K. A. Hartmann and British Viola Concertos featuring concertos by Walton, Beamish und Britten) received awards including the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik and international accolades such as the Supersonic Award (Luxemburg) and the Diapason découverte (France). Her 3-CD box set “White Nights – Music from St. Petersburg”, which she recorded with pianist Roglit Ishay, is one of the most important recordings of this repertoire.
At present, Tatjana Masurenko is intensively dedicated to historical performance practice and especially to 19th century playing and the romantic repertoire. For several years she has been engaged in playing the viola d’amore: thus, she interprets baroque and classical repertoire with passion, but at the same time she develops modern music on this baroque instrument with much interest in an experimental and innovative way with new sound ideas. She plays a viola d’amore by Charles Jacquot, Paris 1849. www. tatjanamasurenko.com
Tatjana Masurenko is dedicated to promoting young musicians. Since 2002 she has been professor of viola at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” Leipzig with an international reputation and since 2019 in the same position at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne in Sion, Switzerland. She gives master classes in Europe and America and is artistic director of the International Viola Camp in Iznik (Turkey) as well as of a master class in Leipzig.
Many of her students have built successful careers and travel the world as soloists, professors, principal violists in major orchestras and as chamber musicians.
Her teaching style is built on the St. Petersburg tradition of the 19th/early 20th century and merges with the new ideas and sensibilities of the 20th/21st century, especially in the interpretation of Baroque and Classical music.
Tatjana Masurenko plays a viola by P. Testore, Milan 1756 and a specially built instrument by Jürgen Manthey, Leipzig 2017, who has developed new acoustic and tonal construction methods that clearly distinguish his instruments from others. She changes the bows to match the style.
An experienced arts and higher education administrator, Lee Cioppa has combined a commitment to data-driven decision making with a passion for collaboration and innovation throughout her career. Prior to her arrival at Colburn in August of 2016, she held the position of Associate Dean for Admissions at The Juilliard School, overseeing admissions for the Dance, Drama, and Music Divisions with over 5,500 applications annually. She has been a presenter and speaker on arts admissions at numerous conferences including the National Association for College Admissions Counseling, Arts Schools Network and the Classical Singer Convention. Ms. Cioppa’s higher education career began at the Manhattan School of Music, where just three years after graduating with her Master of Music in oboe she was appointed Director of Admission. Subsequently she worked with the Alberto Vilar Global Fellows Program at New York University. Her Bachelor of Music is from the University of Ottawa, Canada.
Dr. Janice Ying is a board certified orthopedic physical therapist and the founder of Opus Physical Therapy and Performance based in Los Angeles, CA. Prior to her career in physical therapy, she received her degree in Piano Performance and Music Education from Pepperdine University with an emphasis in Violin Performance. She received her Doctor of Physical Therapy degree from the University of Southern California and has been practicing for over a decade. She is internationally recognized as an expert in the field of Performing Arts Medicine, particularly with developing injury prevention and rehabilitation strategies for instrumental musicians. Dr. Ying has recently been awarded the 2021 Emerging Leader Award by the American Physical Therapy Association for her contributions towards advancing the field of Performing Arts Medicine in Physical Therapy. She currently serves as Adjunct Instructor of Clinical Physical Therapy at the University of Southern California and is a frequent guest lecturer throughout the US and abroad.
A pianist (MM, New England Conservatory) and musicologist (Ph.D., Yale), Mina Yang has written two books – Planet Beethoven: Classical Music at the Turn of the Millennium (Wesleyan University Press, 2014) and California Polyphony: Ethnic Voices, Musical Crossroads (University of Illinois Press, 2007) – and numerous essays situating music within larger sociopolitical trends. Yang has taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, University of California, San Diego, University of Southern California, and other institutions in California, and is currently a professor of arts and humanities at Minerva University, where she also serves as the lead of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
Michael Patzia received his PhD in philosophy from Vanderbilt University and has been teaching in the field for over 20 years at schools in Nashville, Nicaragua, Iowa, and presently in Southern California at Loyola Marymount University. His main areas of study and research have been in Ancient Philosophy and Ethics as well as Asian Philosophy, particularly Confucianism and Taoism. His main publications have been in the area of Pre-Socratic philosophy and when he is not teaching or philosophizing, you can find him spending time with his son, playing golf, or playing his upright bass in a jazz trio or an Americana band.
Former violist of the Takács String Quartet and former Principal Violist of the San Francisco Symphony, previously served as assistant principal of the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Miami Philharmonic, and the Baltimore Symphony. During her tenure with the San Francisco Symphony she was soloist with the orchestra 47 times and gave the US premiers of several important works. She has appeared in many chamber music festivals including: Aspen, Marlboro, Santa Fe, Tanglewood, Music @Menlo, Telluride, Seattle, Cape Cod, Music Academy of the West, Ravinia and the Green Music Festival.
In 1995 Ms. Walther was selected by Sir Georg Solti as a member of his Musicians of the World, an orchestra composed of leading musicians from around the globe, for concerts in Geneva to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. She has also served as principal violist with the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego and has performed as soloist with other orchestras.
As a member of the Takács Quartet she traveled the world as a performer and served an Artist in Residence at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Geraldine Walther’s recordings include, eighteen Hyperion recordings as a member of the Takacs Quartet, Hindemith’s Trauermusik and Der Schwanendreher with the San Francisco Symphony (both on London/Decca), Paul Chihara’s Golden Slumbers with the San Francisco Chamber Singers (Albany), and Lou Harrison’s Threnody (New Albion), Delectable Pieces with the Volkert Trio (Con Brio) and numerous recordings available from Music@Menlo LIVE. With collaborator, pianist, David Korevaar she had recorded two albums of viola sonatas, one featuring Brahms and the other, works of Hindemith on the MSR label.
Geraldine is a founding artist of the Ruby Mountain Chamber Music Festival and the Chamber Music Sundaes series in the San Francisco Bay Area.