Contact: Lillian Matchett
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November 1, 2016
Colburn School to Honor Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers at
Taste of Colburn on March 18, 2017
Philanthropists Alice and Joe Coulombe to be recognized as civic honorees for
their contributions to the Colburn community
Proceeds from fifth annual event benefit scholarship funds for Colburn
Community School of Performing Arts students
Tickets available now
On March 18, 2017, the Colburn School will honor alumna Anne Akiko Meyers at Taste of Colburn, an
annual benefit event held on the school’s Grand Avenue campus to support scholarship funds for the
Colburn Community School of Performing Arts. Ms. Meyers will receive the Distinguished Alumni Award.
In recognition of their philanthropy and contributions to the Colburn School community, Alice and Joe
Coulombe will be recognized as civic honorees.
Anne Akiko Meyers studied violin at the Community School under the mentorship of Alice and Eleonore
Schoenfeld from 1977 to 1983. Celebrated around the world, Ms. Meyers has been actively touring for
over 30 years, recorded over 34 albums, and was honored as Billboard’s top-selling classical artist of
2014. A champion for living composers, Meyers actively commissions and regularly premieres works
including those by Mason Bates, John Corigliano, Morten Lauridsen, Arvo Pärt, Wynton Marsalis, and
Einojuhani Rautavaara. Chicago Classical described her as as “one of the most adventurous soloists on
the international scene today” and the New York Times has said her “playing flows from the heart.”
Colburn School President and CEO Sel Kardan said, “Anne Akiko Meyers is a valued alumna of the
Community School of Performing Arts, and she represents the importance of providing committed
students access to excellent faculty, ample performing opportunities, and supportive musical
community. She has forged an inspiring performing career and been a steadfast champion of new music,
ensuring that great works will continue to be composed and performed for years to come. We’re
extremely proud of Ms. Meyers, and are pleased to honor her at this year’s Taste of Colburn.”
Anne Akiko Meyers said "I am honored and thrilled to return to the Colburn School of Performing Arts
for Taste of Colburn, as the school provided the foundation for my career as a performer and musician.
Richard D. Colburn loaned me my first ‘real’ instrument and believed in my talent at a young age. He and
the wonderful faculty, including Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld, helped lead me through many important
steps in my development. I am so proud to return to my alma mater to help support a new generation of
musicians at the Colburn School. Thank you all for everything you do to support students and the
institution to help discover the deep impact that music has to change one's life forever."
Alice and Joe Coulombe will be recognized as civic honorees for their philanthropic and community
contributions. The 2016 Taste of Colburn event marks the first time the Colburn School has chosen civic
honorees. Sel Kardan said, “Alice and Joe Coulombe have been tireless champions of the performing arts
in the Los Angeles area for decades, and their generosity has been instrumental in supporting the
growth of the Colburn School and its programs for many years. We are very proud to honor them and
their steadfast commitment to arts education.”
Taste of Colburn is an annual event that includes dining and drinks from downtown and Los Angeles
area establishments, as well as a variety of live performances throughout the Colburn School campus.
Performances showcase students from the Community School’s ensembles and programs, including
orchestra, jazz, dance, and chamber music. Proceeds from the event benefit Community School needbased financial aid. The event also features a silent auction. Full program information will be available at
a later date.
Event Time
Saturday, March 18, 2017
Event, live music, and food service begins at 5pm
Showcase performance in Zipper Hall at 7:30
Location
Colburn School Campus
Tickets
Tickets are available now. Visit colburnschool.edu/tasteofcolburn for more information.
Adults: $150
Children: $50
Half of the adult purchase ticket price is tax deductible.
About Anne Akiko Meyers
Anne Akiko Meyers is one of the world’s most celebrated violinists, known for her passionate
performances, purity of sound, deeply poetic interpretations, innovative programming, and
commitment to commissioning new works. Ms. Meyers possesses a rare ability to connect with
audiences from the concert stage, online, and on television and radio broadcasts. She has actively
maintained an extensive touring schedule for three decades and regularly performs in recital, as guest
soloist with many of the world’s top orchestras, and is a best-selling recording artist who has released 34
albums. In 2014, Mrs. Meyers was the top-selling traditional classical instrumental soloist on Billboard
charts.
During the 2016 season, Ms. Meyers returned to the Cartagena Music Festival to perform Vivaldi’s The
Four Seasons with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico to perform the
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, the Beethoven Festival in Warsaw performing the Szymanowski Concerto
No. 1, and she headlined the “Last Night of the Proms” in Kraków, Poland. Other performances included
the Mason Bates Violin Concerto with the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center and a tour with the
New Zealand Symphony.
In 2017, Ms. Meyers will perform the world premiere of Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Fantasia, a piece
written for her, with the Kansas City Symphony conducted by Michael Stern. She will perform a recital at
the 92nd Street Y in New York and return to the Nashville Symphony performing the Bernstein Serenade
with Giancarlo Guerrero, among many other performances. Ms. Meyers’s 35th album entitled Fantasia:
The Fantasy Album with the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Kristjan Järvi, will be released in the
spring on the eOne Music label.
During the 2015–16 season, Ms. Meyers appeared in a nationwide PBS broadcast special and on a Naxos
DVD featuring the world premiere of Samuel Jones’s Violin Concerto with the All-Star Orchestra led by
Gerard Schwarz, and the French premiere of Mason Bates’s Violin Concerto with Leonard Slatkin and the
Orchestre de Lyon. In 2015 she released Passacaglia: Arvo Pärt, a celebration Arvo Pärt’s 80th birthday
with Naïve Records, which included works for violin and orchestra, recorded in close collaboration with
the composer and conductor Kristjan Järvi leading the MDR Leipzig Orchestra. The same year she
released Serenade: The Love Album featuring Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade and ten newly arranged
pieces from the American Songbook and classic movies with the London Symphony Orchestra and Keith
Lockhart conducting. Ms. Meyers’s complete RCA Red Seal recordings are now available on Sony Music.
Recently, Ms. Meyers stepped in on 24 hours of notice to perform and lead the conductorless Orpheus
Chamber Orchestra in the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in Carnegie Hall and Pennsylvania to rave
reviews. In 2014, eOne Music released The American Masters featuring the world premiere recordings
of the Mason Bates Violin Concerto and John Corigliano’s “Lullaby for Natalie,” written for the birth of
her first daughter, and the Samuel Barber Violin Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra
conducted by Leonard Slatkin. This recording made Google Play’s, Best of 2014 and was heralded by
critics and audiences alike. Ms. Meyers’s prior release, Four Seasons: The Vivaldi Album, debuted at #1
on the classical Billboard charts and was the recording debut of the “Ex-Vieuxtemps” Guarneri del Gesu
violin, dated 1741, which was awarded to Ms. Meyers for her lifetime use. This instrument is considered
by many to be the finest sounding violin in existence.
Ms. Meyers’s recent performances have included recital and concerto appearances in North America,
South America, Europe, and Asia, with the Chicago, Detroit, Nashville, National, and Richmond
Symphony Orchestras of the Mason Bates Violin Concerto, a work she co-commissioned and premiered
with the Pittsburgh Symphony in December 2012. A champion of living composers, Ms. Meyers has
actively added new works to the violin repertoire by commissioning and premiering works by composers
such as Mason Bates, Jakub Ciupinski, John Corigliano, Brad Dechter, Jennifer Higdon, Samuel Jones,
Wynton Marsalis, Akira Miyoshi, Arvo Pärt, Gene Pritsker, Einojuhani Rautavaara, J. A. C. Redford, Huang
Ruo, Somei Satoh, Adam Schoenberg, and Joseph Schwantner.
Ms. Meyers has collaborated with a diverse array of artists outside of traditional classical, including jazz
icons, Chris Botti and Wynton Marsalis, avant-garde musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, electronic music
pioneer Isao Tomita, Il Divo, and singer Michael Bolton. She performed the National Anthem in front of
42,000 fans at Safeco Field in Seattle, appeared twice on The Tonight Show, and was featured in a
segment on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann that became the third most popular story of the
year.
Recently, she was featured on CBS Sunday Morning, CBS’s The Good Wife, NPR’s Morning Edition with
Linda Wertheimer, All Things Considered with Robert Siegel, and the popular Nick Jr. show Take Me To
Your Mother with Andrea Rosen. Best-selling novelist J. Courtney Sullivan consulted with Ms. Meyers
for The Engagements and based one of the main characters loosely on her career. She also collaborated
with children’s book author and illustrator Kristine Papillon on Crumpet the Trumpet, in which the
character Violetta, the violinist, is played by Ms. Meyers.
Ms. Meyers was born in San Diego, California and grew up in Southern California. Her teachers include
Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld at the Colburn School, Josef Gingold at Indiana University, and Felix
Galimir, Masao Kawasaki and Dorothy DeLay at The Juilliard School. She received the Avery Fisher
Career Grant and serves on the advisory board of Composers Concordance and Young Concert Artists.
She was recently awarded “The Luminary Award” for her support of the Pasadena Symphony. She lives
with her husband and two young daughters in Los Angeles, California.
About Alice and Joe Coulombe
A community volunteer for 40 years, Alice Coulombe was a founding member and former chair of the
Pasadena Arts Commission and a member of the City Centennial Committee. She continues to serve as
president of the Metropolitan Associates, a local nonprofit that raises funds to support the arts for
children. Ms. Coulombe was also a Huntington Library docent for 35 years and helped design the school
tours in the Japanese Garden. Mrs. Coulombe is probably best known for her 30-year tenure as Music
Center volunteer in Los Angeles. Her special love is opera, and she was the founding president of The
Music Center Opera League as well as one of the founders of the LA Opera Company. Alice is on the
board of the LA Opera and former chair of the Board Relations Committee. Alice received a Bachelor’s
degree in Humanities and a Master’s degree in Education from Stanford University. Alice and her
husband Joe have lived in Pasadena for 40 years and together have three grown children and six
grandchildren.
About the Colburn School
The Colburn School comprises four academic units united by a single philosophy that all who have a
desire to study the performing arts should have the opportunity and access to excellent training. The
degree granting Conservatory of Music, the open enrollment Community School of Performing Arts, the
Music Academy for pre-college musicians, and the pre-professional Dance Academy, a program of the
Colburn School’s Trudl Zipper Dance Institute, provide training to over 2,000 students from the Los
Angeles area and across the world. The renowned teachers, performers, and scholars that make up
Colburn’s dedicated faculty serve as invaluable mentors to guide students’ artistic development.
The Community School of Performing Arts acts as an entry point to performing arts education, offering
beginning to pre-collegiate training in music, dance, and drama to students of all ages and skill levels.
Young musicians from around the world study at the pre-college Music Academy, which features a
rigorous curriculum of conservatory preparatory training to high school aged students. The preprofessional Dance Academy prepares a select class of young dancers for careers in ballet. Dance classes
at the Community School and the Dance Academy are programs of the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute.
Finally, the Conservatory of Music is one of the preeminent training grounds for classical musicians, with
undergraduate and advanced degrees in music performance.
A robust community engagement initiative delivers performing arts education to low-income students in
the surrounding areas through outreach and scholarship programs. Located in downtown Los Angeles,
the Colburn School’s campus boasts state-of-the-art performance and rehearsal spaces. Each season,
the school presents over 300 concerts and performances, many of which are free and open to the
public, at its downtown home and throughout Southern California.
Community School of Performing Arts
With classes taught by highly skilled instructors in music, dance, and early childhood arts education, the
Colburn Community School of Performing Arts has served children of all ages and levels since its
inception in 1950. A member of the National Guild for Community Arts Education, the Community
School is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) and offers music classes in
applied musical instruction, music theory, chamber ensembles, and large ensembles. As an openenrollment school, the Community School does not require academic degrees to enroll in its courses,
which cover a broad range of styles, age levels, and degrees of difficulty.
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