Colburn School and San Francisco Symphony Announce Mert Yalniz As 2024–25 Salonen Conducting Fellow

Conductor Mert Yalniz has been selected by Esa-Pekka Salonen to join the San Francisco Symphony conducting staff in the 2024–25 season as an extension of his work as a Salonen Fellow in the Colburn School Conservatory of Music's Negaunee Conducting Program. He joins current Salonen Fellow Aleksandra Melaniuk, who began her work with the Orchestra in January 2024 and continues as a Fellow through the 2024–25 season.

 

Esa-Pekka Salonen joined the Colburn School faculty in 2018 to lead and develop the Negaunee Conducting Program, a course of study in the school's Conservatory of Music for a small, select group of young conductors. The Colburn School announced today a $16.6 million gift from The Negaunee Foundation to endow the acclaimed program in perpetuity. This landmark gift ensures the Negaunee Conducting Program's continuity and is the largest ever made to a California institution by The Negaunee Foundation. 

 

Under the guidance of Salonen, who holds the Maestro Ernst H. Katz Chair of Conducting Studies at the Colburn School, the Salonen Fellows develop their craft and nurture their talent through personal mentorship, gaining significant real-world podium experience on and off campus to prepare them for professional careers. As part of their fellowship roles, they will serve as an assistant conductor to Salonen for several of his programs with the San Francisco Symphony during the 2024–25 season, and they will study with Salonen at the Colburn School and serve as preparatory conductors for the flagship Colburn Orchestra. 

 

Mert Yalniz joins Aleksandra Melaniuk on the roster of Colburn Artists, a unique in-house management program for Colburn students on the cusp of professional careers. Designed to prepare students to work with industry leaders and artist managers, the Colburn Artists program provides guidance and support during the critical transition from studying to touring. In a supportive atmosphere linked closely with their individual performance studies, they receive personalized career advice and training, including guidance on building relationships with presenters, orchestras, and professional musicians; developing repertoire; interview preparation; and creating a professional image and online presence. 

 

Former Salonen Fellows include Ross Jamie Collins, who was appointed Conductor-in-Residence of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and is on the HarrisonParrott roster; Kyle Dickson, who was appointed Assistant Conductor of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra and Conductor of the Memphis Youth Symphony; Molly Turner, who is currently the Conducting Fellow of the New World Symphony and a Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Elias Peter Brown, who will serve as assistant conductor to Esa-Pekka Salonen with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and received a 2024 Solti Foundation US Career Assistance Award; and Angus Webster, who has conducted the Ulster Orchestra, Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra, and more. 

 

The Colburn School conducting program is made possible by The Negaunee Foundation, created in 1987 to celebrate and support the arts and cultural institutions. 

 

Learn more about the Colburn School Conservatory of Music's Negaunee Conducting Program. 

 

About Mert Yalniz 

Turkish-German conductor, pianist, and composer Mert Yalniz has been described as “extremely individual, charismatic and convincing” (Osthessen News), his piano playing as “passionate, enthusiastic, and highly virtuosic” (Braunschweig Newspaper), and his compositions as a “statement from the new generation” (Heidelberger Frühling). This season, Yalniz will make his debut with the NDR Radiophilharmonie in Hanover, where he will conduct Beethoven's Triple Concerto with pianist Igor Levit, Weber's Clarinet Concertino, Chausson's Poème, and Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder. Yalniz is a Salonen Fellow in the Negaunee Conducting Program at the Colburn School and on the conducting staff of the San Francisco Symphony, assisting Esa-Pekka Salonen internationally. 

 

Recent performances include Grieg's Piano Concerto with the Uniorchester Leibniz and Braunschweiger Kammerorchester; Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Göttinger Symphonieorchester and Deutsches Juristenorchester, Bach's Concerto in D Minor and Joaquín Turina's Rapsodia sinfónica with the Beethoven Orchester Hessen, and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with the chamber orchestra La Tempesta. Yalniz made his debut at the international music festival Heidelberger Frühling, performing excerpts from Frederic Rzewski's The People United Will Never Be Defeated! and conducting and playing in his nearly 45-minute long composition People-Fantasy for chamber ensemble. In 2023, Yalniz debuted at the KKL as part of the Lucerne Piano Fest and played his first concerts in the United States at the Soundboard Institute, performing classical repertoire, his own compositions, and improvisation. He also participated in the festival Ouvertüre of the Heidelberger Frühling and worked with the Ballet of Difference and its director Richard Siegal on their production based on Rzewski's The People United Will Never Be Defeated! variations, which he performed in full alongside the choreography. 

 

Yalniz has regularly attended the Panula Academy of Maestro Jorma Panula in Finland and worked with several orchestras on various repertoire, such as Mendelssohn's “Hebrides” Overture with the Theater für Niedersachsen Philharmonie, Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 with the Philharmonisches Kammerorchester Wernigerode, and Ravel's Ma mère l‘oye and Bizet's Carmen Suite No. 1 with the Pori Sinfonietta. He also attended conducting masterclasses with Joana Mallwitz and the International Conducting Workshop & Academy (ICWA) led by Matthias Bamert and Ken Lam. 

 

Yalniz has won first prizes as a pianist in the national music competition Jugend musiziert as well as the Eduard Söring Prize, a highly regarded special prize from the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben and the NDR Kultur-Förderpreis. In 2015 and 2017, he was a prize winner at the International Grotrian-Steinweg Competition in Braunschweig and received a scholarship from the Louis Spohr Gesellschaft. In 2016, Yalniz won the first prize at the International Music Competition for Young Talents in Istanbul and was awarded the special award for Best Musical Interpretation. Additionally, Yalniz won the first prize at the Hamburg Instrumental Competition and received the Trübger Special Prize for Young Pianists which provided him a debut recital at the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg. In 2022, Yalniz received both the jury prize and the audience prize at the international competition of the 15th Pianale Piano Festival in Fulda. Yalniz has been part of the Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now Hannover program, which brings performances to people with reduced access to live music, in care homes, schools, hospitals, hospices, and community settings. 

 

Yalniz has attended piano masterclasses with Bernd Goetzke, Jacques Ammon, Konstanze Eickhorst, Francesco Libetta, Gülsin Onay, Igor Levit, Uta Weyand, Matti Raekallio, William Fong, Markus Schirmer, Filippo Gamba, and Roland Krüger. In 2022, he began studying piano with Igor Levit at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media (HMTMH). 

 

Yalniz is a Colburn Artist.

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