Program
The Colburn School Onstage: Pianists Chi-Jo Lee and Ray Ushikubo
Chi-Jo Lee, piano
Ray Ushikubo, piano
Chi-Jo Lee, piano
L’isle Joyeuse
CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862 - 1918)
Theme and Variations from 5 Pieces, Op. 15
GEORGE N. GIANOPOULOS
Moments Musicaux, Op. 16
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873 - 1943)
Andantino
Allegretto
Andante cantabile
Presto
Adagio sostenuto
Maestoso
INTERMISSION
Ray Ushikubo, piano
Polonaise Héroïc in A-Flat Major, Op. 53
FREDERIC CHOPIN (1810 - 1849)
Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 13 ‘Pathetique’
LUDWIG V. BEETHOVEN (1770 - 1827)
Grave -Allegro di molto e con brio
Adagio cantabile
Rondo: Allegro
Paganiniana
NATHAN MILSTEIN (1903 - 1992)
Chi-Jo Lee
Pianist Chi-Jo Lee is an emerging voice in the classical music landscape. Her playing has been described as “virtuosic… with impressive grace” (San Diego Union-Tribune) and that her performance was “delivered with brio and apt abandon” (The Santa Barbara Independent). A versatile pianist, Chi-Jo navigates diverse genres from solo performances to chamber and contemporary music. Her musical journey has taken her to venues in the United States, Italy, Japan, China, and Taiwan.
Over the next two seasons, Chi-Jo will perform the Ravel Piano Concerto with conductor Stephane Deneve and the Colburn Orchestra at the Soraya, Grieg Piano Concerto with conductor Chan Wang at the National Concert Hall in Taiwan, solo piano recitals at both the Ventura Music Festival and ECHO Chamber Series, chamber music performances at the La Jolla Music Society and Le Salon de Musiques, and a recording of the music of Carl Czerny to be released on Naxos’ Romantic Piano Series. Additionally, she has engaged in collaborative projects with the Los Angeles Opera and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
Previous performances include the Schumann Piano Concerto with conductor Tao Fan a the Beijing Concert Hall, with mezzo-soprano Susan Graham as part of the Discovering Debussy series at the Colburn School, chamber music with violinists Jennifer Koh, Arnuaud Sussmann, and Tessa Lark as part of the Colburn Chamber Music Society, and a recording of Franz Schreker’s Chamber Symphony and Korngold’s Much Ado About Nothing with conductor James Conlon and the Recovered Voices Ensemble.
Chi-Jo has a serious commitment to performing contemporary music that was sparked during her time as a singer in NOTUS, the Contemporary Vocal Ensemble directed by conductor-composer Dominic DiOrio. She has been a part of Colburn School’s Contemporary Ensemble, which has led to performances featuring compositions by Steve Reich, Guillaume Connesson, Unsik Chin, Christopher Cerrone, Andy Akiho, Juri Seo, Nico Muhly, Mike Mower, and more. During her time as a Solo Piano Fellow at the Music Academy of the West, Chi-Jo gave the World Premiere of a Etude for Piano by composer Nico Muhly, and participated in a performance of his chamber works No Uncertain Terms alongside violist Richard O’Neill from the Tackas Quartet, pianist Connor Hannick, and Jorja Fleezanis former concertmaster for Minnesota Orchestra.
Chi-Jo is a prize winner at The Wideman Piano competition, The Odyssiad Festival and Competition, and the concerto competitions at Indiana University and Colburn School. She was recently a semi-finalist at The Gurwitz Competition in the United States. Her piano trio was the 2022 winner of the Eslite Chamber Music Audition resulting in two presented performances in Taiwan featuring the music of Tchaikovsky and Smetana. Prior to this achievement, she received multiple prizes from Taipei Education Department competition on both solo piano and piano trio from 2011 to 2015.
Chi-Jo is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma in piano performance at the Colburn Conservatory of Music with Fabio Bidini, where she is also a keyboard instructor for the Colburn Academy. Prior to her time at Colburn, Chi-Jo studied under the guidance of legendary pianist André Watts at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
Ray Ushikubo
Known for his “disciplined focus and clarity…and marvelous dynamic nuance” (Arts Knoxville), Ray Ushikubo is a 22-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 10 with the Young Musicians Foundation Orchestra in Los Angeles’ 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 as well as 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.
Ushikubo has collaborated with pianist Lang Lang in Orange County’s Segerstrom Concert Hall and with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet on Radio France. He has performed as violin soloist in the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s 2014 Strad Fest Gala; Vivaldi’s Four Seasons alongside violinists Martin Chalifour, Philippe Quint, and Cho-Liang Lin; and the opening concert of the 2017 La Jolla Music Society SummerFest with violinist Chee-Yun Kim. He performed as piano soloist at the Los Angeles Japanese American Cultural & Community Center (JACCC) for a peace ceremony memorializing victims of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima; the ceremony also featured the acclaimed singer-songwriter Jackson Browne. He has appeared as a guest artist on Rob Kapilow’s What Makes It Great? at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, on San Diego’s Mainly Mozart Festival series Mozart & the Mind, and at the Griffith Observatory as part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Immortal Beethoven festuval, performing Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata.
Ushikubo received his bachelor’s degrees at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied piano with Gary Graffman and Robert McDonald and violin with Shmuel Ashkenasi and Pamela Frank. Currently, Ushikubo is pursuing Master of Music degrees at the Colburn Conservatory of Music, where he studies piano with Fabio Bidini and violin with Robert Lipsett.