Who’s Who | Music and the Brain Concert
Saturday, March 15, 2025 | Los Angeles
Hosted by From the Top’s Peter Dugan and Assal Habibi, Director, Center for Music, Brain & Society,
Who’s Who
Jascha Silberstein (piano), 17, from Mercer Island, Washington, was born into a musical family and began piano lessons at five years old. He has studied with Dr. Natalya Agayeva, Tatiana Charapova, Svetlana Krasnova, and Dr. Marina Magazinnik. He is a prize winner at competitions such as the Bach International Music Competition, Bach Piano Competition, Bradshaw and Buono International Piano Competition, Charleston International Music Competition, Classical Stars International Music Competition, Classical Viennese Competition, Eastside MTA Scholarship Competition, Gold International Classical Music Competition, Helen Crowe Snelling Competition, Russian Solo and Chamber Music Competition, and Virtuoso Piano Competition. In addition to music, Jascha has a passionate interest in neuroscience, particularly its intersection with music, and is currently pursuing a project with the Eskandar Lab at Einstein College of Medicine investigating the influence of music on associative learning. Jascha has also used music to give back to his community through Music in the Community Club which he co-founded at Mercer Island High School, which features 20 student musicians who give concerts at retirement homes, community centers, hospitals, and local parks. Jascha also loves jazz and improvisation , and is the pianist for his high school’s jazz ensemble, as well his jazz combo, MI Swinging, which performs at local events.
Kaushik Valiveti (saxophone), 18, from Roswell, Georgia, has been playing the alto saxophone for seven years and is classically trained under Dr. Gary Paulo and Dr. Joseph Girard, primary artist affiliates for D’addario and Vandoren, respectively. He has achieved high honors in multiple festivals, including second prize in the highly selective American Protege International Concerto Competition, first prize in the Georgia Concerto Competition, principal chair in the GMEA Allstate band for three years, first prize in the Georgia Encore Concerto Competition, and he is also a music scholar for the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program. As one of the only high schoolers accepted into the Hugh Hodgson Music Institute and a distinguished member of the Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony, he performed at Carnegie Hall in the summer of 2023, working closely with Joseph Alessi, Principal Trombone of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and world premiering multiple pieces. Kaushik’s musical endeavors will soon reach an international scope, as he has been selected to perform at the esteemed Wiener Musikverein concert hall in Vienna in the summer of 2025. His passion for music drove him to establish the Melody Shop Inc., a nonprofit committed to providing free music lessons to vulnerable populations in Atlanta. Partnered with three corporations and having over 75 clients in two months, he hopes to provide equitable access to music education. Outside of music, Kaushik enjoys scientific research, working out, and going on outdoor adventures with friends!
Sophie Zhang (violin), 15, from Tenafly, New Jersey, is a sophomore at Tenafly High School. She has been a member of the Grammy-winning New York Youth Symphony since 2022 and is currently a student at Juilliard Pre-College (class of ’27). She attended Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute Summer Festival in 2023 and Heifetz Institute Summer Program in 2024. In addition to music, Sophia has a strong passion for neuroscience; she is currently working as a student intern at the Liang Laboratory at NYU’s Langone Health Institute. She wrote a research paper on Alzheimer’s‘ disease for the Harvard Undergraduate Journal earlier this year. Outside of these interests, she enjoys playing tennis, hiking, and drawing.
William Bolin (baritone), 19, from Lake Forest, California, has long been inspired and motivated by the volume of works for keyboard and voice, choral music, and chamber and orchestral works. William is more than a fan of art music: during the past half-decade of serious musical pursuit, he has allowed it to become a significant part of who he is. The past year was a season of intense development for Will, with several thematic recitals in Orange County; the role of Benvolio in Gounod’s opera Romeo et Juliette with a college theater; Donizetti’s La Fille du Regiment with the Parnassus Society of Orange County; and several principal roles in school productions. No stranger to Broadway repertoire, he headlined two community theater musicals in 2023. Will also became nationally-ranked as a singer and competitor, finishing as a finalist in the Orange County Register’s Artist of the Year Program, as well as chosen as a “Winner with Distinction” by the highly selective YoungArts Foundation. He had the honor of singing in masterclasses with both soprano Denyce Graves and the Met’s Kathryn Lewek in Miami, FL, and finally, in addition to a YoungArts nomination to the 2024 Presidential Scholars in the Arts Program, Will was chosen out of his cohort as the recipient of the YoungArts Voice Discipline’s Gold Prize Scholarship in 2024. He took first place in the Pacific Symphony/Opera FOCUS 2024 Laila Conlin Competition, first Place in Southern California Vo-CAL, and winning SouthCoast Singers’ “Stars of Tomorrow” Scholarship Competition. Will has also recently been active in the symphonic sphere, having performed as the bass soloist for the Los Angeles Youth Phil’s presentation of Beethoven’s Chorale Fantasy in 2024, and bass soloist for the Ninth Symphony in 2025 at Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA. He also recently performed the role of Count Almaviva in a local Orange County production of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. Will is brother to a sibling with intellectual disability, is a certified Red Cross lifeguard for the Boy Scouts, has worked as a sailing instructor at Newport Sea Base in Newport Beachand loves baseball. He is also an advocate for the arts among his peers, and has pushed toward an interest in serving veterans with his passion and talents. William hopes one day to have an international career in operatic, recital and digital performance that includes traveling, spreading the knowledge of known and less-well-known composers, and bringing what he knows to be the uniting, healing power of beautiful music to the world.
Celine Chen (piano), 21, from Valencia, California, studies piano with Bernadene Blaha and flute with Catherine Karoly at the University of Southern California. She was the second-place winner of the USC Concerto Competition and has performed with the Thornton Symphony as a flutist at Walt Disney Concert Hall. As a 2022 Grand Prize winner of the Young Musicians Inspiring Change International Competition, Celine was one of six instrumentalists invited to play a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall. In the past, she has also been awarded prizes from the MTNA National Competitions, The Music Center’s Spotlight, the Celia Mendez Young Pianist’s Beethoven Competition, and the Kaufman Music Center International Youth Piano Competition. Other honors include the Colburn School Herbert Zipper Scholar Award, the William Grant Still Arts Center Scholarship, and the National YoungArts Merit Award. Also an avid chamber musician, Celine and her piano trio have won prizes in the Pasadena Conservatory of Music Chamber Music Competition as well as the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. In the summer of 2018, they represented Junior Chamber Music as Debut Artists and toured various cities in Europe, including Prague, Vienna, and Budapest. Outside of performing, Celine shares her love for music through her work in the Back to Bach Project as a Director of Global Operations. With around 70 global regions, the Back to Bach Project aims to provide a music and arts education to inspire the next generation. At USC, Celine works as a research assistant at the Brain and Creativity Institute, where she is currently working on several projects that explore the relationship between music and the brain. She hopes her work will have future applications to musicians and non-musicians alike.
Assal Habibi, PhD, Director, Center for Music, Brain & Society, University of Southern California. Assal’s research takes a broad perspective on understanding the influence of arts and specifically music on health and development, focusing on how biological dispositions and learning experiences shape the brain and development of cognitive, emotional and social abilities across the lifespan. She is an expert in the use of electrophysiological and neuroimaging methods to investigate human brain function and has used longitudinal and cross-sectional designs to investigate how music training programs impacts the learning and academic achievement of children. Her research program has been supported by federal agencies and private foundations including the NIH, NEA and the GRoW @ Annenberg Foundation and her findings have been published in many peers reviewed journals. She has been the lead investigator of a multi-year study, in collaboration with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and their Youth Orchestra program (YOLA), investigating the effects of early childhood music education on the development of brain function and structure as well as cognitive, emotional, and social abilities. Dr. Habibi is a classically trained pianist and has many years of musical teaching experience with children, a longstanding personal passion.
Peter Dugan, Host, From the Top prizes versatility as the hallmark of today’s musician and advocates for a classical music culture that is inclusive and welcoming to all. That approach has manifested in a multifaceted and dynamic career as a pianist, composer, collaborator, and radio host. Peter is heard on radios nationwide weekly as host of NPR’s From the Top. A musician equally at home in classical, jazz, and pop idioms, he has appeared as soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician across North America and around the world. He has collaborated with Michael Tilson Thomas and San Francisco Symphony, Houston Symphony with Andrés Orozco-Estrada, MTT at the New World Symphony and has made other orchestra appearances with the Kansas City Symphony, New Albany Symphony, Philadelphia Youth Orchestra, Johnstown Symphony, and Annapolis Chamber Orchestra. Peter is an active and passionate collaborator who has toured extensively with violinists Joshua Bell and Charles Yang, and vocalists John Brancy and Kara Dugan (his wife)—partnerships which have resulted in recording projects, documentaries, music videos, and a first-prize win at the Montreal Competition. He also regularly performs with other friends and artists who share a passion for expanding the world of classical music, from Jesse Colin Young to Renee Fleming to Paquito D’Rivera to Itzhak Perlman. As a composer, Peter has performed his own works everywhere from Carnegie Hall to Joe’s Pub, and his arrangements have been released by Disney+. He is co-writing with his brother Leonardo Dugan a new piano concerto, set to debut in spring 2026, and collaborates with his colleagues to create electrifying arrangements of pop music. Supportive of new music, he has worked with the American Contemporary Music Ensemble and presented several world premieres. Peter is also comfortable jamming and improvising on piano and melodica with the likes of bassist Victor Wooten, violinists Tessa Lark and Charles Yang, and actress Glenn Close. Peter Dugan holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, where he studied under Matti Raekallio. He is a Yamaha Artist.
Read Peter’s complete bio here.
