Registration for the 2025 Piano Duo Festival is now open! Teachers must register their students online. Please visit the Piano Duo Festival page for more details and to access the registration form. Login is required to access the registration form.
Category Archives: Branch Programs
2025 Concerto Results & Acknowledgements
The participants in this year’s competition provided us with two days of exceptional musical performances. Congratulations to all contestants and their teachers!
The first-place winner in each division will perform with the Mira Costa College Symphony Orchestra, directed by Branden Muresan. Concerts will take place at:
Mira Costa College – Oceanside Campus Concert Hall (Bldg 2400), 1 Barnard Drive, Oceanside, CA 92056
DIVISION I PIANO (through 11 yrs old)
First Place: JANELLE CHEN – Mozart Concerto in A Major, K.414, 1st mvt
~ Performs with the Mira Costa College Symphony Orchestra, Branden Muresan, conductor, on Fri-Sat March 15-16, 2025 (7:30 pm)
Second Place: Claire Chen
Third Place: Claire Ding
Honorable Mentions: Kye Urgolites, Julia Yu, Mananya Debnath, Daren Ren
Studios represented for these award winners: Elena Edgar, Berta Godkin, Chris Kim, Carol Seefeldt, Anna Stal, Lori Vickers.
DIVISION II: PIANO (12-14 yrs old)
First Place: YEN-CHENG WU – Haydn Concerto in D Major, 3rd mvt
~ Performs with the Mira Costa College Symphony Orchestra, Branden Muresan, conductor, on Fri-Sat March 15-16, 2025 (7:30 pm)
Second Place: Luna Lee
Third Place: Ashley Li
Honorable Mentions: Ryan Jian, Clara Stone, Euan Lee, Aven Ko
Studios represented for these award winners: Carol Ong-Chen, Sun Yung Cho, Karen Follingstad, Minji Lee, Chetan Tierra, Lori Vickers.
DIVISION III: PIANO (15-18 yrs old)
First Place: VICTORIA CHEN – Grieg Concerto in A Minor, 1st mvt
~ Performs with the Mira Costa College Symphony Orchestra, Branden Muresan, conductor, on Fri-Sat March 15-16, 2025 (7:30 pm)
Second Place: Celine Kargodosa
Third Place: Khai West
Honorable Mentions: Yo Yo Wu, Ethan Chen
Studios represented for these award winners: Brendan Nguyen, Carol Seefeldt, Chetan Tierra, Ting Ting Zhang.
DIVISION IV: WINDS
First Place: MAGGIE LIANG – Ibert Concerto for Flute, 1st mvt
~ Performs with the Mira Costa College Symphony Orchestra, Branden Muresan, conductor, on Fri-Sat May 16-17, 2025 (7:30 pm)
Honorable Mentions: Ruth Tu
Studios represented for these award winners: Elena Yarritu
DIVISION V: STRINGS (through 13 yrs old)
First Place: EMEL CUBUKCU, violin – Mendelssohn Concerto E minor, 1st mvt
~ Performs with the Mira Costa College Symphony Orchestra, Branden Muresan, conductor, on Fri-Sat May 16-17, 2025 (7:30 pm)
Second Place: Aaron Seo
Third Place: Sequoia Jain-Hong
Honorable Mentions: Olivia Min
Studios represented for these award winners: Sunjin Kim, Michael Tseitlin, Pasha Tseitlin.
DIVISION VI: STRINGS (14-18 yrs old)
First Place: CAITLIN WANG, violin – Lalo Symphonie espagnole, Op. 21
~ Performs with the Mira Costa College Symphony Orchestra, Branden Muresan, conductor, on Fri-Sat May 16-17, 2025 (7:30 pm)
Second Place: Julian Wu (cello)
Third Place: Tracie Liu (violin)
Honorable Mentions: Caroline Lee (violin) Alvin Wang (violin), Helen Wang (cello)
Studios represented for these award winners: Ruslan Biryukov, Chia-Ling Chien, Susanna Han, Irina Tseitlin, Michael Tseitlin, Pasha Tseitlin.
Thank you to those who were tremendously helpful to me during the competition:
Sun Yung Cho, Kathy Kim, Carol Ong-Chen, Carol Seefeldt, Chetan Tierra, Melissa Tierra, Lori Vickers, Ting Ting Zhang in piano. Elena Yarritu in winds, and Michael Dvoskin, Susanna Han, and Pasha Tseitlin in strings. And a SPECIAL thank you to Carol Seefeldt who scanned all judges’ comment sheets so they could be emailed to you quickly!
There were 27 teachers who participated this year and a total of 55 students competing!
Cheers to all!
Spring Recitals registration now open!
Registration is now open for the 2025 MTACSD Spring Recitals! We invite you to enter your students in our brand-new recital event, which will be held at the Serra Mesa-Kearny Mesa Library Community Room on March 9, 2025. For more information and to access the registration form, please visit the Spring Recitals page. The registration deadline is February 22. Teachers must login to access the registration form.
2024 Pop Music Festival Acknowledgements
Congratulations to all participating students who shared their music with us, and a big thank-you to all the teachers, families and friends who came to support these young performers at the 2024 Popular Music Festival, which was held at the beautiful Cuyamaca College Theatre on Saturday, December 14.
Judges Yuko Maruyama and Taylor Smith wrote comments and suggestions which will be sent by email to the students’ teachers. The students were rewarded with individual certificates and a medal at the end of each recital.
Event co-chairs Chutaphin Yeager and Miriam Cole would like to extend their gratitude to the volunteers who helped out: Irina Bessonova, Kate Iwanami, Valeria Kravchenko, Lea Schmidt-Rogers and Naomi Teran. Your help was very valuable.
The 2024 Popular Music Festival Participating Studios were: Irina Bessonova, Paul Burd, Kate Iwanami, Valeria Kravchenko, Jiwon Lee, Philip Lim, Yu Carole Liu, Yuko Maruyama, Lea Schmidt-Rogers, Anna Stal, and Chutaphin Yeager.
We hope to see you again next year!
2025 Concerto Registration now open!
Registration for the 2025 Concerto Competition is now open! Teachers must register their students online. Please visit the Concerto Competition page for more details and to access the registration form. Login is required to access the registration form.
2024 Popular Music Festival Registration now open!
Registration for the 2024 Popular Music Festival is now open! Teachers must register their students online. Please visit the Popular Music Festival page for more details and to access the registration form. Login is required to access the registration form.
2024 Sonata Contest Information now available
The event day information has been posted on the Sonata Contest page. Please follow the link to view the information.
Sonata Contest Page
2024 Sonata Registration now open!
Registration for the 2024 Sonata Contest is now open! Teachers must register their students online. Please visit the Sonata Contest page for more details and to access the registration form. Login is required to access the registration form.
2024 Goodlin Acknowledgements
Thank you for participating in the 2024 H. B. Goodlin Scholarship Competition! We had 114 students from 49 teaching studios competing in five divisions. The auditions were adjudicated by 9 Preliminary Round judges and 6 Finals judges. After the Preliminary Round Audition in a video submission format, 34 Finalists participated in the in-person Finals Audition at Cuyamaca College Theatre and at the Foothills United Methodist Church on Saturday, May 18.
The Instrumental Division Finals auditions were held at the Cuyamaca College Theatre and the Keyboard Division Finals auditions were held at two locations throughout the day. Afterwards, the students and teachers were treated to the piano master class given by Dr. Dmitry Rachmanov, where two selected finalists received instruction on their Goodlin competition pieces.
Thank you to the San Diego Foundation, the William E. Schmidt Foundation and other generous donors for their continued support for this event. Thank you to Cuyamaca College and the Foothills United Methodist Church for hosting the Saturday Finals Competition in their beautiful buildings.
I would like to acknowledge the participating studios for their work in educating our music students in San Diego County: Rowena Asuncion, Yulia Atoyan, Ruslan Biryukov, Dana Burnett, Jessie Chang, Chiyuan Chen, Chia-Ling Chien, Anna Cho, Sun Yung Cho, Emi Clements, Hernan Constantino, Maria Crystalia, Zishan Ding, Karen Follingstad, David Garrett, Eleanor Hum, Emily Hung, Ji-Won Lee, Sunny Lee, Shanshan Li, Shuang Li, April Lin, Inessa Litvin, Yu Carole Liu, Rinna Livshin, Pamela Martchev, Alex Mirolyan, Anders Nelson, Brendan Nguyen, Thuy Nguyen, Alexander Palamidis, Cho-Hyun Park, Wesley Precourt, Frank Renk, Sean Reusch, Leslie Robb, Anna Savvas, Yvonne Shanks, Ory Shihor, Gill Tsai, Irina Tseitlin, Michael Tseitlin, Pasha Tseitlin, Anna Vasilyeva, Sophie Webber, Angela Wu, Elena Yarritu, Dan Yu, and Jia Sheng Zhou.
I would like to thank the current and the past members of the MTAC San Diego Board of Directors, and the members of the H. B. Goodlin Foundation Board. Special thanks to Dr. J. Mitzi Kolar, Jaclyn Summers and Lea Schmidt-Rogers for their perpetual support and guidance for the Goodlin Competition.
Thank you to the 2024 Goodlin Competition Finals Volunteers: Sun Yung Cho, Brian Goral, Ashten Jensen, Ed Litvin, Yu Carole Liu, Marj Osgood, Michele Resnick, Leslie Robb, Larry Rogers, Lea Schmidt-Rogers, Anna Savvas, Risa Schapiro, Xiao-yan Sui, Jaclyn Summers, Elena Yarritu, Chutaphin Yeager, and Dan Yu.
We were privileged to have these distinguished judges for this year’s competition: Isaac Allen, Dr. Wan-Chin Chang, Dr. Ching-Ming Cheng, Dr. Tina Chong, Dr. Andrea Gareffa, Dr. Eloise Kim, Dr. Michael Krikorian, Gail Lew, Pam Monroe, Keith Popejoy, Dr. Dmitry Rachmanov, Dr. Taylor Smith, Mark Teplitsky, Philip Tyler, and Teri Watson.
The results are posted below. We hope to see you again next year!
2024 Goodlin Scholarship Competition Results
| Division | Ranking | ID | Name | Award | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Division I Keyboard | 1st Place | 12 | Chloe K. Wang | $500 | |
| 2nd Place | 15 | Angela Cai | $200 | ||
| 3rd Place | 18 | Elena Chen | $100 | ||
| HM | 17 | Chloe Chen | $50 | Masterclass Participant | |
| HM | 16 | Nathan Teng | $50 | ||
| HM | 14 | Jack Y Park | $50 | ||
| HM | 13 | Iris Huiyan Li | $50 | ||
| HM | 11 | Yuhan Jackson | $50 | ||
| Division II Keyboard | 1st Place | 21 | Chloe Li | $1,000 | |
| 2nd Place | 23 | Amy Zhang | $500 | ||
| 3rd Place | 24 | Steven Chen | $200 | ||
| HM | 22 | Lucas Chen | $75 | ||
| HM | 27 | Isabella Yang | $75 | ||
| HM | 26 | William Cheng | $75 | ||
| HM | 28 | Rien Chen | $75 | ||
| HM | 25 | James Rong | $75 | ||
| HM | 19 | Aska Enomoto | $75 | ||
| HM | 20 | Terrence Zhou | $75 | ||
| Division III Keyboard | 1st Place | 30 | Bradley Carpiuc | $3,000 | Chet & June Schmidt Award |
| 2nd Place | 29 | Adora Xiao | $1,000 | ||
| 3rd Place | 34 | Ye-Eun Hong | $500 | ||
| HM | 33 | Sara Sariowan | $100 | ||
| HM | 31 | Huizi Zhong | $100 | Masterclass Participant | |
| HM | 32 | Joanna Xu | $100 | ||
| Junior Instrumental | 1st Place | 1 | Beichen Li | $1,000 | |
| 2nd Place | 3 | Donghyuk Heo | $500 | ||
| 3rd Place | 2 | Tracie Liu | $200 | ||
| Senior Instrumental | 1st Place | 7 | Brianna Baek | $3,000 | Chet & June Schmidt Award |
| 2nd Place | 8 | Saejoon Hong | $1,000 | ||
| 3rd Place | 9 | Carmela Harkins | $500 | ||
| HM | 10 | Caitlin Wang | $100 | ||
| HM | 6 | Julian Wu | $100 | ||
| HM | 5 | Ethan Zhou | $100 | ||
| HM | 4 | Benjamin Luo | $100 |
2024 Chopin Festival Results
We had 83 pianists who performed beautifully at the 6th Annual Chopin Festival on April 27, 2024.
Here are the winners:
Division I
Emily Chen, 1st Place
Kai Yi, 2nd Place
Landon Han, 3rd Place
Darren Hack, Honorable Mention
Jayden Wang, Honorable Mention
Euan Lee, Honorable Mention
Daren Ren, Honorable Mention
Division II
Emma Ericson, 1st Place
Astrea Archibald, 2nd Place
Ray Fu, 3rd Place
Aaron Ye, Honorable Mention
Nuri Jang, Honorable Mention
Division III
Khai West, 1st Place
Saya Schmitigal, 2nd Place
Clarie Chen, 3rd Place
Cody Land, Honorable Mention
Sarah Deng, Honorable Mention
Nathan Teng, Honorable Mention
Seoyeon Lee, Honorable Mention
Division IV
Amy Zhang, 1st Place
Henry Sun, 2nd Place
Eric Feng, 3rd Place
Terrence Zhou, Honorable Mention
Division V
Caleb Tang, 1st Place
Ye Eun Hong, 2nd Place
Victoria Chen, 3rd Place
Hayden Crocker, Honorable Mention
Melinda Wang, Honorable Mention
Congratulations to all the winners and their teachers: Irina Bendetsky, Jessie Chang, Sun Yung Cho, Karen Follingstad, Berta Godkin, Mitzi Kolar, Inessa Litvin, Yu Carole Liu, Rinna Livshin, Cho-Hyun Park, Anna Savvas, Viktor Shekhtman, Chetan Tierra, Anna Stal, Gill Tsai, Ting Ting Zhang, Jia Sheng Zhou
We look forward to seeing you next year!
Jessie Chang
MTACSD Chopin Festival Chair