All Classical Radio | On Deck with Young Musicians All Classical Portland

Haruka Sakiyama is a 17-year old junior at West Linn High School, and one of All Classical Radio’s 2024 Young Artist Ambassadors. Haruka is a French horn player, a violinist, a composer… and she also plays the koto. In this episode of On Deck, Raul Gomez-Rojas talks with Haruka about all of these talents, and what her plans for the future might be.

Ian Sage is a 21-year-old junior at Portland State University currently studying composition and percussion. In college, composing has become a natural extension of his love for playing and listening to music. In this episode hosted by Adam Eccleston, Ian talks about taking influences from classical, jazz, film, and video game music in his works as well as the pieces he performs.

Raul Gomez-Rojas talks with 18-year old cellist Pearl Liao, a cellist with the Portland Youth Philharmonic. Pearl has some wisdom to share about practicing, and she also tells us about her future goal to be a surgeon.

Christa Wessel chats with 17-year old pianist Nikita Istratov, a senior at Sunset High School and one of the winners of Cognizart’s Young Artist Debut Concert on May 17th.  In this episode of On Deck, Nikita talks about his love of classical music, his curiosity about how creative people became creative, and about getting his pilot’s license before he got his driver’s license.

Raul Gomez-Rojas chats with 17-year old bassoonist Katelyn Nguyen, one of All Classical Radio’s 2024 Young Artist Ambassadors. In this episode of On Deck, we’ll learn not only why she chose the bassoon, but why she has chosen to play in both the Metropolitan Youth Symphony AND the Portland Youth Philharmonic. As she heads to the Curtis Institute next year, she also shares some advice for her younger self.

Sophie Bergkvist is in the midst of her first season with the Metropolitan Youth Symphony (MYS), where she plays trumpet with the Concert Orchestra and Symphonic Wind Ensemble. She began playing trumpet at the age of 10 by joining her school band. She enjoyed it so much, that she decided to study under Jim Kvech, and currently with Gerald Webster. Musical honors include selection to the 2023 Oregon All-State Symphonic Band and the 2023 Western International Band Clinic.