University of Southern California

Acclaimed violist Kim Kashkashian, a professor at the New England Conservatory of Music and GRAMMY Award-winner, leads a viola masterclass with USC Thornton Strings students.

This virtuosic trio, featuring Kim Kashkashian on viola, Marina Piccinini on flute and Sivan Magen on harp present a concert featuring new music from Japan.

The Early Music faculty will present music from Italian manuscripts and prints (ca. 1465-ca. 1640) performed on winds, strings, and voice. This joint-recital, titled “Songs From Italian Sources,” features faculty members Adam Gilbert, Rotem Gilbert, Jennifer Ellis Kampani, and Jason Yoshida along with Adam Bregman and alumna Aki Nishiguchi. Featured performers: Adam Gilbert, recorder, shawm, bagpipes Rotem Gilbert, recorder, shawm, bagpipes Jennifer Ellis Kampani, voice Jason Yoshida, lute, theorbo with Adam Bregman, recorder, sackbut and USC Thornton alumna Aki Nishiguchi, recorder, shawm

Carl St.Clair leads the USC Thornton Symphony in a program featuring the works of Hector Berlioz including Le carnaval romain and the iconic Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14.

Jonathan Biss is a world-renowned pianist who shares his deep curiosity with music lovers in the concert hall and beyond. He continues to expand his reputation as a teacher, musical thinker, and one of the great Beethoven interpreters of our time. Bliss was recently named co-artistic director alongside Mitsuko Uchida at the Marlboro Music Festival, where he has spent twelve summers. In addition, he has written extensively about his relationships with the composers with whom he shares a stage. A member of the faculty of his alma mater the Curtis Institute of Music since 2010, Biss led the first massive open online course (MOOC) offered by a classical music conservatory, Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas, which has reached more than 150,000 people in 185 countries.

The USC Thornton Musician's Wellness Initiative presents Rena Urso, flutist and body mapping expert, for this introductory workshop to discover balance in the body. The body map is one’s self representation in one’s own brain. If our body map is accurate, movement is good - but, if it is inaccurate, movement can become inefficient and often times, injury producing. Body mapping is the conscious correction and refinement of one’s body map to produce efficient, coordinated, effective movement. Join Rena Urso for this introductory workshop where we’ll discover balance, greater freedom and ease with breathing, improved technical facility and an overall refined awareness. For more information, please visit bodymap.org and renaurso.com. Rena Urso is a licensed Andover Educator who has presented body mapping workshops all over the world. She is also an active professional flutist, holding positions in several orchestras and working as a freelance artist and chamber musician. She is on the faculties of the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University (CSU) Long Beach and CSU Stanislaus.

Outstanding students of Thornton’s Strings program present an evening of solo and chamber performances.

Violinist Peter Herresthal, faculty member at the Oslo Academy and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, leads a violin masterclass with USC Thornton's talented Strings students.

Acclaimed as "the premier men's vocal ensemble in the United States," the Cantus Vocal Ensemble will present a masterclass on "Telling a Story through Song and Making Music in the Real World: What comes after college?"

The singing actors of the USC Thornton Opera program present an exciting and wide-ranging selection of excerpts from grand opera to musical theater.

ALAJE, the USC Thornton Afro-Latin American Jazz Ensemble led by Aaron Serfaty, headlines this ongoing series featuring USC Thornton student jazz ensembles.

USC Thornton’s exceptional Strings students present an evening of solo and chamber works.