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: Xenos Mason

Xenos has been a horn player with ONLA for four years and contributes to our orchestra both as a leader within the brass section and as our resident smarty-pants. He is a neurologist at USC Keck, where he treats patients with Parkinson's disease and other disorders of movement. In his spare time he prioritizes cooking, baking, hiking with his husband Daniel and their dog Sadie, and reading.

What is he reading, you might ask?

I'm really into the philosophy of free will and action, and I'm leaning about embodied cognition and self-deception right now.

Favorite thing about playing with ONLA:

The sense of community! I love seeing everyone week to week, and enjoy our few minutes together at break time with Clare's delicious baked goods.

Favorite orchestral piece:

Always changes! Today it's Thomas Ades' "Dante", which I discovered after it was awarded a Grammy for best classical composition. Shostakovich 5 and Mahler 5 are longtime favorites.

Favorite TV show or movie:

Again, always changing! I keep suggesting the film "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On" to my friends because it made me weep about a dozen times. But nobody seems to believe that it's good. "Shawshank Redemption" and "The Great Escape" are my classic answers to this question.

Sounds like we all need to watch Marcel the Shell this weekend. A special thanks to Xenos for all you do for the orchestra!