ALEXANDER "SASHA" YAKUB

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Alexander “Sasha” Yakub, a sophomore at Harvard College from Amherst, MA, has studied conducting with Federico Cortese and Benjamin Rous. He has previously appeared in concert conducting the intercollegiate contemporary music ensemble he founded, N. M. E., in its May 2017 debut, conducting premieres of original compositions variously for symphony orchestra and choir in the Greenwood Music Camp, and as a guest conductor on concerts of the Amherst Regional High School Symphonic Orchestra. 

Sasha has studied violin with James Buswell, Minna Diner and Giovina Sessions since the age of four, and has been composing since age seven. He is co-concertmaster in the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, and has been winner of the BPYO, Windham Orchestra and Springfield Youth Orchestra concerto competitions, as well as concertmaster of the MA All-State Orchestra. Sasha is also a 2018 and 2017 Tanglewood Music Center Violin Fellow, and was named a 2016 Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist on NPR’s From the Top with Christopher O’Riley.

Sasha was a 2016 National YoungArts Foundation Finalist in composition. His orchestral, chamber, choral and solo music has been performed in Western MA, Boston, New York City, and Miami. He has also been interested in scoring incidental music for theater: in 2014, he scored original music for the Amherst Regional High School’s Theater Company’s immersive-style production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and in 2016, a conventional production of Ben Jonson’s Volpone. He has most recently been commissioned by the Brattle Street Chamber Players to compose a new work for an upcoming concert in April.