Pasadena Symphony Announces 2022/23 Symphony Season Together with Music Director Search

Ngwenyama is past president of the American Viola Society and has served as visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame and Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, as well as Director of the Primrose International Viola Competition. She is the first composer in residence of the Phoenix Chamber Music Society and curates Composer’s Choice, a co-production of ASU/Kerr Cultural Center, Phoenix Chamber Music Society, and Peace Mama Productions, which features 21st century music and its creators in a chamber setting.

Colombian-American Lina González-Granados has distinguished herself as a talented young conductor of symphonic and operatic repertoire, having earned international recognition, most recently as the recipient of the 2021 Sphinx Medal of Excellence. She has also been awarded Third Prize and the ECHO Special Award (European Concert Hall Organization) of La Maestra Competition, the 2020 and 2021 Solti Foundation US Career Assistance Award, and won the Fourth Chicago Symphony Orchestra Sir Georg Solti International Conducting Competition, serving as Solti Conducting Apprentice under the guidance of Riccardo Muti through June 2022. She has held positions as Conducting Fellow of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Seattle Symphony, and was recently appointed Resident Conductor by the LA Opera.

Lina is a fervent proponent for the inclusion and development of new works for chamber and large orchestra, especially music from Latin-American composers. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of Unitas Ensemble, a chamber orchestra that performs works of Latinx composers, and provides access to free community performances for underserved communities. Her work with Unitas has earned her numerous community awards, most recently a Spark Boston award from the City of Boston.

GRAMMY®-nominated flutist and composer Valerie Coleman was named Performance Today’s 2020 “Classical Woman of the Year,” and one of the “Top 35 Women Composers” by The Washington Post. Her works have garnered awards including the MAPFund, ASCAP Honors Award, Herb Alpert Ragdale Residency Award, and nominations from The American Academy of Arts and Letters and United States Artists. Her piece Umoja, Anthem for Unity was chosen by Chamber Music America as one of the “Top 101 Great American Ensemble Works” and is now a staple of woodwind literature.

Coleman is the founder of the acclaimed ensemble Imani Winds, whose 24-year legacy is documented and featured in an exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. She also co-founded and currently performs as flutist for the performer-composer trio Umama Womama along with harpist Hannah Lash and violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama.

Coleman recently joined the Mannes School of Music Flute and Composition faculty as the Clara Mannes Fellow for Music Leadership, and previously served on the faculty of The Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. In 2021/22, she leads a year-long residency at The Juilliard School in their Music Advancement Program through American Composers Forum and has also been named to the Metropolitan Opera/Lincoln Center Theater New Works dual commissioning program.

Wong has been a conducting fellow for the Oregon Bach Festival, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Distinguished Concerts International New York and Hong Kong SingFest. She received her Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music from the University of Southern California and her undergraduate degree in voice performance from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Recent tenures include Assistant Conductor of the Atlanta Symphony, Resident Conductor of the Phoenix Symphony and Joseph was a featured conductor at the League of American Orchestras’ prestigious Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview. Joseph is a recipient of the 2015 Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award for young conductors, an award he also won in 2008 and 2014.

An active chamber musician, Venkatesh tours as the Vieness Piano Duo with his wife and pianist, Eva Schaumkell, and as pianist in the Aristeia Trio, who won Gold at the Frances Walton International Chamber Music Competition. He currently pursues an Artist Diploma at the Colburn School in Los Angeles and holds degrees from USC Thornton and IU Jacobs School of Music, where he was a recipient of the Barbara and David Jacobs Fellowship under the tutelage of Norman Krieger and André Watts.

Clyne has served as Composer-in-Residence for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, L’Orchestre national d’Île-de-France and Berkeley Symphony. She is currently the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s Associate Composer through the 2021-22 season and a mentor composer for Orchestra of St. Luke’s.

Network television appearances include a recurring role on the HBO series Oz, NBC’s Homicide and a live broadcast of the Beethoven Triple Concerto performed with Itzhak Perlman and the Israel Philharmonic, among others. He has been heard on numerous radio broadcasts including NPR’s Morning Edition, Tiny Desk Concert and Performance Today, BBC’s In Tune, XM Radio’s Live from Studio II, Sirius Satellite Radio’s Virtuoso Voices, KUSC and RTHK Radio Hong Kong. Bailey performs on the "rosette" 1693 Matteo Gofriller Cello, formerly owned by Mischa Schneider of the Budapest String Quartet. In addition to his extensive solo touring engagements, he serves as artistic director of several music festivals, including the Northwest Bach Festival in Spokane, WA and is Director of the Center for Arts Entrepreneurship and Professor of Cello at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Chin has been Composer-in-Residence of festivals around the globe including the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, overseeing its contemporary music series, which she founded. She served as Artistic Director of the ‘Music of Today’ series of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and in 2022 she starts a five-year tenure as Artistic Director of the Tongyeong International Festival in South Korea and her Artistic Directorship of the Weiwuying International Music Festival in Taiwan.

Rebecca was the First Prize Winner of the inaugural La Maestra 2020 competition, where she was also awarded the ARTE Prize and the French Concert Halls & Orchestras Prize. She served as Junior Fellow in Conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music, and received the Taki Award for the Taki Concordia Conducting Fellowship, where she worked closely with Marin Alsop. She was also a Conducting Fellow at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and was awarded the David Effron Conducting Fellowship at the Chautauqua Institution.

Watanabe was recently recognized with a Career Assistance Award by the Solti Foundation U.S. An accomplished violinist, Mr. Watanabe received his Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with distinguished conducting pedagogue Otto-Werner Mueller.

As a chamber musician, Murray has performed as soloist on main stages worldwide and was a member of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society II. She is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and was named a BBC New Generation Artist from2008-2010. Tai Murray plays a violin by Tomaso Balestrieri fecit Mantua ca. 1765, on generous loan from a private collection.