Sounding Point Academy

Get ready for an unforgettable summer! Apply by February 2 to learn from Sounding Point Academy's outstanding faculty. 🎻

🔔 Announcing our 2026 SPA Guest Artist, Ray Ushikubo! Read the full bio on our website! 🔔

Ray Ushikubo, praised for his “disciplined focus and clarity… and marvelous dynamic nuance” (Arts Knoxville), is a Japanese-American pianist and violinist who has performed as soloist with major orchestras across the United States. Recent highlights include performing selections from Piazzolla’s Four Seasons with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Sibelius’s Violin Concerto with the Colburn Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen.
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A Davidson Fellow Laureate and Young Steinway Artist, Ushikubo won first prize at the 2017 Hilton Head International Piano Competition and the 2016 Aspen Piano Concerto Competition, and was a prizewinner at the 2023 Klein International String Competition. He has performed with orchestras including those of Aspen, Buffalo, Florida, Fort Collins, Hilton Head, Modesto, New West, Pasadena, Pensacola, Portland, Reno, San Diego, Westchester, and Winston-Salem—often appearing on both piano and violin in the same concert.
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An avid chamber and collaborative musician, Ushikubo has performed with pianist Lang Lang at Segerstrom Concert Hall and on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He has appeared with Jean-Yves Thibaudet on Radio France, and at Musique & Vin au Clos Vougeot alongside cellist Gautier Capuçon. With the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, he has been featured as a violin soloist in Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins with Martin Chalifour, Philippe Quint, and Cho-Liang Lin, and as a pianist in Bach’s Concerto for Two Keyboards with Jeffrey Kahane.
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Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Ushikubo double-majored and received his bachelor’s degrees at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied piano with Gary Graffman and Robert McDonald, and violin with Shmuel Ashkenasi, Pamela Frank, and Aaron Rosand. Currently, Ushikubo double-majors at the Colburn Conservatory of Music, where he studies piano with Fabio Bidini and violin with Robert Lipsett.
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Ushikubo performs on the 1741 “Playfair” Guarneri del Gesù, generously on loan from Colin Maki Inc.

SPA 2025 by the numbers! 8 recitals and 320 lessons later — another summer in the books ✅

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Applications for summer 2026 are OPEN! Check out the link 🔗 in our bio for more details!