Biography

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 Piazzolla’s Four Seasons with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and I Got Rhythm Variations with the orchestras of Kansas City, Oregon, and Rochester; and Sibelius’s Violin Concerto with the Colburn Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen.

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 made his orchestral debut at age ten with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 alongside Teddy Abrams and the Young Musicians Foundation Orchestra at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Since then, 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. He has worked with conductors such as Rodolfo Barráez, Paolo Bortolameolli, JoAnn Falletta, Norman Huynh, Laura Jackson, Jeffrey Kahane, Wes Kenney, David Lockington, Michelle Merrill, Sameer Patel, Rafael Payare, John Morris Russell, Dayner Tafur-Diaz, Jeff Tyzik, William Waldrop, and Thomas Wilkins.

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.

Ushikubo also explores music beyond the classical realm. He has performed with singer-songwriter Jackson Browne at a peace ceremony honoring Hiroshima victims, hosted by the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center in Los Angeles. At Grand Performances, he played a dual piano and violin solo program with jazz pianist Alfredo Rodriguez and electronic musician Daedalus, blending classical, jazz, and electronic genres. He also recorded an improvisation session with Kevin Olusola of Pentatonix for NPR’s From the Top.

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. Ushikubo performs on the 1741 “Playfair” Guarneri del Gesù, generously loaned from Colin Maki Inc. Ushikubo’s hobbies include golfing and watching movies.