63rd Annual Young Musicians Competition Winners

Many thanks to all the friends and family who came out to support the talented young musicians in their groups, as they competed for more than $5000 in prizes at the 63rd Annual Young Musicians Competition finals!

The juried competition, staged on Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 3 pm at the Koerner Recital Hall inside the Vancouver Academy of Music, was graciously supported by the Koerner family and friends for the Fred Koerner Prize; Olga P. Bismanis; and the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation Canada.

The Audience Prize was generously donated once again by Dr. Malcolm Hayes, a member of the volunteer board of directors of Friends of Chamber Music. Audience members voted to award $500 to their favourite junior group, and $500 to their favourite senior group. Peter Lang, another Friends board member, will underwrite a Community Outreach concert for the two groups that received honourable mention at the competition/concert.

The concert was recorded by “West Coast Classics”, a weekly program on CFRO Co-op Radio, and will be broadcast on Wednesday, March 22, 2017 from 9:00 am to noon on 100.5 FM, and online: www.coopradio.org

Each group qualifying for the finals played chamber music for not more than ten minutes; in the junior category, music by Beethoven, Haydn, Turina, Brahms, and in the senior category, music by Mendelssohn, Pierné and Schmitt in the senior category. All of the performances were outstanding, and we’d like to thank our guest adjudicator, David Gordon Duke, university educator, composer and classical music writer for the Vancouver Sun newspaper, for his wise insights and decisions about prizes.

Our adjudicator, Mr. Duke, after giving constructive comments to all the members of all the ensembles, awarded the following prizes:

 

Junior Category (Age not exceeding 18 years)

First Prize AND Audience Prize

Brahms: Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano, in A minor, Opus 114

Allegro

Victor Mangas, clarinet

Olivia Cho, cello

Augustin Wright, piano

 

Second Prize

Turina: Piano Trio in B minor, Opus 76 No. 2

Allegro molto moderato

Alice Lee, violin

Megan Cheng, cello

Henry From, piano

Honourable mention:

Beethoven: Piano trio in A flat major, Opus 1 No. 1

Adagio cantabile

Joe Rappaport, violin

Prosper Liu, cello

Eva Jarvis, piano

 

Haydn: String quartet in G major, Opus 77 No. 1

Allegro moderato

Nicholas Voth, violin

Finn Longhurst, violin

Bea Longhurst, viola

William Voth, cello

 

Senior Category (Age not exceeding 26 years)

First Prize AND Audience Prize

Mendelssohn: String Quartet in A minor, Opus 13 No. 2

Adagio

Sean Gao, violin

Caitlin Wong, violin

Luci Barz, viola

Ashley Green, cello

Second Prize (shared)

Pierné: Intro & variations sur une ronde populaire in F

Andantino allegro

Chinley Hinacay, soprano saxophone

Mo Miao, alto saxophone

Haley Henricks, tenor saxophone

Mia Gazley, baritone saxophone

Second Prize (shared)

Schmitt: Sonatine en trio for flute, clarinet and piano in D major, Opus 85

I. Assez animé  II. Assez vif   III. Tres lent   IV. Animé

Vicky Zhang, flute

Alex Chernata, clarinet

Jihea Yun, piano

Every group that qualified to participate in the competition final concert received a financial award, and all participants in the competition receive tickets to an upcoming Friends series concert.

A good time (as well as cookies and juice) was had by all, and we hope that those who were not there this year will be able to join us next year for the 64th Annual Young Musicians Chamber Music Competition. Applications for next year should become available in the fall.