Meet the Artists
Orchestral Voices
Performances October 17 and 18, 2026
Conductors
Valentina Paolucci
Valentina Paolucci is a rising orchestral conductor and violinist currently based in New York City. She has recently graduated from the Juilliard School with a Masters Degree in Orchestral Conducting under a full scholarship, and was awarded the Robert Craft-Igor Stravinsky Conducting Award upon graduation. Valentina is currently a Conducting Fellow with The Chelsea Symphony, Conducting Fellow with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, and Music Director of the NYO-USA Alumni Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
Her international conducting engagements have included performances with the Zhixing Symphony Orchestra (China), Brandenburger Symphoniker and Lüneburger Symphoniker (Germany), Orchestre Métropolitain and National Arts Centre Orchestra (Canada), Youth Orchestra of Romania, Orquesta de Cámara de Santiago (Chile), and Athens Philharmonia Orchestra (Greece), as well as orchestras in Finland, Bulgaria, and Panama. In the United States, she has assisted the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Sinfonietta, Rhode Island Philharmonic, and Grand Rapids Symphony, working with conductors including Gustavo Dudamel, Daniel Harding, Ruth Reinhardt, Ken-David Masur, Marin Alsop, Mei-Ann Chen, Tito Muñoz, Gemma New, and David Robertson. Her conducting engagements have also included performances with the Richmond Symphony, Georgia Symphony Orchestra, Jackson Symphony, Adelphi Orchestra, and Juilliard Orchestra.
Valentina is deeply committed to contemporary music and has collaborated with living composers such as David Lang, Augusta Reed Thomas, Jennifer Higdon, John Adams, Kati Agócs, Marcos Balter, Conrad Tao, Nina C. Young, Tania León, Anthony Cheung, Suzanne Farrin, Brittany J. Green, Felipe Lara, Andrew Norman, Arturo Márquez, Maria Schneider, Roberto Sierra, Enrico Chapela, Jerod Impichcha̱achaaha' Tate, Joel Thompson, Wang Lu, and Nina Shekhar.
Jacob Niemann
Jacob Niemann, a three-time recipient of the Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award, recently graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music, where he served as the Rita E. Hauser Conducting Fellow under the mentorship of Yannick Nézet-Séguin. He studied for three summers at the Aspen Music Festival & School, where he worked with Robert Spano and subsequently became the festival’s Assistant Conductor in the summer of 2023.
During the last concert season, Niemann was selected by Riccardo Muti to attend his Italian Opera Academy in Tokyo, where he performed Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra with the Tokyo-HARUSAI Festival Orchestra & Tokyo Opera Singers Chorus. Additionally, he held a residency with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, working with Enrique Mazzola on a production of Cavalleria Rusticana & Pagliacci. Furthermore, he was a quarter-finalist at the 18th Donatella Flick Conducting Competition, where he conducted the London Symphony Orchestra.
As a cover conductor, Niemann has worked with the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Dallas, Fort Worth, Jacksonville, Minnesota (Minneapolis), and National (Washington). In masterclasses, he has conducted the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich under David Zinman, the New World Symphony (Miami) with Michael Tilson Thomas & Stéphane Denève, and the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra (Santa Cruz) for Cristian Măcelaru.
Soprano Soloist
Sydney Kucine
Sydney Kucine is a young American soprano celebrated for her expressive artistry and versatile performances in opera and concert repertoire. She recently appeared at Carnegie Hall as the soprano soloist in Ariel Ramírez’s Misa Criolla and Mark Hayes’ Gloria, and has also performed in New York City as the soprano soloist in Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) and Fauré’s Pie Jesu.
Her operatic credits include Pamina in a U.S. tour of Mozart’s The Magic Flute in collaboration with acclaimed author Carolyn Sloan; an international debut with the Pan Philharmonic of Warsaw in Mozart’s Requiem; Adina in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore; and Najade in Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos. Most recently, she covered the title role of Juliette in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette with Opera Maine. This fall, she will appear as the soprano soloist in Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 in New York City with the New Conductors Orchestra.
Kucine holds degrees from the Mannes College of Music, where she studied with Ruth Falcon, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Deborah Voigt. Her honors include recognition from the Callas Tribute Prize, the Mildred Miller International Competition, the Gerda Lissner Foundation, and the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition.
Composers
Joel Toews
Joel Toews is a contemporary Canadian composer, arranger, songwriter, and keyboardist based in Toronto. He studied at Berklee College of Music (2012–13), earned a Bachelor of Music in Jazz and Contemporary Popular Music from MacEwan University (2018), and earned his Master of Arts in Music Composition at York University (2026). His compositional style draws on classical, jazz, and contemporary pop techniques to create music that is emotionally resonant and sonically versatile.
A rising talent in orchestral composition, Joel’s orchestral music has been performed across Canada by acclaimed ensembles, including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Toronto, Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra (Scarborough), and University of Alberta Symphony (Edmonton). Internationally, his orchestral compositions have been performed by the Litha Orchestra (New York), New Conductors Orchestra (New York) and Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra (Bulgaria).
Beyond orchestral music, Joel is an active jazz big band composer, with recent commissions from the MacEwan Generations Big Band (Edmonton) and River City Big Band (Edmonton). Outside of jazz, recent commissions include a choral work for the Festival Singers (Sherwood Park) and a suite for cello and piano with internationally acclaimed cellist Sahara von Hattenburger, funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.
In 2026, Joel released his debut classical-crossover EP titled We Remember Moments. This intimate collection of 7 original compositions is built around a handful of memories, not on specific and vivid recollections of the past, but on the moments that impart the emotion of an experience.