Congratulations to all those who participated and thank you to all those who came to support the 2020 Piano Duo Festival. The festival was held at Greene Music on February 22. This year, we had a total of 24 duo teams registered, of which 7 were non-competitive Student & Teacher and Student & Adult teams. The 17 competitive teams included 15 duo teams and 2 four-member teams playing selections written for eight-hands. Three recitals were presented in front of packed audiences, and our judges were very impressed with the level of the students’ playing. Thank you to Steve Baker and Joanne Stohs for adjudicating the event, and special thanks to Yuko Maruyama and Carol Ong-Chen for their help running the festival and all studios who participated. I hope to see you all next year!

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Congratulations to all students who performed in this year’s Concerto Competition! The first-place winners in each division will be performing with an orchestra this spring. Details coming soon.

I want to thank the distinguished panel of judges for taking time from their busy schedules to make this event especially meaningful for all participants: Tina Chong, Kookhee Hong, Crystal Rivette (piano judges); Pamela Vliek Martchev, Valentin Martchev, Amy Taylor (winds judges); Isaac Allen, Angela Choong, Paivikki Nykter (strings judges).

I am extremely grateful to all of the teachers who helped to make this event a success:
Sarah Victor, Magda Bornemisza, Dana Burnett, Glen Campbell, Hernan Constantino, Sun Yung Cho, Annelle Gregory, Scott Johnson, Inessa Litvin, Jane Masur, Alex Mirolyan, Alexander Palamidis, Cho-Hyun Park, Anna Savvas, Viktor Shekhtman, Claudia Smetona, Seiran Sohn, Chetan Tierra, Pasha Tseitlin, Michael Tseitlin, Elena Yarritu.

PLEASE NOTE: USD’s Shiley Theatre will not be available for this competition (or any other event) next year due to the major renovations throughout Camino Hall and Founders Hall. We need to find a different location in order to hold this competition in 2021!

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There were 280 participants in the 2019 Sonata Contest, and I really appreciate the help of the following people who contributed their time and made this a successful day! First, a very big thank you to MTAC members: Victor Labenske, Mitzi Kolar, Yuko Maruyama, Miriam Cole, Magdi Bornemisza, Dan Yu, Sarah Victor, Angelina Hardy, Emi Clements, Abby Vickers and Karlin Labenske for their help on the day of the contest and in the preparations for the event. A special thank you to Brian Goral and Chutaphin Yeager for serving a fabulous breakfast and lunch!

Thank you to the following non-MTAC-member volunteers: Chelsea Clements, Patty Rudolph, Aurora Gryzbek, Renee Chang, Paul Otterson, Leslie Lucas, Lindsey Heinrich, Francisco Mamon, Joseph Mamon, Sabrina Jiang, Jordan Klein, Amiee Duncan, John-William Gambrell, Isabella Ettore, Soren Pederson, Meliza San Jose, and Risa Schapiro.
Another big thank you to my husband, Eric Vickers, for his computer expertise, and for his encouragement and support with running this event!

Finally, I am incredibly grateful to Dr. Victor Labenske who helped make it possible for us to utilize the Cooper Music Center for the first time. It is a beautiful venue for the Sonata Contest and I sincerely thank Victor and Point Loma Nazarene University for their generous hospitality allowing us to use their facility.

The judges this year were: Jaeryoung Lee (San Diego), Rob and Teri Watson (Fullerton), Randi Rudolph (Phoenix), Sanaz Rezai (Los Angeles), Joanne Stohs (Northern San Diego), Laurie Meinhold (Aliso Viejo), Lea Schmidt-Rogers (San Diego), and Sonya Schumann (San Diego).

Happy Holidays to all of you and I look forward to seeing you next year!

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Sonata Winners List 2019