Sunday, October 29, 2023
3:00 PM EST

A native of St. Petersburg, violinist Alexander Velinzon joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra in January 2000, became assistant concertmaster in 2005, and was promoted to associate concertmaster in 2015. Since then he has played as concertmaster under the direction of James Levine, Kurt Masur, Sir Colin Davis, Michael Tilson Thomas, and other leading conductors. In addition, he has been invited to play as concertmaster with such orchestras as the London Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic, WDR Symphony Orchestra, and NDR Radio Philharmonic. An active performer of chamber music, Mr. Velinzon is a member of the Boston-based Walden Chamber Players and has appeared with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. He has been seen playing chamber music in Europe, Japan, and the United States, and since 2009 has been a member of the LiveArts string quartet.

Mr. Velinzon began playing the violin at the age of six and graduated from the Leningrad School for Gifted Children. After coming to the United States, he continued his studies at the Manhattan School of Music and received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Juilliard School, working under the guidance of the renowned pedagogue Dorothy DeLay. He made his New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall as a winner of the Artist International Young Artists Auditions, after which Strad Magazine described his playing as “very musical and intensely serious.” A prizewinner in the Heida Hermann International Competition in the United States and the Tibor Varga International Competition in Switzerland, he has performed as soloist with the National Symphony of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and in Venezuela; made his New York debut with the Jupiter Symphony playing a Paganini concerto, and served as soloist/concertmaster for the Paul Taylor Dance Company at New York’s City Center. Mr.Velinzon’s other solo engagements in the United States have included appearances with the Rondo Chamber Orchestra, Absolute Ensemble, Chappaqua Symphony, and the Metamorphoses Orchestra.

Japanese-American conductor Ken Yanagisawa is the Assistant Conductor of the Boston Civic Symphony and is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Orchestral Conducting at Boston University under the guidance of James Burton. He will be making his Japanese debut as a guest conductor for a production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte with Kansai Nikikai and the Japan Century Symphony Orchestra at the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Japan in February 2023, and most recently served as assistant conductor for the BU Opera Institute productions of Ned Rorem’s Our Town and Mozart’s Così fan tutte as well as for the BU Symphony Orchestra & Symphonic Chorus performance of Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem at Boston Symphony Hall.

Previously, Ken completed a research residency at the Kyoto City University of Arts and received a Master of Music and Professional Studies Certificate in Orchestral Conducting from the Manhattan School of Music. While a student at MSM, he was selected to participate in the Manhattan School of Music / Leonard Slatkin Conductors Project and was subsequently invited to work with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as a Conducting Fellow in March 2020. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Yale University where he received the Joseph Lentilhon Selden Memorial Award and the Stanton Wheeler Award, and prior to Yale he attended the New England Conservatory as an Undergraduate Diploma candidate for Oboe Performance under the tutelage of John Ferrillo.