Photo Credit: Alla Sorokoletova
Flutist Alla Sorokoletova originally hails from Uzbekistan. She was appointed principal flutist at the National Opera and Ballet House in Tashkent and has also performed with many orchestras including the South Florida Symphony, Palm Beach Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Miami City Ballet, Boca Raton Symphony, and Sarasota Opera. In collaboration with The Turkistan Chamber Orchestra, she gave the world premiere of Fabula 5 for flute and orchestra by Felix Yanov-Yanovskiy. She was the winner of the concerto competition at Lynn and Lyric Chamber Music Competition, where the winners were invited to perform in New York Lyric Chamber Society’s Exciting New Prodigy Series. Alla is currently an Orchestral Studies major at Tianjin Juilliard studying with resident faculty, Gergely Ittzés.
How are you enjoying studying at Juilliard’s campus in China so far?
I feel like it’s home! It's just the best school building ever, which I think any musician can never imagine until you see it with your own eyes. The practice rooms are bright, extremely soundproof, and comfortable. The performance venues here at school gives you full control of the acoustics and can help you understand the variation in sound angle by angle. This is a completely groundbreaking experience for me. It is much easier for us to adjust when playing in chamber music groups. It's so easy to blend because I can hear what's going on the opposite side.
As a flute musician, I did not have many opportunities to perform much on the piano. However, I love playing the piano and I think the first time in my life that I laid my fingers on a Steinway was in a practice room at Tianjin Juilliard. Many practice rooms and teaching studios have a Steinway in it since Tianjin Juilliard is an all-Steinway school. This is something that I extremely enjoy.
Alla Sorokoletova at a Tianjin Juilliard Orchestra rehearsal. Photo Credit: Shengyishijue
Any inspiring musical moments at Tianjin Juilliard?
I am always looking forward to the next chamber music rehearsal or concert performance opportunity, and always believe it is going to be fantastic! There are no limits, especially with the type of teachers that we have here at Tianjin Juilliard. I really enjoy working with Akio Koyama, my chamber music teacher, who is from Japan and also did a lot of work in Germany previously. There is a whole world in his musical mind. When we rehearse with him, he is extremely inspiring. Our ensemble playing skills have been improving from lesson to lesson with the music we play. We played music from various periods, including baroque, classical and romantic periods, to name a few. The improvement of our ensemble playing skills has been dramatic. We have so many opportunities to take part in extremely professional ensembles, like, our peer woodwind quintet, which I really enjoy working with. I'm looking forward to almost everything that the school will provide for us. It has been a very nice and inspiring learning experience.
Do you have a favorite food in Tianjin?
Can I say that I can't stop enjoying the bakeries here? Life in Tianjin is just great. I don’t feel any discomfort studying and living here. I think it's really important to socialize and to start conversations. And the most important conversations we have, are through meals and dinners, when information is shared and exchanged. You get to know the people around you and you start to pick up the language. I simply love this topic of wonderful Chinese food and regional cuisines!