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LOS ANGELES, October 13, 2020 – Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic have announced the appointments of Emmanuel Ceysson to the post of Harp and Benjamin Picard and KT Somero as Librarians.
Ceysson assumes his duties immediately, coming to Los Angeles from New York’s Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, where he served as principal harpist beginning in 2015.
Born and raised in France, Emmanuel began his studies at the Lyon Conservatoire and continued them at the Paris Conservatoire. At age 22, he became the principal harpist of the Orchestre de l'Opéra de Paris, and, in May 2015, he was named harpist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.
A consummate musician and a multi-award-winning performer, he has also performed chamber music, solo recitals and as a soloist at such venues as Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, Salle Gaveau, Munich Gasteig, Wiener Konzerthaus and the Kennedy Center, and with orchestras including Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, RAI National Symphony Orchestra (Torino), Orchestre National de Lyon and Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá, among others.
Ceysson has taught master classes at the Royal Academy of Music in London since 2006 and currently holds a Visiting Professor position at the Helsinki Sibelius Academy while also teaching at the Mannes School of Music, New York. Since 2006, he has taught in Colombia at Catedra Salvi de Arpa, an educational project that he founded to provide free harp classes at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá. He has recorded for Naxos, BR Klassik, Naïve and Aparte.
Emmanuel Ceysson succeeds Lou Anne Neill, who has retired after 37 years with the LA Phil.
Following the retirements of Kazue McGregor and Kenneth Bonebrake after over a combined 60 years with the LA Phil, librarians Benjamin Picard and KT Somero join the team alongside Stephen Biagini, who has been with the orchestra since 1995.
British-born librarian Benjamin Picard holds degrees in Music and Composition from the Universities of Cambridge and Sussex, where he studied under the guidance of Richard Causton, Robin Holloway, Martin Butler and Ed Hughes.
In 2016, following his postgraduate studies, he was appointed as Music Librarian of the London Symphony Orchestra. In this role he prepared music for the LSO’s famously busy schedule of concerts and recordings – which includes 70 performances a year at the orchestra’s London home at the Barbican Centre, as well as regular performances at many of the world’s most prestigious concert halls and music festivals, highlights of which include: Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, the Paris Philharmonie, La Scala Milan, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and the Berlin Philharmonie. During his time with the LSO, Benjamin had the pleasure of working closely with many internationally recognized artists, including: Sir Simon Rattle, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Michael Tilson Thomas, Gianandrea Noseda, Marin Alsop, François-Xavier Roth and Daniel Harding, to name a few.
Alongside his work with the LSO, Benjamin also worked as a freelance arranger, copyist and composer.
Librarian KT Somero earned a Bachelor of Arts from UCLA and a Master of Music from DePaul University, both in Clarinet Performance. Her teachers included Gary Gray and John Bruce Yeh.
KT began at the piano, and her first orchestral training was as a clarinetist in the San Jose Symphony Youth Orchestra. She subsequently performed in everything from jazz, marching and rock bands to opera and musical theater pits. Contemporary chamber music became her focus, and collaboration with living composers combined with an interest in behind-the-scenes music production led to library work.
She has served as librarian for the Los Angeles Opera, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Dance at the Music Center, Celebrity Opera Series at The Broad Stage, The Colburn School Conservatory of Music, Northwestern University Bienen School of Music and Peninsula Music Festival, and she has freelanced for the LA Phil.
KT has been active in the Major Orchestra Librarians’ Association since 2007. A proud California native, she is enthusiastic about travel and the outdoors.
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