About Us

OUR HISTORY:

Orchestra Nova LA draws its roots from the Los Angeles Doctors Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1953 by a group of physicians and other medical specialists for the purpose of supporting medical charities. Having had an illustrious history of performances with many important soloists and conductors over the years, the orchestra grew both musically and in size.

Over time, as medicine changed, so did the orchestra’s membership, and for many years the only criterion to be part of the orchestra was that one had to have been to a doctor at least once. Recognizing this reality and wishing to take the orchestra in a different direction, Orchestra Nova LA was formed in 2023.

OUR MISSION:

The mission of Orchestra Nova LA is to invite our audiences to immerse themselves in the rejuvenating capacity of music through high quality, affordable concerts, to support volunteer musicians, including youth and emerging professionals, in their pursuit of the discipline and joys found in diverse forms of musical expression, and to provide artistic growth for its performing members.

OUR MUSIC DIRECTOR:

Ivan Shulman is an award-winning conductor, teacher, clinician and virtuoso performer and is pleased to be the inaugural conductor and Music Director of Orchestra Nova LA. Originally from New York, he studied oboe with his father, the noted oboist Harry Shulman who played in the NBC Symphony under the direction of Arturo Toscanini. In his youth, he attended the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico on numerous occasions, and spent summers in Marlboro and Aspen, where he studied composition with Darius Milhaud and Charles Jones, theory and orchestration with Gordon Hardy, and conducting with Walter Susskind and Wolfgang Vacano.

After deciding to follow his scientific interests, he went to medical school at the University of Pittsburgh, did a peripatetic surgical residency in New York, Seattle and San Francisco, and spent two years in the US Public Health Service on the Navajo Reservation. Despite the intensity of a surgical training program, music was never far from his daily activities and when he moved to begin a practice in Los Angeles, he sought out many opportunities to play oboe in both community and professional groups…

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Our Leadership

Artist of the Month: Meg Linker-Estes

.Meg has been a bassoonist with ONLA for over 10 years and will be playing the "Grandfather" in our performance of Peter and the Wolf this November. She's been married to Sam Estes - a tenor and professional musician - for 21 years, and is a mother to a six-year-old daughter named Kathryn and three-year-old son Philip. Meg even performed with ONLA while pregnant with both of her children!

Favorite thing about playing with ONLA:

My favorite thing about playing with ONLA is the variety of music. We perform a very wide variety of styles and repertoire.

Favorite orchestral piece:

Some of my favorite orchestral pieces are Beethoven's 7th Symphony and Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, which I've been fortunate to play with ONLA.

Does her bassoon have a name? Yes, it does.

My bassoon is a Fox model with a Heckel bocal. Its name is Georg, after Telemann, who is one of my favorite Baroque composers. I also own a baroque bassoon, built in the 1770s, which I've performed on with Los Angeles Baroque.

Meg's hobbies:

I love farmer's markets, wine tasting, poetry, and hummingbirds.

Favorite TV show or movie:

I love mystery shows like Law and Order, and the movie Young Sherlock Holmes has one of my favorite film composers - Bruce Broughton!

A special thanks to Meg for her decade of dedication to our orchestra and for playing a very good, very grumpy Grandfather!