Colburn School’s Salonen Conducting Fellows Join San Francisco Symphony

Elias Peter Brown and Aleksandra Melaniuk will become part of the symphony’s conducting staff for the 2023/24 season

Elias Peter Brown and Aleksandra Melaniuk have been selected by San Francisco Symphony’s (SFS) music director Esa-Pekka Salonen to join its conducting staff this season.

This opportunity is an extension of their work as Salonen Fellows in the Colburn School Conservatory of Music’s Negaunee Conducting Program — led by Salonen since 2018 for a select group of emerging conductors. 

Brown has been assistant conductor for SFS’s Opening Night Gala and all its San Francisco concerts in September; Melaniuk will begin her work with the orchestra in January 2024. 

In addition to their work with the SFS, the Fellows study with Salonen at the Colburn School and serve as preparatory conductors for the school’s orchestra. 

Brown and Melaniuk will also join the roster of Colburn Artists — an in-house management program for Colburn students pursuing professional careers — through which they will receive tailored advice and training, and learn skills for  networking, developing repertoire, preparing for interviews, and creating a media profile. 

Previously assistant conductor of Seoul’s Korean National Symphony Orchestra for the 2022/23 season, Brown has worked with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Flemish Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin, and Kammerakademie Potsdam, among others. He has also served as a teaching artist with the London Philharmonic and as a guest conductor with the Orchestra of the Royal Conservatory of Ghent. 

A graduate of Yale University, Royal Academy of Music, and University of the Arts, Berlin, Brown is a 2023 Solti Foundation US Career Assistance Award recipient and current scholarship holder of the Conducting Forum of the German Music Council.

Hailing from Warsaw, Poland, Melaniuk is a 2023 Das Kritische Orchester prizewinner and has worked with the London Symphony Orchestra. A Britten-Pears Young Artist for the 2023/24 season, she also has a master's degree in conducting from the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music.

Melaniuk has conducted the Flanders Symphony Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Baltic Sea Philharmonic, Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, Moravská Filharmonie Olomouc, Lower Silesian Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Orchestra of the Grand Theatre in Poznan. 

“Extremely honored and forever thankful to Maestro Esa-Pekka Salonen for choosing me and giving this wonderful development opportunity through personal mentorship and becoming his assistant at San Francisco Symphony and during other international engagements,” Melaniuk posted on Facebook. “Can’t wait for what the 23/24 season brings!”