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Jourdan Urbach
At 17, Juilliard violin virtuoso Jourdan Urbach has already received international acclaim: for his musical artistry, his sweeping contributions to MS-focused neuroscience research, and his humanitarian and philanthropic endeavors as founder and director of Children Helping Children, a musical charity organization that raises funds through Concerts for a Cure for cutting edge neurological research, pediatric hospital divisions, and international medical organizations targeting the eradication of neurological disease. To date, Urbach has raised over $4.6 million to fight neurological disease. Compared by NY critics to a “Young Paganini” with “buttery smooth playing and laser sharp technique,” Urbach has been the headline performer at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden, The Meadowlands, The Tilles Center, The Kravis Center in Palm Beach: a production of the national radio show: From the Top, The Wortham Center in Houston, Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, Universal City in LA, among dozens of other legendary concert venues. Host Robert Sherman of WQXR’s Young Artist Showcase called Urbach “the one to watch for the future…a brilliant and persuasive performer.”
Urbach’s concert schedule for this year opened with his sold-out Carnegie Hall performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, and a musical collaboration with Multi-Platinum Country Music Star Clay Walker and Emmy nominated composer Chris Caswell. Among his twenty national concerts this year, Urbach will perform in California, where he will be presented as classical music’s “Rising Star” at The Ventura Music Festival, under the direction of Nuvi Mehta; Memphis as the prestigious “2009 Artist Ascending Winner” (following in the footsteps of such past winners as: Itzhak Perlman, Gil Shaham, Daniel Barenboim and Mischa Dichter); Charleston, South Carolina at the Sottile Theater, Washington D.C. at the Reagan Building & International Trade Center, and Universal City in LA. In November, 2008 Urbach recorded a track on comedian Steve Martin’s new Blue Grass album—released by Capitol Records in January, 2009; and in February, 2009 he was commissioned to compose and perform his first original film score for the short film: “Elah and the Moon” which will be screened at The Cannes Film Festival this spring.
Jourdan Urbach’s MS-focused research has garnered dozens of national and international awards. In January, 2009, Jourdan was chosen as an INTEL-SEMIFINALIST, and in November, 2008 he was presented with a $5,000 research scholarship from the laureates of Teva Neuroscience to honor his research and to create a collaboration between Teva and Children Helping Children. In 2008, he stood before 1,550 of the top young science minds in the world and won 2nd place Grand Award in Medicine and Health at the INTEL- International Science and Engineering Fair for his research and presentation: “The Effect of Extracellular Signaling Molecules on Oligodendrocytes: Differentiation, Morphology, Proliferation and Survival;” and has delivered keynote addresses at medical conferences and universities across the nation. He was selected as the youngest neuroscience researcher at Harvard University Medical School’s immunogenetics laboratory, under the direction of Dr. David Hafler, and is an MS researcher at Stony Brook University Medical Center during the school year. In February, 2009, Urbach won the American Academy of Neurology’s Neuroscience Research Prize, and will present his original MS research at the 61st Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in Seattle on April 29th. He has also been chosen as a 2009 National Coca-Cola Scholar and a National Winner of the 2009 AXA Achievement Scholarship.
Urbach is the winner of the: Associated Television International 2008 Hero Awards; The NY State and National Prudential Spirit of Community Scholarship Awards; The National Caring Award; The Better Hours International Award for Humanitarian Leadership; The NY State Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award; and The Liberty Medal for NYC, along with being named a 2009 National Coca Cola Scholar, National Merit Scholar Finalist, & an AP Scholar with Distinction. Urbach has been featured on: The Today Show, Good Morning America, Inside Edition, CNN-Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNN-Weekend News, Montel Williams, The Glenn Beck Show, CBS News Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood, and MTV documentary: True Lives: Genius and Prodigy; and has been profiled in The New York Times, The Daily News, The New York Post, Newsday, People Magazine, Teen People Magazine (as one of “Twenty Teens Who Will Change the World”), Time Magazine for Kids, Family Circle and US News & World Report.
Jourdan was honored to perform at Carnegie Hall this past November, the World Premiere of a work written for him by Grammy Nominated Composer Chris Caswell: Electric Violin “Suite for Deb.” Caswell and Urbach are presently collaborating on an original album with surprise guest artists.
Jourdan’s most recent philanthropic activity is as Founder and Executive Director of the International Coalition of College Philanthropists (ICCP). The goal of the ICCP is to celebrate and encourage humanitarian leadership among college students by creating an elite Honor Society for Philanthropy, as an analogue to the Phi Beta Kappa Society on the finest college campuses in America, thereby linking the young, entrepreneurial leaders of our nation’s major universities in promotion of collegiate social action and charity.
Jourdan is presently a freshman at Yale University; he has studied privately since the age of seven with Patinka Kopec, at The Juilliard School with Catherine Cho, and presently studies with Ani Kavafian. His violin is an 1850 Vuillaume.
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