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.
David Gordon Duke was so eloquent, judicious & charming as adjudicator. A pleasure to listen to him at competition-end as well as to all the outstanding performances!
I can’t believe the kids are these talented! I really wish I were to pickup an instrument when I was younger… Too late now I guess lol. Outstanding performances and great work, pleasure seeing the younger audiences developing outstanding talents!