January 21, 2003 Contact: Li-Ling Wang

Program includes Mozart’s Overture to Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492, Samuel Barber’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 22, and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 in E Major

Guest conductor Jahja Ling leads the Juilliard Symphony on Monday, February 10 at 8 PM at Avery Fisher Hall. Program includes Mozart’s Overture to Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492, Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 in E Major, and Samuel Barber’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 22, with Juilliard student cellist Julia Bruskin as soloist. Tickets go on sale January 6 and are $15, $7, and free for students and seniors with identification. Please visit the Avery Fisher Hall Box Office at 65^th Street and Broadway, or call CenterCharge at (212) 721-6500.

Conductor Jahja Ling currently serves as resident conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra and the music director of the Florida Orchestra. He also served as artistic director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, and now holds the title of Honorary Conductor with that orchestra. Mr. Ling has conducted virtually all of the major symphony orchestras in North America. He also has a strong commitment to working with young musicians, having conducted the orchestras of The Juilliard School, The Curtis Institute of Music, and the Aspen Festival. In May 2000, he conducted the St. Louis Symphony in the world premiere performance of Hugh Downs' new composition featuring Yo-Yo Ma as soloist, a documentary of which was shown on ABC's 20/20.

Born in Jakarta, Indonesia, of Chinese descent and now an American citizen, Jahja Ling began to play the piano at age of four. At age eighteen, he was awarded a Rockefeller grant to attend The Juilliard School, where he studied piano with Mieczyslaw Munz and Beveridge Webster, and conducting with John Nelson. After completing a master’s degree at Juilliard, he studied orchestral conducting at the Yale School of Music under Otto-Werner Mueller and received a doctor of musical arts degree in 1985. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Wooster College in 1993. In the summer of 1980 Mr. Ling was granted the Leonard Bernstein Conducting Fellowship at Tanglewood and, two years later, was selected by Mr. Bernstein, who became one of his most influential mentors, to be a conducting fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute. In 1988 Mr. Ling was a recipient of the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductor’s Award.

Julia Bruskin made her debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra after winning its Young Artists Competition when she was seventeen. She also won the New England Conservatory Preparatory School Concerto Competition and performed the Walton Cello Concerto with their Youth Philharmonic Orchestra in Jordan Hall, Boston. In the past year, Ms Bruskin has been a soloist with the Pacific Symphony under Carl St. Clair and the Virginia Symphony under JoAnn Falletta. She holds additional prizes from the Harvard Musical Association and the Arts Recognition Talent Search sponsored by the NFAA and received the Frances B. Lanier Award and the Eugene Lehner Chamber Music Award, both from the New England Conservatory. In the summers, she has performed at La Jolla Summerfest, the Taos School of Music, and at the Lucerne, Ravinia, Norfolk, Great Lakes, and Moab music festivals.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Ms Bruskin began cello lessons at age four. Her major teachers have included Timothy Eddy, Joel Krosnick, Andres Diaz, Norman Fischer, and Nancy Hair. She graduated last spring from Columbia University with a degree in Eastern European History and was elected to their chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. She now is finishing her final year of the five-year dual degree program between Columbia and The Juilliard School, and will receive her master of music degree from Juilliard this spring. Ms. Bruskin also is member of the Claremont Trio.